Trump Nominated, Running Mate Chosen on First Day of RNC

2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum. Photo taken July 15, by Graham Kilmer.

Within the first few hours of the 2024 Republican National Convention, the party approved a platform, nominated former president Donald J. Trump for president and announced his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance.

It was the first official gathering of delegates and party leaders for the convention and came just two days after the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley mentioned the attack at the top of the session, just after gaveling the convention in, and held a brief moment of silence for Trump and the rally attendee killed by the would-be assassin.

Roughly an hour into the proceedings, Trump took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to announce that he had selected Sen. Vance of Ohio as his running mate and candidate for the vice presidency. Following Trump’s post, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah announced it from the convention floor.

Vance is a venture capitalist and Marine Corps veteran who rose to national prominence after his memoir Hillbilly Elegy was published in the months leading up to the 2016 election. He ran for and won a seat in the Senate in 2022.

The convention’s first official session offered an early look at the kind of political party that will be showcased in Milwaukee, one that has clearly been shaped in the image of its 2024 candidate for the presidency.

Crowded onto the floor of Fiserv Forum were Republican delegates from 50 states and 16 U.S. territories. In less than two hours they unanimously cast their 2,387 votes for Trump. For added symbolism, the former president’s son, Eric Trump, announced the delegates for Florida. The votes from the Florida delegation officially clinched for Trump a nomination that was never in doubt.

The delegate roll call was a chance for Trump allies and party bosses to take center stage at the convention and within a party they have helped mold for Trump. Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming read in the delegates for Wisconsin, flanked by former Gov. Scott Walker.

On the convention floor, it was a good day to be a Trump ally. U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who voted in the Senate to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was greeted with hearty applause when he announced the delegates for Alabama. Meanwhile, longtime Senate leader Mitch McConnell, a sometime critic of Trump, was drowned out by a boos while reading in Kentucky’s delegates.

The party also approved an agenda for the 2024 campaign during its first session. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee chaired the platform committee for the RNC. She told the convention that the platform they were voting on was “personally reviewed, edited and approved” by Trump. The “succinct, clear” platform includes 20 policy “promises” which Blackburn said will tell voters what we believe, and how we will make America safer, stronger, wealthier and greater than ever before.”

The senator then rattled off a handful of issues on the party platform: “The platform contains 20 promises including securing our border, getting inflation under control, restoring our energy dominance, defending our Constitution, protecting our second amendment rights, securing our country, restoring our military strength and keeping boys out of girls’ sports and protecting life for the born and unborn.”

It was the “promise” concerning boys’ and girls’ sports that drew the loudest, longest applause from the convention floor.

The platform is “dedicated to the forgotten men and women of America,” Blackburn said. The line was repeated shortly after by Rep. Mike Waltz, who co-chaired the platform committee with Blackburn.

Blackburn and Waltz described a platform with commitments to greater militarism, a crackdown on immigration and increased extraction and production of fossil fuels; during his speech Waltz even employed a Trump mantra from the 2016 campaign and said, “Drill, baby, drill.”

The party that came to Milwaukee is undeniably the party of Trump, and they’ll be here all week reinforcing that message.