Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Sunday, July 21. I’m your host, Andrew J. Campa. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

Trump taps ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ author as running mate

There was a time when former President Trump counted J.D. Vance as one of his biggest critics.

Vance once had branded him as a “fraud,” “a moral disaster” and “cultural heroin,” the latter a stunning jab from a man who’s most acclaimed work centered on working-class Appalachia, an area battered by the opioid epidemic.

Yet, within a few years, Vance converted from arch Never Trumper to MAGA town crier.

That evolution hit 180 degrees at Monday’s Republican National Convention when Trump, 78, selected Vance, 39, as his vice presidential running mate.

Vance is hoping to replace former Vice President Mike Pence, who has not endorsed Trump and who spent Jan. 6, 2021, evading Trump supporters who wanted to hang him.

Who is J.D. Vance?

Trump has a feisty and often aggressive ally in Vance who will appeal to the former president’s base.

“As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

His full name is James David Vance and he will turn 40 in August. Like his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, he has a law degree from Yale, where the two met. They have three children.

Vance attained international renown for his 2016 bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” which details Vance’s childhood in Middletown, Ohio, a steel mill town in America’s heartland. Vance also recounts serving in the Marines in Iraq and attending Yale, where he felt like a “cultural alien.”

Vance described his mother, who became pregnant as a teenager, as someone struggling with addiction, mental health issues and unstable relationships. Vance went to live with his grandmother — a hard-working woman he affectionately calls Mamaw, from Kentucky.

“Hillbilly Elegy” reads as a love letter to Vance’s family — their struggles with addiction, disruptive relationships and tight-knit love. But perhaps more so, it is an epistle on the state of working-class white people — the same demographic that Trump counts as the bedrock of his base.

After serving in Iraq, attending Ohio State University and Yale, Vance moved to San Francisco and worked as an investor for the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Mithril Capital. He became a protege of Peter Thiel, once a Republican megadonor who gave $10 million to Vance’s Senate campaign. Thiel previously donated to Trump, but told the Atlantic that he would not provide financial support to any politicians in the 2024 election.

Trump singled Vance out of a competitive race for Ohio Senate, endorsing him in the 2022 midterm elections. Vance soared to the front of the pack and won against seasoned Democrat Tim Ryan.

What is Vance’s appeal locally?

He made waves locally during his 2022 Ohio Senate campaign with the now infamous campaign ad that began with two in-your-face questions: Are you a racist? Do you hate Mexicans?

The commercial earned immediate condemnation, but Trump ended up endorsing Vance, who won the seat.

Last year, the senator introduced a bill seeking to establish English as the official national language.

Vance has endorsed the use of American military forces to go after drug cartels in Mexico while opposing amnesty for immigrants illegally in the U.S. and federally funded healthcare for DACA recipients.

Last week, Vance supporters received a fundraising plea that called for the deportation of “every single person who invaded our country illegally.”

Maybe Trump’s advisors think that Vance’s background and life story will appeal to Latinos in swing states like Nevada and Arizona, especially in light of recent polls showing that Latino antipathy against illegal immigration is higher than it’s been in decades.

While a majority of Americans know little about Vance, that will likely change as the campaign continues.

For more on Vance, here is an introductory article by reporter Faith Pinho, while columnist Gustavo Arellano breaks down the similarities and contrast between Latino immigrant culture and hillbillies.

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Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

To someone living outside these dank walls, the changes might seem small. A sergeant greets a prisoner with “good morning” rather than barking an order. Guards start calling the prisoners “residents.” They shake hands, exchange jokes. The toilet paper locker gets replenished when it’s empty. The men don’t have to ask. At California’s oldest and most infamous state prison, a monumental shift is underway through an experiment dubbed the California Model, an effort Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in March 2023 to reimagine prison life, starting at San Quentin.

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For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photo by Noam Galai / Stringer via Getty Images)

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L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

(Danie Drankwalter / For The Times)

The bar sold popcorn, so I asked for a bag and fetched a pen out of my purse. On a torn piece of paper I wrote, “You have great taste in music. I’m not single, but I’m available,” and I left my number. Despite trying to catch his eye all night, I was suddenly nervous, my heart pounding out of my chest. I’d only ever given one person my number, and it led to a rather mediocre date.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Carlos Lozano, news editor

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