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What it’s like to cover JD Vance’s hometown

What it’s like to cover JD Vance’s hometown

This June I began reporting on Butler County, which includes the town where JD Vance was born. A month later, when he was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate, my job became JD Vance’s beat.

Having family and friends in Middletown and living there myself for a year, I was familiar with the town and the locals’ polarizing feelings toward Vance. Some took pride in watching his rise, while others felt betrayed and misrepresented by his portrayal of Middletown in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Vance brought his hometown of about 51,000 people into the national spotlight for the first time with the release of his book and again on July 15. The day Vance was announced as Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, the city streets were swarming with local and national reporters (I was one of them). them).

The people who now live in his parents’ house are used to photographers coming by to take a photo. The owner of the former Dillman Foods, Vance’s former grocery store boss, told me he was inundated with interview requests.

While I’ve covered Vance’s vice presidential campaign from the perspective of his hometown, Middletown has its own compelling story. The decline of the American steel industry was just the first domino in a series of setbacks for the once treasured steel city. Decades later, the city is “digging itself out,” as one resident told me.

Middletown’s story is far from over. I look forward to continuing to report on the city’s victories and defeats, even though it is no longer in the Vance spotlight.