(HorizonPost.com) – Donald Trump announced on Monday that he had chosen Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate as the Republican Party gathered for the first day of their nominating convention.
The former president revealed his VP choice in a post on Truth Social, describing the freshman Senator as “the person best suited” for the role.
The 39-year-old first-term senator formally received the nomination several hours later after arriving at the Republican convention.
If elected to office, Vance would be the third-youngest vice president in the nation’s history.
Vance, who was elected to the Senate less than two years ago, rose to national prominence in 2016 after his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” was published.
A Marine Corps veteran, Vance enlisted after 9/11 and served in Iraq. He holds a law degree from Yale and worked in venture capital before running for the Senate in 2022.
While Vance is still a relative newcomer in politics, his selection as Trump’s VP will likely energize the former president’s base. The Ohio senator has become a regular fixture in conservative media and frequently spars with reporters.
However, the media quickly highlighted Vance’s previous opposition to Donald Trump during the 2016 election. In a column published in The Atlantic eight years ago, Vance described Trump as “cultural heroin.” He also suggested in a subsequent interview that there was an element of “racism and xenophobia” among Trump’s supporters.
Since that time, however, Vance has become a vehement supporter of Trump and an outspoken champion for the former president’s America First agenda, especially on foreign policy, immigration, and trade.
When announcing Vance as his running mate, Trump suggested that the Ohio Republican would appeal to farmers and working-class voters in the Rust Belt “and far beyond.”
In his first interview after his selection, Vance told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Monday night that Trump told him that his presence on the ticket would help win Midwest swing states like Michigan. Trump also told him that he would do well in a debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, he told Hannity.
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