Republican Party delegates have formally nominated Donald Trump as their presidential candidate for a third time and welcomed Ohio junior senator JD Vance as his running mate.
“We must unite as a party, and we must unite as a nation. We must show the same strength and resilience as President Trump and lead this nation to a greater future,” party chairman Michael Whatley told the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just two days after the former Commander-in-Chief narrowly survived an assassination attempt.
When Trump’s name cleared the necessary number of delegates, video screens in the arena read OVER THE TOP while the song Celebration played and delegates danced and waved Trump signs. Throughout the voting, delegates flanked by Make America Great Again signs applauded as state after state voted its support for a second Trump term.
While not unexpected, Donald Trump’s choice of 39-year-old JD Vance to be his Vice-President raised some concerns over his lack of administrative experience and his previous derogatory comments about Mr. Trump who’s first-term running mate Mike Pence had spent 12-years in the House of Representatives and four as Indiana Governor to help his election into The White House and then staff his Administration.
Eight years ago in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, JD Vance called Mr. Trump an “idiot” and “reprehensible” and privately compared him to Adolf Hitler. He has since transformed into one of the former president’s most ardent defenders, standing by his side even when other high-profile Republicans declined to do so.
Senator Vance dramatically shifted his tone and apologised for his previous views. He said he was proved wrong by President Trump’s performance in office and evolved into one of his most steadfast defenders. “I didn’t think he was going to be a good president. He was a great president. And it’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to make sure he gets a second term,” he recently told Fox News.
His would-be boss posted: “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 JD Vance of the Great State of Ohio.”
He added that his running mate will be focused on “the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota.” Hours later, Senator Vance formally received his party’s formal nomination after walking onto the floor of the convention to country music legend Merle Haggard’s American First.
JD Vance rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy which told how he grew up in Ohio, raised by his grandparents because his mother was addicted to opioids and had a revolving door of men in her life. His biological father left when he was a toddler. The book was made into a movie directed by Ron Howard. His mother has reportedly overcome her addiction.
Although he grew up in the rust-belt town of Middletown, JD Vance identified closely with his family’s roots slightly to the south in Appalachia, the vast mountainous inland region that stretches to the Deep South and includes some of America’s poorest communities. He wrote that he saw Appalachians as products of “a culture that encourages social decay instead of counteracting it”.
With his grandmother’s encouragement, Vance served in the Marine Corps including a tour of duty in Iraq. He graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School before heading to Silicon Valley as a venture capitalist with an investment firm and then returning to Ohio where he and his Hindu wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, whom he met at Yale, are raising their three children. He managed to mend fences with former president Trump whose endorsement was crucial to his election as a Senator in 2022.
Senator Vance who was baptised as a Catholic in 2019, is anti-abortion, but has recently backed the Trump campaign view that the issue should be left up to individual states to decide.
In reaction to his nomination as Vice President, the Wall Street Journal wrote that he is a “curious choice: Mr. Vance isn’t from a swing state, and he won’t do much to broaden the MAGA coalition. He opposes free-market policies Mr. Trump will need for economic renewal. And would Mr. Vance be ready to lead the country if the worst happened?”
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