'Weird' Vance was mocked by his political opponents - but none of them is laughing now

He was written off as a drag on the presidential ticket, mocked by political opponents as "weird", falsely rumoured to have had sex with a couch and pilloried as a misogynist for describing women without children as "childless cat ladies".

- Robert Tait

Now JD Vance - the butt of a spate of Democratic and liberal jokes - has turned the tables on his detractors. Donald Trump's emphatic election triumph will put the 40-year-old Ohio senator just a heartbeat away from the presidency, as he serves under a chief executive who is 78 and has been the target of two failed assassination attempts.

It is a dizzying rise for a man who was elected to the Senate two years ago and now finds himself about to become the third-youngest person in US history to hold the office of vice-president.

While Trump's opponents and many critics dread his return to the Oval Office and the levers of power, having Vance waiting in the wings hardly gives them cause to feel reassured. Indeed, the vice-president-elect's Maga bona fides are deeper and more genuine than those of Mike Pence, who served as Trump's loyal No 2 during his first presidency before breaking ranks and resisting entreaties to cooperate in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.