Why Donald Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate

Donald Trump has chosen Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate as the former US president looks to return to the White House. Vance, 39, rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which was published as Trump was first running for president.Vance was elected to the United States Senate in 2022 and has become one of the staunchest champions of the former president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, particularly on trade, foreign policy and immigration.

But he is largely untested in national politics and is joining the Trump ticket at an extraordinary moment. An attempted assassination of Trump at a rally on Saturday has shaken the campaign, bringing new attention to the nation’s coarse political rhetoric, and reinforcing the importance of those who are one heartbeat away from the presidency.Vance grew up in Middletown, Ohio, served in the Marine Corps, including in Iraq, and graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School.

From there, he joined a Silicon Valley investment firm before returning to Ohio to launch a non-profit that he said would aim to develop opioid addiction treatments that might be “scaled nationally”.

Ultimately, Our Ohio Renewal failed at that mission and was shuttered.Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy earned him a reputation as someone who could help explain Trump’s appeal in middle America, and especially among the working-class, rural white voters who helped Trump win the presidency in 2016.

Source: BBC

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