Former President Trump has chosen Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate for the 2024 election, tapping the first-term Ohio senator and America First firebrand to join the Republican ticket.
Vance has emerged in recent months as one of the most visible defenders of the former president. Allies have praised him as an articulate voice of the populist conservative movement who has built a strong personal relationship with Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., and Vance will likely be a fierce and willing attack dog in the bruising campaign to come.
The selection of Vance also comes at a critical moment in the election, just days after Trump was nearly assassinated during a rally in Butler, Pa. Trump has seized on the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as a moment to rally the base after the stunning turn of events.
Vance, 39, has had a rapid rise in the political arena.
He is a native Ohioan who enlisted in the Marines and graduated from Yale Law School. He gained national attention with his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which depicted his upbringing and family history of poverty and addiction in Appalachia and offered his insights on the white working class and the causes and effects of economic insecurity.
Vance won a Senate seat in 2022, his first run for political office, and has quickly emerged as a face of the New Right and the MAGA movement in Congress. While he has worked across the aisle on numerous pieces of legislation, he is best known in the Senate as a leading voice opposing additional U.S. aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Vance was sharply critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign, calling him “noxious” and “reprehensible,” but he has publicly spoken about how Trump won him over during his first term in the White House. Trump eventually endorsed Vance in a hotly contested 2022 primary race.
The senator was the first vice presidential contender to attend Trump’s criminal trial in New York City, and he appears often on networks like CNN and CBS News to defend the former president in contentious exchanges.
Vance has in recent weeks made more headlines for downplaying the threat to former Vice President Mike Pence during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol and for saying he would accept the 2024 election results, “if we have a free and fair election.” Both comments came during CNN interviews, and both echoed rhetoric Trump has used.
The senator also has strong ties to Silicon Valley, giving Trump a potential fundraising boost in what is shaping up to be an extremely expensive campaign.
Vance is married with three young children. If elected, Vance would be 40 at the time of swearing in and would be one of the youngest individuals ever to assume the vice presidency.
