Donald Trump will enter the US election with JD Vance as his running mate. The pair of candidates were officially nominated at the Republican Party Convention. Vance was once considered a critic of Trump – before he switched camps.
Donald Trump is facing the US presidential election in November with JD Vance at his side. The senator from Ohio is Trump’s chosen candidate for the vice presidency, as announced on the former president’s online platform “Truth Social” during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Former US President and current presidential candidate Trump wrote that 39-year-old Vance was the best fit. In the election campaign, Vance will focus on workers and farmers in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota, among others. Trump and Vance were officially named the “Grand Old Party” candidate couple at the four-day event.
Trump’s speech in Munich Security conference
Vance once celebrated success as a writer with his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” In it he describes a youth affected by poverty. Vance fought his way up, went to the elite Yale University and eventually became a financial manager. Once a fierce opponent of Trump, whom he sometimes insulted, Vance also moved to the supporters’ camp in 2018.
Today the 39-year-old author sits in the Senate for the state of Ohio. At the Munich Security Conference in February, he acted as Trump’s mouthpiece and demanded, above all, that Germany invest more in its armed forces. However, it is probably not well known to the US public.
Trump gave free rein to speculation about a vice president
Trump had given free reign to speculation for months about who he would bring to his side as his representative. In recent US history, the name was usually announced shortly before the naming convention. Trump only made his decision public when the meeting was already underway. This is relatively uncommon.
In the 2016 presidential election campaign, Trump relied on Mike Pence, who hoped to score particularly well with religious voters. After Trump’s election victory, Pence stood loyally behind his leader for four years. The break between the two only occurred when Pence refused to torpedo the formal confirmation of the congressional election results after Trump’s victory against Biden in the 2020 election and that illegally helped his boss win. Pence tentatively ran as the Republican presidential candidate, but dropped out early in the race.
Biden’s campaign team attacks Vance bitterly
Trump and Vance are currently facing incumbent Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris. The Democrats still have their formal nomination pending.
Biden’s campaign team immediately attacked the newly appointed Republican running mate. Vance will implement Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s extreme political plans “without regard to harm to the American people,” Biden’s campaign staff said. Vance is anti-abortion and wants to cut taxes on billionaires while raising prices on everyone else.
Particular focus on candidates who are running mates
The office of vice president is generally not an easy one. The vice president’s job is to recommend and represent the president’s policies, at the same time setting his own tone without stealing the boss’s attention, and not making any mistakes, but not stretching himself too far too. Trump only likes to share fame and fortune with others.
In this election year, the focus is more than ever on the respective current community. The two opponents for the presidency, Trump and Biden, are both very advanced in age. Trump is 78, Biden is 81 and would be 82 at the start of his second term And according to the US Constitution, the vice president will move up to the highest office in the state if the president dies or otherwise fails.
Isabell Karras, ARD Washington, tagesschau, July 16, 2024 5:28 am