With an eye toward the future of a Republican Party dominated by former President Trump and his legions of MAGA supporters, Trump has named 39-year-old Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate on the GOP’S 2024 national ticket.
The former president, who made his greatly anticipated and high-stakes announcement on Monday as the Republican National Convention kicked off in swing-state Wisconsin’s largest city, will now share the ticket with one of his top supporters in the Senate and a one-time Trump critic who has transformed into a leading America First disciple.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump announced on his Truth Social platform.
Trump emphasized that Vance, on the campaign trail “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond….”
Vance, a former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” before running for elective office, was one of a handful of Republicans considered top running mate contenders. That group included North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina.
While Vance hails from Ohio, a one-time battleground state the former president comfortably carried in the 2016 and 2020 elections, the senator’s selection is expected to boost Trump among working-class Democrats, especially across the Rust Belt, who otherwise might have been supporters of President Biden, according to multiple experts who spoke with Fox News Digital as Trump was weighing his options.
Vance grew up in a working-class family in a small city in southwestern Ohio. His parents divorced when he was young, and as his mother struggled for years with drug and alcohol abuse, Vance was raised in part by his maternal grandparents.
