Cheering GOP delegates formally nominated Donald Trump for president, despite being a convicted felon, as the Republican National Convention kickoff on July 15, less than two days after his brush with gun violence at a political rally.
Their vote made it official that Trump, who has long been the presumptive nominee, will lead the GOP in a third consecutive election. The winner in 2016, he lost to current President Joe Biden in 2020. In November, he will again face Biden.
Hours after the vote, Trump chose Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate, picking a onetime critic who became a loyal ally and is now the first millennial to join a major-party ticket at a time of deep concern about the advanced age of America’s political leaders.
“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 said in a post on his Truth Social network.
The 39-year-old Vance rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” He was elected to the Senate in 2022 and has become one of the staunchest champions of the former president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, particularly on trade, foreign policy, and immigration.
The pick is sure to energize Trump’s loyal base. Vance has become a fixture on the conservative media circuit and frequently spars with reporters on Capitol Hill, helping establish him as the kind of leader who could carry Trump’s mantle into the future, beginning with the next presidential election in 2028.
But the pick also means that two White men will now lead the Republican ticket at a time when Trump has sought to make inroads with Black and Latino voters.
Trump had long said he wanted to dramatically reveal his pick onstage at the convention, which he said would make it more “interesting” and “exciting.” The timing was later than in recent cycles, but hardly unprecedented. In 1980, Ronald Reagan made his decision less than 24 hours before he formally accepted the GOP nomination, and George H.W. Bush waited until his convention in 1988.
Trump repeatedly promoted falsehoods about election fraud before and after January 6, 2021, when rioters loyal to the former president stormed the Capitol to try to stop the certification of his loss.
“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backward to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in the statement.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, the other contenders on Trump’s shortlist, had been informed that they were not his pick, according to people familiar with their conversations.
Trump had spent months testing the field, assessing how his contenders performed on television, at fundraisers and on rally stages. Several, including Burgum and Vance, joined him at his criminal hush money trial in New York. Others were there at the debate last month, where Biden’s disastrous performance upended his campaign, leading to widespread calls for him to step aside in favor or a younger candidate.
In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance detailed life in Appalachian communities that drifted from a Democratic Party many residents found disconnected from their daily travails. While the book was a bestseller, it was also criticized for sometimes oversimplifying rural life and ignoring the role of racism in modern politics.
