Former President Donald Trump is tapping one of his most ardent defenders in the Senate to be his running mate.

J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican who was sworn in to the Senate at the beginning of last year, was announced as Trump’s pick for vice president Monday afternoon after the Republican National Convention officially began. 

“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 wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

The 39-year-old bearded author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” is half as old as Trump, 78. But like the former New York developer, Vance won his first bid for office. With Trump’s endorsement and backing from a super PAC funded by billionaire Peter Thiel that spent $11.8 million to help him, Vance got 32 percent of the vote to win a competitive seven-candidate Republican primary for the nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman in May 2022. He then went on to defeat Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan by 6 percentage points. 

Trump, who has been known to dislike men with facial hair, gave a sign of approval for Vance’s appearance, saying in a July 10 podcast that he “looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.”

Vance entered the Fiserv Forum on Monday afternoon and high-fived delegates as a loud country music tune urged listeners to “get back on the track and rebuild America first.” As he was introduced, the crowd chanted “J.D., J.D,” and a picture of Trump looking admiringly at Vance was shown on a large screen hanging over the stage.

One member of the Iowa delegation had written Vance’s name in all capital letters on a red Trump sign as the senator was formally nominated by a voice vote.

Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called Vance “one of the smartest senators that we have,” adding he had impressed his colleagues in behind-the-scenes meetings.

“J.D. Vance’s life experiences make him one of the most relatable senators,” Daines added. “He is going to appeal to to lunch-bucket Democrats, who feel like they have been abandoned — and independents. The folks from the other side of the railroad tracks.”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., echoed Daines’ praise of Vance’s intelligence.

“J.D. is whip smart. He reads books and he know stuff,” Kennedy said. “The one word that I would use to describe J.D. is sagacious.”

Don Kaltschmidt, chairman of the Montana GOP, said he was “excited” about Trump’s choice of Vance.

“He’s a U.S. Marine and so am I. Our Marine Corps produces leaders,” he said. Asked if he had concerns someone with no executive experience could be a heartbeat from the presidency, Kaltschmidt pointed again to the senator’s military training and added: “Sen. Vance is the epitome of the American dream.”

Asked a similar question, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., also mentioned Vance’s Senate and military service.

“I don’t think you need two, three, 10 terms in the Senate to be effective,” Fleischmann said. “He knows the body. He will work very well with President Trump.”

He added Vance’s presence also brings “some youth” to the ticket.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine declined to name who would tap to replace Vance in the Senate if he were elected vice president.

Asked if he has a short list of potential options, he replied: “You don’t get to a shortlist until you’ve got a long list and, you know, we don’t have a long list yet, so we’ve got to kind of go through the process.”

Criticized Trump trial

Vance has been among those auditioning for the role since the spring, when he traveled to Manhattan to defend Trump when the former president was on trial for paying hush money to a porn star. Trump was convicted by a New York City jury of 34 felony counts charging that he falsified business records to hide the payment.

“I don’t think any objective person can look at this and say that it was about justice. And unfortunately, the real losers here are the American people,” Vance said in a May 31 Fox News Channel appearance emblematic of his approach. “Law and order is at the heart of our system, not trying to jail your political opponents because they’re about to win an election.”

Vance has helped to rally Trump’s base, delivering what could have been Trump’s own lines attacking President Joe Biden at a Turning Point Action event in Detroit in June.

“Joe Biden has decided he’s not going to win this election on issues, ladies and gentlemen. He can’t run on low inflation even though they try to pretend that inflation’s lower. We all know that it’s terrible,” Vance said, segueing to a joke about the addiction issues of the current president’s son. “Inflation is so bad that I heard that Hunter Biden can no longer afford crack cocaine.”

Pushed railroad safety measure

Vance’s most notable effort as a legislator has been in response to the Feb. 3, 2023, Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. He has been the leading Republican voice promoting a sweeping and bipartisan railway safety measure, but that bill has not passed the Senate despite having support from the delegations in both Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania. The Biden White House, likewise, backs that legislation.

Vance hailed Trump for visiting the East Palestine train derailment site just three weeks after the accident — an appearance that fell a day before Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s first visit. Vance rarely missed an opportunity to remind community members that Biden delayed a visit to the site until a year after the derailment. 

Vance has also been critical of the railroad throughout, including at an early March hearing with the National Transportation Safety Board administrator.

“This town very well may have been poisoned to facilitate the rapid movement of freight, or at the very least, it was poisoned for reasons that we can’t identify. That should really concern every single person on this committee,” Vance said.

Vance has also gotten headlines for an assortment of more partisan-charged issues. Last fall, he was pushing legislation that would ban federal mask mandates, and more recently he was the lead signatory on a letter announcing a blockade of expedited consideration of a host of Biden’s nominees, including those “who have suggested the Trump prosecutions were reasonable.”

Vance was one of just 13 senators to vote against the final version of the fiscal 2024 defense authorization, one of CQ’s Key Votes for 2023. He praised an assortment of wins in the bill for his home state of Ohio but said he could not “in good conscience support the broader package, which commits the United States to years of additional military aid for the war in Ukraine.”

Vance once counted himself among the “Never Trumpers” but came to embrace the man whose ticket he now joins, as did a great many Republicans.

Before entering politics, Vance was known as the author of his memoir about life in Appalachia, which Netflix adapted into a movie directed by Ron Howard.

Vance, who grew up in Middletown, Ohio, served for four years in the Marine Corps before he entered college. He earned his undergraduate degree at The Ohio State University and his law degree from Yale.

After a brief stint working in corporate law, Vance got involved in venture capital, eventually starting his own firm, Narya Capital. He loaned his 2022 campaign $1.4 million, but has repaid himself nearly all of that amount from contributions from donors.  

John T. Bennett, Briana Reilly, Valerie Yurk and Mary Ellen McIntire contributed to this report.