Former President Donald Trump announced Monday that Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will be his running mate for 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 Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
In the post, Trump lists some of Vance’s achievements, including the senator’s time in the Marine Corps, his educational background from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, as well as how Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy “became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country.”
“J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, 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,” Trump wrote in the post.
Vance defeated then-Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan during the 2022 election cycle after, as my colleague Tristan Justice reported, receiving an “11th-hour endorsement” from Trump that April. The endorsement helped bump Vance’s spot in the Republican primary “from a distant third” to first, Justice reported, citing RealClearPolitics.
Ohio is traditionally a bellwether state with no president carrying the Electoral College since 1960 without winning Ohio, though Trump notably lost the Electoral College in 2020 despite winning