MILWAUKEE—Former President Donald Trump selected Sen. JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, as his running mate in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Trump made the announcement Monday on Truth Social.
“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 posted. “J.D. 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.”
Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance graduated from the Ohio State University in 2009 and earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 2013. He joined the Marine Corps and served as a combat correspondent, a military journalist, in the Iraq War. He worked at PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Mithril Capital between 2016 and 2017 and published his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” in 2016.
“Hillbilly Elegy,” which described Vance’s youth in the hollowed-out Rust Belt, captured the struggles of middle America and catapulted him to cultural and political stardom.
Vance, who turns 40 on Aug. 2, moved back to Ohio and co-founded Narya Capital in Cincinnati with Thiel’s financial backing.
In 2021, he launched a political campaign for Ohio’s open Senate seat. An endorsement from Trump, by then a former president, helped Vance win the Republican nomination. He went on to defeat the Democratic nominee, Rep. Tim Ryan, in 2022.
Vance is a natural ideological fit for Trump, particularly on border security. Vance repeatedly has warned about the consequences of illegal immigration and has loudly supported funding the completion of Trump’s wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Vance has opposed experimental transgender medical interventions for minors—often euphemistically branded “gender-affirming care” to hide the true nature of such procedures. He introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act to make interventions such as “puberty blockers,” cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries a felony when performed on minors.
“Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,” Vance said in introducing the bill.
Vance has indicated that he would support a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation, although he more recently said that abortion laws should be up to the states.
The Ohio senator has argued that the U.S. should shift its focus to East Asia, criticized unaccountable U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and backed funding for Israel during its war with the Hamas terrorist organization.
Vance has three children with his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance, whom he married in 2014.
Trump selected Vance two days after a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in an apparent attempt to assassinate the former president. A bullet grazed Trump’s right ear, spraying blood on his face. As Secret Service agents rushed him offstage, Trump raised his fist repeatedly in a defiant gesture, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Rallygoer Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who lived in Sarver, Pennsylvania, died from a gunshot wound sustained after he dove on family members to protect them. A spokesman for Allegheny Health Network said two other Pennsylvania men were wounded and in critical condition: a 57-year-old resident of New Kensington and a 74-year-old resident of Moon Township, USA Today reported.
Vance warned that Democrats’ exaggerated rhetoric about Trump inspired the assassination attempt.
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” the Ohio Republican said Saturday. “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.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
