J.D. Vance Is the First Millennial on a Major Party Ticket

If elected, the first-term senator would become the third-youngest vice president in history.

Share full article

If Donald J. Trump wins, his vice president, J.D. Vance, will be 40 years, 5 months and 18 days old on Inauguration Day in January 2025.

Senator J.D. Vance, the 39-year-old Republican vice-presidential nominee from Ohio, is the first millennial to join a major party ticket and would become the third-youngest vice president in history if elected.

Now that Mr. Vance has joined the ticket alongside Mr. Trump, who turned 78 in June, the senator has become a youthful outlier on the 2024 political stage. Between the G.O.P. and Democratic tickets, he is the only candidate not approaching or already in retirement age. Mr. Vance’s counterpart on the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris, will be 60 on Oct. 20.

If Mr. Trump wins, Mr. Vance will be 40 years, 5 months and 18 days old on inauguration day in January 2025. Only two vice presidents were younger when they were sworn into office. Richard Nixon, who later became president, was 40 years and 11 days old in 1953 when he began serving as vice president under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican. John C. Breckinridge, a 36-year-old Democrat, was inaugurated in 1857 as vice president under President James Buchanan — the immediate predecessor to Abraham Lincoln.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and George H. Pendleton, the vice-presidential candidate to Mr. Lincoln’s opponent, were 38 and 39 years old, respectively, when they became running mates. Neither of those tickets won, though Roosevelt later became president.

The 39-year age difference between Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance is the largest age difference in a major party presidential ticket, surpassing the 30-year gap between Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Breckinridge.

President Biden, born in 1942, is likely the last president to be born before the end of World War II. Mr. Trump, born in 1946, is a baby boomer president like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who was the first baby boomer to serve in the White House.

Mr. Trump’s 2016 pick for vice president, Gov. Mike Pence of Illinois, was 57 when he took office.

Kitty Bennett and Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

Simon J. Levien is a Times political reporter covering the 2024 elections and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Simon J. Levien

See more on: U.S. Politics, 2024 Elections, Republican Party, U.S. Senate, J.D. Vance, Donald Trump