Former President Donald Trump has tapped Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his 2024 vice presidential nominee, a decision that could upend the dynamic of his 2024 campaign against President Joe Biden after Trump’s assassination attempt.

“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 on Truth Social Monday. “J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association.”

“J.D.’s book, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country. J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for,” he said.

Vance, 39, is the youngest vice presidential nominee since former President Dwight Eisenhower picked eventual President Richard Nixon in 1952. 

Trump choosing Vance comes after his ear was grazed by a bullet during an assasination attempt 10 minutes into his speech at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania before this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Vance was active on social media in the hours after the shooting, accusing Biden and Democrats of amplifying rhetoric that “led directly” to the assasination attempt.”The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” he posted on X.

Vance, a Marine combat correspondent veteran and Yale Law School graduate who wrote the bestselling 2016 memoir and 2020 popular Netflix adaptation Hillbilly Elegy, is a darling of the Make America Great Again movement and can speak to Trump’s base, particularly Rust Belt voters and those in Biden’s must-win so-called blue wall battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Despite only being elected to the Senate in 2022, Vance rocketed to the top of Trump’s potential vice presidential list, thanks in part to his personal relationship with Donald Trump Jr. and donors in Silicon Valley, where he once worked as a venture capitalist for Republican megadonor Peter Thiel. The presidential scion will introduce Vance at the convention.

Vance’s past criticism of Trump will likely be used by Democrats to undermine him and the former president. Vance called Trump “cultural heroin” and “America’s Hitler” in 2016.

Trump’s top four vice presidential contenders were Vance, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), with his campaign also vetting former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for the No. 2 spot. Burgum and Rubio received phone calls advising them of Trump’s choice Monday afternoon.

The strengths of Burgum’s candidacy included the tech entrepreneur’s governing experience and millions in personal wealth, with the possibility of him contributing his own money to Trump’s campaign. The strengths of Rubio, himself once a presidential candidate, included his appeal to establishment Republican and Latino voters, while Scott, the only black Republican senator, similarly connects with black black men with whom Trump has been making overtures to cut into Biden’s margins.

Trump had previously indicated he would not announce his vice presidential nominee until the convention, with convention fundraisers promoting the then-unknown vice presidential pick as a special guest. Biden grappling with Democrats reconsidering him as his party’s nominee after his first debate with Trump last month in Atlanta was also reportedly a factor in the timing.

“As President Trump has said himself, the top criteria in selecting a vice president is a strong leader who could make a great president,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes previously told the Washington Examiner. “But anyone telling you they know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying unless that person is named Donald J. Trump.”

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Vance replaces former Vice President Mike Pence as Trump’s understudy. Pence has distanced himself from Trump since the then-president put pressure on him to not certify the 2020 Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence has not endorsed Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign.