Donald Trump has chosen J.D. Vance, the freshman senator from Ohio who rose to fame with his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, as his running mate as he seeks to unseat President Joe Biden for a second term as president of the United States.

“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 Monday on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Speculation reached a fever pitch before the announcement, with a variety of political players, including Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, rumored to be in consideration for the second highest political office in the country.

Vance, 39, was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, as James Donald Bowman and went by the name James Hamel, his stepfather’s surname, after being adopted. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served as a military journalist in the Iraq War, then attended Ohio State and Yale University before moving into venture capital in the Bay Area.

In 2016, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, his memoir of his childhood in rural Ohio, early adulthood navigating the Ivy League and entrée into tech’s venture capitalist sector, became a New York Times bestseller. The news outlet named it one of the best books to understand Trump’s win and it was adapted into a feature film by Netflix, directed by Ron Howard and starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close.

A political newcomer, Vance was just elected to office in 2022 after winning Trump’s support in the race. He defeated multiple contenders in the state’s primary and defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan in the general election. In office, Vance has faced critics over his response to a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and was one of 31 Senate Republicans who voted against the final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

Vance will officially accept the vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention this week.

The news comes after Trump was shot during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. The bullet “pierced” his ear, the former president said, adding that he is otherwise all right. Secret Service agents killed the gunman while one spectator died and two others were critically injured.

Since the shooting on Saturday, Vance has posted several messages related to the incident on his X.com account. In one post, Vance seemed to blame the Biden campaign for the assassination attempt, which the FBI has said was the act of a 20-year-old male. He did not provide any information as to why he believes this causation to be factual or suggest he knew the shooter’s motives.

“Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Vance wrote.

Years before Trump’s support propelled him to the Senate in his 2022 bid, Vance was vocally against him, referring to him as a “moral disaster.” He also “liked” two tweets that were critical of Trump while working as a principal in the venture capital sector at Mithril Capital. In 2016 and 2017, tweets that stated Trump committed “serial sexual assault” and called him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs” and another critical of the former president’s response to the 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville received Trump’s now-running mate’s approval.

If Trump wins the presidency in November, Vance will be the third-youngest vice president in history. At 40, he’d be behind John Breckinridge, who was 36 years old upon taking office in 1857, and Richard Nixon, who was 40 years and 11 days in 1953 when sworn into office.