Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance wins Senate nomination as Trump’s man

J.D. Vance won the party’s Senate nomination in a crowded field in Ohio following his public endorsement by the former president.

Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance embraces wife Usha Vance after winning the Ohio primary. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump has strengthened his grip on the Republicans after a 37-year-old won the party’s Senate nomination in a crowded field in the bellwether state of Ohio following his public endorsement by the former president.

J.D. Vance, a financier and ­author of best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, won more than 32 per cent of the vote in one of the first primary contests leading up to the midterm congressional elections, edging out high-profile state treasurer Josh Mandel and investment banker Mike Gibbons, who each won more than 20 per cent.

“The people who are caught between the corrupt political class of the left and the right, they need a voice,” said Mr Vance, who ran on a traditional Trump “MAGA” campaign of being tough on border security and Washington elites.

“This campaign I really think, was a referendum on what kind of a Republican Party we want and what kind of a country we want.”

Mr Vance, who had originally opposed Mr Trump, will cement the former president’s power as kingmaker for the Republican party and its de facto leader in the lead up to the November elections, where Democrats are expected to lose control of congress.

Mr Trump, who only days ­earlier had confused Mr Vance’s name with Mr Mandel’s, hadn’t made a statement on Tuesday night but his eldest son Don Jr had earlier urged voters to “send a message to the corrupt RINO ­establishment”, referring to a commonly used acronym by Trump supporters for “Republicans In Name Only”.

Mr Vance will face off against Democrat Tim Ryan, who won almost two-thirds of his party’s primary, in the November clash, when 34 of the Senate’s 100 seats will go up for election across the US, potentially causing Democrats to lose their slim majority.

Republican candidates have been beating a path to Mr Trump’s door for months hopeful of securing his endorsement, widely seen, and even more so in the wake of Mr Vance’s victory, to be a critical to win the party’s primaries.

“I’ve studied this race closely and I think J.D. is the most likely to take out the weak, but dangerous, Democrat opponent,” Mr Trump said ahead of his pick of Mr Vance and a group of ­Republican hopefuls.

Mr Trump, still wildly popular with core Republican voters since leaving the US presidency in early 2021 under a cloud of impropriety, has endorsed more than 120 candidates in various state and congressional races since leaving the White House, and has repeatedly hinted that he will run again in 2024.

The former president has also endorsed celebrity “television doctor” Mehmet Oz, 61, for the hotly contested Pennsylvania ­Republican Senate ticket, which is scheduled for May 17, and former vice-presidential nominee and Alaska governor Sarah Palin for the state’s sole House of Representatives race.

Numerous polls have given Mr Trump a commanding lead over rivals for the presidential nomination, including Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the contest for the Senate nomination in Ohio was the most expensive in the nation so far this year, with more than $US66m ($93m) spent on advertising by the Republican candidates and their allies.