The Day 1 scene from the Connecticut delegation's section on the convention floor.
Milwaukee — Connecticut Republicans joined a convention floor full of delegates Monday in shouting “Yay!” as U.S. Sen. and Yale law grad J.D. Vance was unanimously nominated as GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate.
Trump and Vance, who grew up in Ohio, were both nominated on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee – the latter receiving ostensibly zero opposition during a voice vote from the crowd of delegates. In his first term as senator, Vance has emerged as a leader of the GOP focus on pitching the move of working-class Americans, especially in the heartland, from voting Democratic to voting Republican.
“He’s tremendously well-liked, very articulate, very smart,” Connecticut Republican Party Chair Ben Proto said after the nomination. “He brings a lot of strengths to the ticket … It’s great that he comes from Ohio, that’s a tremendously important state.”
“It’s gonna be interesting to see him and Vice President Harris debate together,” added Proto with a grin.
This is Proto’s seventh presidential nominating convention and fifth time serving as a delegate. “Today was just an electric day here,” he said.
Delegate Lisa Milone of New Haven is attending her first national convention. Milone previously worked in New Haven’s registrar of voters office before taking a job as a recovery specialist with health clinic BHcare.
She said she did not know much about Vance, the famed author of Hillbilly Elegy, other than that he’s “lived through some challenging times” growing up in impoverished Appalachia, which Milone argued could position him to unify working-class Americans and improve the nation’s response to a mental health crisis.
Asked Vance’s tweet blaming the attempted assassination of Trump on rhetoric from the Biden campaign, Milone said she was unaware of it, but that “I don’t think anyone should be trying to guess or figure out where it came from or how it happened. The fact is that it happened … and something like that should never happen in the United States.”
After the unanimous vote from the delegation, Republican national committeewoman Leora Levy of Connecticut, whom Trump nominated to run against ultimately victorious U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal in 2022, concluded the afternoon session with a prayer.
“Please bless the leaders of our great Republican Party,” she said, naming Trump, Vance, the RNC chairs and all the delegates.
“Be strong and courageous and do not be afraid of them,” she told the room after calling for another prayer for “the two patriotic Americans that were wounded” in Pennsylvania on Saturday. “Because the lord, your god, goes with you — he will never leave or forsake you.”
Nora Grace-Flood and Fred Noland are in Milwaukee covering the Republican National Convention for the Independent.