USA Trump picks J.D. Vance as vice presidential running mate

Republican Donald Trump has chosen Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate for the US presidential election in November. Trump made the announcement on the fringes of the Republican party convention in Milwaukee via his online platform Truth Social. Former US President and current presidential candidate Trump wrote that the 39-year-old Vance was the most suitable candidate. During the election campaign, Vance will focus on workers and farmers in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota, among others.

Vance once celebrated success with his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy". The bestseller provides an insight into a class that helped make Trump's 2016 election victory possible. 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 called on Germany in particular to invest more in its armed forces. However, he is probably not very well known to the general American public.

Announcement on the fringes of the party conference

Trump made the announcement shortly after the Republican nomination convention began in Milwaukee in the US state of Wisconsin. While the announcement was being made, the delegates were voting to choose Trump as their party's official candidate for the election in November.

The circumstances surrounding the convention could not have been more dramatic. Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during a campaign appearance in the state of Pennsylvania on Saturday. The attack in the middle of the election campaign caused a shock in the USA and around the world.

Trump wants to challenge Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in the presidential election in early November. Biden is running again in the election with his current deputy Kamala Harris, who, like him, is struggling with poor popularity ratings. In recent weeks, Biden has also come under heavy pressure in his own ranks due to his appearance in the TV debate against Trump. Party colleagues have doubts about his mental fitness and suitability for the candidacy.

Months of guesswork

Trump, in turn, had given free rein to speculation for months as to who he would pick as his running mate. In recent US history, the name was usually announced shortly before the nomination convention. Trump waited until the convention was already underway to make his decision public. This is rather unconventional.

In the 2016 presidential election campaign, Trump had backed Mike Pence, who was expected to score points with religious voters in particular. After Trump's election victory, Pence stood faithfully behind his boss for four years. The rift between the two only came about when Pence refused to torpedo the formal confirmation of the election result in Congress after Trump's defeat against Biden in the 2020 election, thereby illegally helping his boss to victory. Pence himself ran as a Republican presidential candidate in the meantime, but dropped out early in the race.

Vance in the spotlight

The office of vice president is generally not an easy one: the deputy's job is to promote and represent the president's policies, while at the same time setting his own tone without upstaging the boss, without making any mistakes, but without shining too brightly himself. Trump in particular does not like to share fame and attention with others.

In this election year, the focus is more than ever on the respective vice candidates. The two rivals for the presidency, Trump and Biden, are both well advanced in age. Trump is 78, Biden is 81 and would be 82 at the start of a second term. And according to the US constitution, the runner-up moves up to the highest office in the land if the president dies or otherwise drops out.

Biden and Trump had already secured the necessary number of delegates for the nomination conventions early on in their parties' internal primaries, where they are to be officially chosen as presidential candidates. The Republican nomination convention runs until Thursday. The Democrats will not meet for their party convention until August in Chicago.

SDA