Trump Picks JD Vance as Vice-Presidential Running Mate
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Former President Donald Trump on Monday picked Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, as his vice-presidential running mate.
Vance, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who grew up poor in Ohio and Kentucky, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.
But he came to national prominence six years earlier with the publication of his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was later made into a movie by Ron Howard.
Once an avowed critic of the former president, the 39-year-old has in recent years been one of Trump’s most vocal defenders in the press and in the Senate chamber.
In announcing his pick, Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media network that his decision was based on “lengthy deliberation” and he then went on to explain why he believes Vance is “the person best suited” to potentially become the next vice president of the United States.
Among other things, he highlighted Vance’s service in the Marine Corps., his academic performance at Ohio State University and Yale Law School, where he was editor of The Yale Law Journal and president of the Yale Law Veterans Association, and his writing of “Hillbilly Elegy,” which the former president said, “championed the hardworking men and women of our country.”
Trump also suggested that Vance will play a key role in the campaign’s efforts to tear down the midwestern “blue wall,” states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, which were once Democratic strongholds, but are now largely considered swing states.
Vance is the first millennial nominated to a major-party ticket — which could prove significant to an electorate that has told pollster after pollster that it is concerned about the ages of the candidates at the top of the ticket.
At the same time, a number of pundits have already opined that Vance is so aligned with Trump on issue after issue, that he is unlikely to lure the independent voters into the fold that will no doubt be so critical to victory in November.
Trump’s selection of Vance ends months of speculation about who Trump would pick as a running mate. The other names most often mentioned in the same breath with the Ohio senator were Sens. Marco Rubio, of Florida, and Tim Scott, of South Carolina, and Gov. Doug Burgum, of North Dakota.
Vance has been married to a former law school classmate, Usha Chilukuri, since 2014, and the couple have three children.
For a time, it appeared Vance was destined for the life of a successful corporate lawyer, but a move to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a venture capitalist for Peter Thiel, a well-known conservative donor, changed the course of his life and ultimately propelled his race for the Senate.
A firm partisan, Vance has insisted that Trump had legitimate concerns over how the 2020 presidential election was conducted, and stood by the former president and his allies as claim after claim of voter fraud was debunked across the country.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump on Saturday, Vance again showed his partisan side, immediately taking to social media to blame the Biden campaign for the shooter’s actions.
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” Vance wrote on X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
On Monday, after Trump’s decision was announced, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison responded by saying “the stakes of this election just got even higher.”
“J.D. Vance embodies MAGA — with an out-of-touch extreme agenda and plans to help Trump force his Project 2025 agenda on the American people,” Harrison said. “Vance has championed and enabled Trump’s worst policies for years — from a national abortion ban, to whitewashing Jan. 6, to railing against Social Security and Medicare.
“Let’s be clear: A Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms, and our future. There is so much on the line, and it’s more important than ever that we reelect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this November,” the Democratic leader said.
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue
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