MILWAUKEE — Ten hours after making his first speech as a vice presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) made his second, this time a pitch to evangelical conservatives.

Vance finished the biggest speech of his political career after 10 p.m. local time on Wednesday night, and began speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition breakfast at a Milwaukee hotel before 8 a.m. Thursday morning, seeking to make his case to the demographic.

“Social conservatives have a seat at this table, and always will so long as I have any influence in this party,” he said. “I know that President Trump agrees.”

Sporting a purple tie, Vance spoke about his “faith journey” and how that faith can be integrated into a governing agenda.

Vance will replace former Vice President Mike Pence on former President Donald Trump’s ticket, a man who was chosen as a nod to evangelicals when he was selected during the 2016 presidential race. Vance is known more for his economic populism and Appalachian upbringing than for his evangelicalism, but nonetheless sought to appeal to the group while speaking about his background.

He went to church only sporadically growing up, often learning about Christianity through televised sermons from Billy Graham instead. He described his grandmother, who largely raised him, as religious but “unchurched,” and said he cultivated only a shallow faith that evaporated by the time he was an adolescent.

When he reached Yale Law School as a young adult, he described himself as an atheist.

“There was this idea that I was smart and wise, and I knew things that my grandma never knew,” he said, describing that period of his life. “And I think that arrogance motivates a lot of secular culture in our country today.”

He began moving back toward Christianity when he met his wife and later became a father, saying he recognized there was wisdom in Christian faith he had discarded before.

Vance’s wife, Usha, was not raised in a Christian family, though he said she was still instrumental in leading him back to believing. He was baptized into the Catholic church in 2019, the year he turned 35, and now takes his three children to Mass.

Vance stayed away from the topic of abortion, an issue that has plagued Republicans since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, sticking to his own story in remarks that were much shorter than his big convention speech.

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Nonetheless, Vance described Trump’s survival of an attempted assassination as a miracle, and stressed to the crowd of delegates in the upscale ballroom that evangelicals remain a welcome presence in the GOP.

“There are a lot of little touches of God in our past, in our present, and in our future,” he said. “We just have to look for them.”