Republican presidential nominee and Donald Trump raises his fist as he arrives Day 1 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 15, 2024.Jeenah Moon/Reuters
Donald Trump has named Ohio senator and best-selling author J.D. Vance his vice-presidential running mate, choosing a man who was once among the former president’s most vocal critics before becoming one of his staunchest supporters.
On the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, delegates formally nominated Mr. Trump for the White House for the third time. The nomination, a formality because Mr. Trump already secured the party’s nod with his crushing victory in primaries earlier this year, came two days after he survived an assassination attempt during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Trump made an appearance at the convention on Monday night, emerging as a band played God Bless the U.S.A. With a square bandage over his right ear and flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents, the former president walked up a flight of stairs, smiling and waving at supporters.
As the song concluded, the crowd’s chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A!” turned to “Fight! Fight! Fight” – the words Mr. Trump said immediately after the shooting on Saturday – and then “We love Trump!”
The former president, who did not deliver remarks on Monday, mouthed, “Thank you.”
Donald Trump received a raucous ovation on July 15 as he made a presence on the first night of the Republican National Convention alongside his newly announced running mate, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, two days after an assassination attempt left him with a wounded ear.
Reuters
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump applauds with Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 15.Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Mr. Trump announced Mr. Vance as his running mate on his Truth Social platform partway through the convention’s presidential nomination vote.
Mr. Vance, who once described himself as a “never Trumper,” did not vote for the former president in 2016. In his year and a half in the Senate, however, he has adopted many of Mr. Trump’s positions: criticizing military aid to Ukraine and backing Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
A Yale-trained lawyer, Mr. Vance shot to fame for his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up poor in Ohio and Kentucky. The book was frequently cited in explanations of Mr. Trump’s popularity among white, working-class voters. In Monday’s announcement on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said the book “championed the hardworking men and women of our Country.”
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Mr. Trump, who has previously lauded Mr. Vance’s conversion to his cause, is banking on the Ohioan to win over voters in the Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan as well as Pennsylvania. As a former venture capitalist, he could also help with raising money from Silicon Valley contacts.
At 39, Mr. Vance is one of the youngest people ever to be nominated for president or vice-president. He is the first millennial to appear on a presidential ticket.
Bill O’Brien, a delegate and former state legislator from New Hampshire, said Mr. Vance represented generational change – at 78, Mr. Trump is the second-oldest presidential candidate in history after his 81-year-old rival, President Joe Biden – and fit with Mr. Trump’s Rust Belt constituency.
Donald Trump announced Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential running mate in the midst of a neck-and-neck race with U.S. President Joe Biden.
The Associated Press
“He understands the folks that Donald Trump is talking to,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It may be time for us boomers to move along and to allow maybe another generation to step up.”
During Mr. Trump’s rise to power in 2016, Mr. Vance criticized him as “unfit” for office. In an Atlantic magazine opinion article, Mr. Vance wrote that Mr. Trump was “cultural heroin” for white working-class voters.
In a private Facebook exchange with an associate in 2016, Mr. Vance wrote: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
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After the message’s recipient made it public years later, Mr. Vance’s campaign did not dispute its authenticity but said it did not represent Mr. Vance’s current views.
Since publicly changing his view on Mr. Trump ahead of his successful 2022 Senate run, Mr. Vance has become friends with Donald Trump Jr. He has also carved out a right-wing, nationalistic niche in the Senate.
He has called on Ukraine to cede territory to Russia in order to end Moscow’s invasion. He also unsuccessfully campaigned against an Ohio referendum to secure abortion rights.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, greets delegates as he arrives on the floor during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Monday, July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee.Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press
Earlier this year, Mr. Vance said that, had he been vice-president after the 2020 election, he would have told swing states that voted for Mr. Biden to send Congress alternative slates of pro-Trump electors. The decision by Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice-president, not to take such action was a crucial factor in stopping efforts to overturn the election.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader who once said Mr. Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, was drowned out with boos Monday when he delivered his state of Kentucky’s votes for Mr. Trump.
In choosing Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump passed over Florida senator Marco Rubio, North Dakota Governor Doug Bergum and South Carolina senator Tim Scott, all of whom were reportedly under consideration.
At the convention on Monday, the delegation from Mr. Trump’s adoptive home state, Florida, put him over the 50-per-cent vote threshold to win the nomination around 2:20 p.m. local time. Eric Trump, who announced the state delegation’s votes, described his father as “the greatest president that’s ever lived.”
A video of former President Donald Trump dancing set to “YMCA” by the Village People plays during the first night of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis., on Monday, July 15, 2024.HAIYUN JIANG/The New York Times News Service
Also on Monday, President Joe Biden pushed back on Republican accusations that his rhetoric – such as criticizing Mr. Trump as an authoritarian – may have inspired Saturday’s assassination attempt. “How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real?” he told NBC anchor Lester Holt on Monday.
Still, he conceded that one of his comments – “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye” – was wrong. “It was a mistake to use the word,” Mr. Biden said.
With a report from Shannon Proudfoot in Milwaukee and Andrea Woo