Former president Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee for President of the United States, considered several prominent Republicans and other individuals before selecting Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his candidate for Vice President of the United States on July 15, 2024, the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention. At age 39, Vance formally won the vice presidential nomination. The Trump–Vance ticket defeated the Harris–Walz ticket in the 2024 presidential election. Vance became the youngest person elected vice president since Richard Nixon in 1952 at 40 years old.

Vance is the first Ohioan to appear on a major party presidential ticket since John Bricker in 1944, the first Ohio native to be elected to the vice presidency since Charles Dawes in 1924, and the first veteran since Al Gore in 1992. He was also the first Millennial, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and veteran of the Iraq War and the wider War on Terror on a presidential ticket, as well as to be elected to the vice presidency.

In March 2022, former president Donald Trump announced that he would not select his former vice president, Mike Pence, as his running mate in 2024.

Trump's anticipated status as the presumptive nominee was solidified upon his victories in the Super Tuesday primaries, which saw Nikki Haley, his last remaining opposition, drop out the following day. Haley refused to endorse Trump at the time, leaving her out of consideration in the view of multiple news and media outlets. Trump became the presumptive nominee on March 12.

Under the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, members of the electoral college cannot vote for both a presidential and a vice presidential candidate who are from the same state as themselves, to prevent states from picking a favorite son. As Trump currently resides in Florida, the state's electors could not vote for both Trump and his running mate if the running mate also resided in Florida. In 2000, when Texas Governor George W. Bush picked Dick Cheney, who also lived in Texas, Cheney changed his voter registration to Wyoming (where he represented the state in the House of Representatives in the 1980s) to prevent this issue from arising with Texas' critical electoral votes.

By June 2024, a shortlist of nine candidates emerged. Four of the candidates (Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott and JD Vance) were reportedly sent "vetting materials" (although Rubio himself has denied this), while the Trump campaign requested information from four others (Ben Carson, Tom Cotton, Byron Donalds, and Elise Stefanik). On June 13, 2024, Trump indicated that Glenn Youngkin was also on his shortlist.

On June 21, NBC News reported the three finalists were Burgum, Rubio and Vance. Burgum and Vance were said to be Trump's main focus in his running mate search, while complications were noted in Rubio as a choice due to his residency in Florida. CNN also projected that Scott was the fourth finalist to be Trump's running mate.

Trump had indicated that he would announce his selection during the Republican National Convention. Before and during the convention, Rubio and Burgum were informed they would not be chosen.