WASHINGTON—A wealthy Republican donor and fundraiser has been selected as ambassador to Canada.

U.S. President Donald Trump formally announced his choice of Kentucky rainmaker Kelly Knight Craft in a statement Wednesday night. News outlets first reported the pick in March.

If Craft is approved by the U.S. Senate, she will be the first woman to hold the ambassadorship.

The Ottawa posting has long been given to a rich supporter of the president rather than a career diplomat. Craft, who owns a business advisory firm, donated $265,000 to a committee supporting Trump’s 2016 campaign, and she served as a finance vice-chair for Trump’s inaugural committee.

She is married to billionaire coal businessman Joe Craft, chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, who donated $165,000 to the campaign committee.

The Crafts hosted a $1,000-per-person Kentucky fundraiser for Trump in Lexington, Ky., in July. Kelly Knight Craft, who became an active party fundraiser in 2004, has also raised money for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.

Craft does have some diplomatic experience. She was appointed by Bush in 2007 as a non-voting delegate to the U.S. contingent at the United Nations.

“She is very well thought of in Washington, D.C,” Bush’s deputy political director said at the time.

Craft serves on the board of the University of Kentucky and other organizations in the state.

She has close ties with a Kentucky man who is one of the most powerful people in Washington, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. When Craft and her husband met with Trump during the campaign, they asked him to provide assurances that he would not try to oust McConnell, Bloomberg News reported.

Craft succeeds former Goldman Sachs executive Bruce Heyman, a top fundraiser for Barack Obama. The post has been vacant since Heyman resigned when Trump took office in January, as is customary when administrations change.

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