Voters in Vice President JD Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio, are rethinking their support for the author and former U.S. Marine, with some even saying they’re “embarrassed” by his behavior since he and President Donald Trump won the 2024 Presidential election. The 41-year-old Vance i s one of the most high-profile people Middletown has produced, and yet when Washington Post writer Carine Hajjar traveled there to find out what town folks think about Vance’s job as vice president 11 months into Trump’s second term, she found an underwhelming response at best and mixed feelings about his performance so far at worst. US Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks on the economy at Uline in Alburtis, near Allentown, Pennsylvania, on December 16, 2025. (Photo by Ryan Collerd / AFP via Getty Images) There’s no doubt Middletown, a once thriving manufacturing town of about 50,000 people in the southwest part of the state, fell on hard times by the 1980s and 1990s as factory jobs dried up under the North American Free Trade Agreement, and even though Trump and Vance campaigned on revitalizing places like Middletown, they have yet to live up to those promises. “I’m kind of embarrassed sometimes to tell people that I’m from Middletown,” resident Bethany Tompkins told Hajjar. “I don’t want the world to judge us by him and how he behaves.” ‘Thought He Could Bully’: Trump’s Lawsuit Against Pulitzer Prize Board Backfires As He Faces Legal Demands He Can’t Hide from  Apparently, other Middletown citizens feel the same way. Hajjar wrote that she found very little evidence that Vance was a native son. “There were no banners, no plaques, not even a weather-beaten Trump-Vance ’24 sign as I drove around town,” Hajjar explained. She described a portrait of Vance in an art studio as the most “visible display of admiration” for the “Hillbilly Elegy” author. “Though Middletown, like surrounding Butler County, went 62 percent for the Republican ticket, turnout in Middletown was nine points lower than the county as a whole. And in the 2022 Senate race, without Trump on the ticket, Vance carried Butler by a smaller margin than the rest of the statewide Republican winners,” Hajjar wrote. “ALL OHIOIANS DO. WHAT A DISGRACE FOR THE STATE OF OHIO,” Threads user Jasin Skigary declared in response to a headline about the Post opinion piece by Raw Story that Middletown has “mixed feelings” about Vance. “’Kind of embarrassed’? Should be disgusted,” this Threads user responded in revulsion. Since Vance’s election and the gutting of the Department of Education under the Trump administration, Middletown lost a $5.6 million grant for the town’s schools, and when local officials reached out to Vance about reinstating it — because after all, it’s a lot of money for a local school district — Vance didn’t bother to respond, according to The Guardian. “He’s doing everything he can to make everyone hate him. He’s just a second-rate MAGA troll now,” Threads user El Ramsay stated in disgust. When Hajjar talked with voters around Middletown about Vance and what he’s accomplished so far, she found plenty of disappointment, especially over the economy. “He’s done nothing for his hometown,” one resident told Hajjar. “The tariffs made our prices go up,” another told her. “We’re kind of paycheck to paycheck,” another struggling Middletown worker admitted. Vance, for his part, has urged Americans to be patient, insisting that a boom in the economy is just around the corner, but so far, signs are pointing to anything but a boom. The jobless rate inched up to 4.6 percent according to the latest numbers. Middle and low-income Americans are struggling to pay for basic necessities, such as food, housing, and utility bills, which continue to expand amid a tone-deaf and out-of-touch Trump administration that critics say is more concerned about lining the pockets of Trump and Vance’s billionaire buddies than helping average Americans get ahead amid a worsening economy. ‘What a Disgrace’: JD Vance Shunned in His Ohio Hometown as Residents Embarrassed By His Vice Presidency and Trump Promises Fell Apart ...read more read less