(Bloomberg) -- Senator JD Vance touted Donald Trump’s economic agenda as one that “won’t cater to Wall Street” as he accepted the Republican nomination for vice president, hammering home the stridently populist message that secured his place as the former president’s running mate.
Vance invoked themes central to Trump’s bid to return to the White House as he delivered the final speech of the Republican National Convention’s third night in Milwaukee. He depicted an America in which rural, poor communities have been abandoned by Washington and Wall Street.
Vance lambasted what he said were the “Wall Street barons” who “crashed the economy,” an apparent reference to the 2008 financial crisis. That set off a spiral of lost jobs made worse by Democrats who “flooded this country with millions of illegal immigrants,” he said.
Vance spoke just two days after Trump tapped him to join the ticket and used the speech to introduce himself to the electorate. Polls show Vance is relatively unknown to most voters. At age 39, he is nearly four decades younger than Trump, 78, and only became a senator two years ago.
But he exemplifies the populist pivot Republicans have taken under Trump — a shift the senator will help cement as an heir apparent to the GOP standard-bearer.
“For decades, that divide between the few, with their power and comfort in Washington, and the rest of us only widened,” Vance said. “From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the Financial Crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.”
“That is, of course, until a guy named Donald J. Trump came along,” he added.
While Republicans have hammered Biden over the economy, data shows strong job growth and inflation cooling. The administration has also pointed to numbers showing a decrease in the number of migrants crossing the border after Biden took executive action to curb asylum claims.
The speech assailed Biden as a “career politician” who throughout his career backed free trade policies, such as NAFTA, which Vance said devastated communities across the country.
In a jab at China, Vance said the Republican ticket “would protect the wages of American workers and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of American citizens.”
Vance has been critical of China across a range of issues, signaling a tougher approach to the world’s second largest economy if Trump wins.
Personal Story
A venture-capitalist-turned-politician, Vance rose to fame with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which depicted his poor rural upbringing and his mother’s struggles with drug addiction. That story is central to Vance’s role in the campaign as he seeks to deepen Trump’s appeal with working-class voters and seize on the frustration many Americans have expressed with Biden’s handling of the economy.
The senator was introduced by his wife Usha Vance, who sat next to Trump during the speech. Vance told the story of his hardscrabble upbringing and paid tribute to his “mamaw” — the grandmother who helped raise him and recognized his mother who he said was “10 years clean and sober.”
A Trump-Vance victory would usher in an economic agenda that aims to renew expiring tax cuts, slash regulations, expand domestic energy production and hit other nations — including China — with tariffs.
New levies threaten to wreak havoc on global trade and raise prices for US consumers. Trump and Vance are also critical of the billions in aid for Ukraine, alarming US allies abroad. Trump has boasted that, if elected, he could bring an end to the war.
Trump ‘Clone’
Vance’s speech capped the third night of the convention, one which saw Trump enter the arena pumping his fist as “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” played. Trump’s appearance, just four days after his ear was grazed by a bullet in an attempted assassination, marked a sharp contrast with Biden.
The 81-year-old president’s efforts to counter-program the Republican convention with an address to a prominent Latino advocacy group in swing-state Nevada was dashed when he tested positive for Covid-19. Biden’s illness risks keeping him off the campaign trail at a critical stage of the race, as Democratic concerns about his age and mental agility spur calls for him to end his reelection bid.
Earlier: A Brief History of JD Vance and His Populist Politics: QuickTake
Still, Democrats have already moved quickly to define Vance and dent his blue-collar appeal, with Biden dismissing him as a Trump “clone.”
The campaign on Wednesday sought to tie Vance to Trump’s policies and hit him over his ties to Silicon Valley, calling him backed by “billionaires who bought his vice presidential selection.”
“J.D. Vance, the poster boy for Project 2025, took center stage. But it’s working families and the middle class who will suffer if he’s allowed to stay there,” said Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler, referencing a project by Trump allies to provide a blueprint for a second term, one which would enact socially conservative policies and stack the government with loyalists.
(Updates throughout with remarks as delivered, additional details and background)
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