Jacob Reses ’13 entered Princeton as a Democrat in the fall of 2009. 11 years later, Reses now serves as Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s chief of staff in the Senate, following stints at Heritage Action, an affiliate of the Heritage Foundation, and Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) office.
At a young age, Reses was an ardent Democrat. At home, a photo of Reses standing with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) decorated the wall of his childhood bedroom, and he had interned for both the Kerry and Hillary Clinton campaigns. As a teenager, Reses also criticized conservative commentator Ann Coulter for “spewing hate” and advocated for increasing local taxes.
But Reses’s political views shifted during his time at Princeton — though in the opposite direction that most students find themselves swinging in.
At Princeton, Reses immersed himself in campus politics, authoring op-eds as a columnist for The Daily Princetonian, editing for the political magazine Princeton Tory, leading Tigers for Israel, and ultimately serving as the president of the College Republicans. Reses majored in the School of Public and International Affairs — then known as the Woodrow Wilson School — and was a member of Mathey College.
Together with fellow Republicans at Princeton, Reses also canvassed for presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the lead-up to the 2012 election. Reses returned to Washington, D.C. during his summers, interning for Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller website.
Prior to attending Princeton, Reses’s Jewish heritage appears to have deeply influenced his early life. According to a memoir by his maternal grandfather, who escaped Nazi rule, several of his relatives were killed during the Holocaust. As a child, Reses also attended Trocki Hebrew Academy, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school in Margate, N.J.
“Jacob is simultaneously an intellectual heavyweight, as well as kind and humble,” Rabbi Eitan Webb, co-founder of the Chabad House at Princeton, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “He seeks to learn from every interaction and from every person.”
Reses lived in close proximity to the Chabad House during his time at Princeton, frequently visiting Webb and his wife.
“He was extremely intelligent, extremely thoughtful, and just overall, a very considerate person,” Ameena Schelling, who attended Princeton from 2008 to 2012 and served as the editor-in-chief of the 135th board of The Daily Princetonian, said. According to Schelling, Reses was the type of person who “has really thought through both sides of [an issue] and puts a lot of thought into things in a way that is very refreshing.”
“That was one of the reasons I always really enjoyed talking with him,” Schelling continued.
At the ‘Prince,’ Reses’s columns focused on a range of community and global issues, from arguing against a ban on freshman involvement in Greek organizations to critiquing the idea of United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Others similarly remember Reses as an open-minded intellectual, receptive to diverse perspectives and advice.
“Jacob was a terrific thesis student who was self-motivated and took suggestions seriously,” Stanford professor Brandice Canes-Wrone, Reses’s thesis advisor, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ Canes-Wrone served as the Vice Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs at the time. Reses’s 128-page senior thesis focused on budget reform policies and the unified federal budget, which he noted was inspired by interactions with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the Hill.
Sam Norton ’12, who was part of the Princeton Tory and the College Republicans with Reses, said that he had a “very positive impression of his character” and noted that he was “an agreeable person” to talk to.
Norton regularly engaged in weekly discussions organized by the College Republicans on matters of domestic and foreign policy, which sometimes led to disagreements. “But even when there were differences of opinion, Jacob was always very respectful of those differences and very open to hearing other points of view,” Norton said.
While many classmates who chose to speak with the ‘Prince’ remember Reses favorably, many others declined to comment. Reses has a notably sparse digital footprint; even his Nassau Herald bio is devoid of any listed campus affiliations.
Following graduation, Reses went on to intern for the Senate Budget Committee and eventually became the Strategic Initiatives Director at Heritage Action, the Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm. In November 2022, Reses was tapped by J.D. Vance to serve as his chief of staff in the Senate. The following year, Reses earned a law degree from Stanford University.
Reses’s political trajectory closely mirrors that of his boss. Once a vocal critic of Donald Trump and a private-sector professional, Vance has since become a prominent face of Trump‘s campaign and movement, fueling a younger wave of conservatism.
Over the past year, Reses has emerged as one of Vance’s closest advisors, assisting with debate preparation and leading his team in the Senate. Whether Reses will follow Vance into a potential White House role remains uncertain.
Though he maintains minimal public presence, it is evident that Reses views his time at Princeton as pivotal in shaping both his political ideology and his broader outlook on life. Reses said that Princeton taught him “what it means to try to lead a good life and do right by others” in a video filmed at his 2013 graduation.
“It’s very important for us to understand all the details of anything that we pursue, but that kind of technical knowledge doesn’t matter unless it’s placed within a broader framework of ethical values,” he continued.
The exact reasons for Reses’ shift in political allegiances remain unclear, though he shared in a 2017 interview that “Princeton changed me and changed my view of the world.”
Reses did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Sena Chang is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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