By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Jul 15, 2024 / 15:43 pm
Donald Trump on Monday announced that Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
“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 Sen. J.D. Vance of the great state of Ohio,” Trump said on Truth Social on Monday afternoon.
Vance “honorably served our country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, summa cum laude, and is a Yale Law School graduate, where he was editor of The Yale Law Journal and president of the Yale Law Veterans Association,” Trump wrote.
The former president made the announcement days after surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally.
Vance, who was baptized Catholic in 2019, has served as the junior U.S. senator from Ohio since 2023. He first rose to national prominence with the 2016 book “Hillbilly Elegy” in which he examined the economic and social dysfunctions of modern U.S. Appalachia.
The Republican won his Senate seat — the first public office to which he was elected — after securing Trump’s endorsement in 2022.
Vance previously served in the U.S. Marines as a combat correspondent during the Iraq War. He attended the Ohio State University and Yale Law School.
Over the course of his short political career Vance has adopted conservative positions, speaking out against abortion and transgender procedures for minors and taking a hardline stance against illegal immigration. He has advocated for an isolationist foreign policy, opposed foreign aid to Ukraine, and favored protectionist trade policies.
Praising Vance for championing “the hardworking men and women of our country,” Trump on Monday said the senator “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.”
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