Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance said not much has changed with Vice President Kamala Harris likely leading the Democratic ticket instead of President Joe Biden. Nor will Republicans’ continued focus on policy.
“I think all President Trump and I have to do is remind the American people that she (Harris) is fundamentally a liberal from San Francisco who supports policies like banning fracking“Vance told the Review-Journal Tuesday afternoon before a rally in Henderson.
“Of course, it’s not just about winning the race, it’s about governing and improving people’s lives,” he added. “I think we just have much better ideas about how to do it, and Kamala Harris doesn’t have them.”
In what marked his first trip to Nevada since Donald Trump named him his running mate, the Ohio senator compared and contrasted Trump’s record to Harris’ as vice president, saying she “owns every failure” of the Biden administration.
“In just a few months, from Nevada to everywhere else, we are going to lead a great American restoration,” he told the crowd of several hundred at Liberty High School. An energetic crowd seemed unfazed when Vance mispronounced Nevada a few times, though he corrected himself throughout the nearly 30-minute speech.
“We’re going to bring back strength. We’re going to bring back common sense. We’re going to bring back prosperity to the American people,” Vance said, “and it’s starting in Nevada.”
Immigration, the focus of the campaign
Vance leaned heavily on illegal immigration, repeating a claim that Harris had been put in charge of the border under the Biden administration (she had actually been asked to work with Central American nations to explore ways to eliminate the root cause of migration north). He contrasted Trump and Harris’ record on immigration, calling Harris “disloyal.”
“Loyalty to this country is closing the border, not opening it,” Vance said. “Loyalty is safeguarding Medicare for American citizens, not bankrupting it by giving it to illegal aliens.”
He spoke of murder victim Laken Riley in Georgia, whose alleged killer had previously been deported from the United States. He claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants applied for asylum under false pretenses and that these “fraudsters” were “stealing American jobs and driving down American wages.”
Vance also claimed that a Harris administration would give people “who shouldn’t even be here” the right to vote, while a Trump administration would implement the “largest deportation program in American history.”
“And my question to the American people is, ‘Do you want a president who was disloyal to this country, or do you want one who was willing to take a bullet for it?’ I think I know the answer,” Vance said, to cheers from the audience.
As immigration has become a major talking point for the Republican Party, Democrats counter that Congress attempted to pass a broad, bipartisan border package but was blocked by Senate Republicans.
“If JD Vance is going to campaign in Nevada, he should learn how to speak and what we stand for,” Maddy Pawlak, communications director for Harris 2024 Nevada, said in a statement.
“This November, voters across the Silver State will come together to elect Vice President Kamala Harris, defeat Donald Trump and his extreme agenda, and ensure that Vance’s time campaigning in Nevada is short,” Pawlak said.
In his speech, Vance also highlighted manufacturing and energy as important issues, saying Trump would bring more manufacturing and oil drilling to the United States.
Vance called her a “wacko liberal from San Francisco” and attacked Harris’ record as a prosecutor, alleging that dangerous criminals had been released under her watch.
In a campaign speech in Atlanta on Tuesday, Harris said that when she was California attorney general, she prosecuted transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers who entered the country illegally and “won” her cases.
“Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been talking a lot about securing our border, but he’s not walking the walk,” said Harris, who served as the border state’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017.
Where are young voters headed?
An Axios poll released last week found Harris with a strong lead over Trump among younger voters, with her at 60 percent and Trump at 40 percent. Amid rumors — which Trump’s campaign has denied — that the former president regrets his vice presidential pick for lack of electoral value, Vance believes his appeal to millennials is what brings him to the Republican ticket.
“I’m the first millennial candidate, right? So I see the perspective of young families maybe a little bit differently than someone who is 20, 30, 40 years older than me,” said the 39-year-old candidate.
He also said his perspective as an Ohioan from the industrial Midwest, which had a reputation for building and manufacturing the country’s products, will also help.
“I can speak to these issues because I’ve seen what happens when bad policies lead to a factory closing or cause jobs to hemorrhage from your hometown,” he said. “It destroys everything. It breaks up families, it puts financial strains on young people that didn’t exist before.”
Vance said Harris is more radical than Biden, but young voters don’t know that. He and Trump will show young voters how Democrats’ policies have failed, specifically on the economy, he said.
“I think our pitch to millennials is: They deserve the American dream of homeownership,” Vance said in an interview with the Review-Journal. “They should be able to build wealth and build a life. Kamala Harris’ policies haven’t made that possible, but Donald Trump’s policies have.”
Cole Parrish, 19, told the Review-Journal that he volunteered for the Trump-Vance campaign because both he and Vance are Catholic.
“I really want to save our generation,” he said. “A lot of these kids are voting the opposite. They’re not looking for Jesus. They’re not looking for the truth. … Our generation is in danger.”
Mark Flowers, 38, is part of a group called “Gays for Trump.” The two issues that matter most to Flowers in the upcoming election are border policy and the cost of living.
“The border policy, that has to stop,” Flowers said. “It takes away a lot of resources, like things for the elderly. Everything costs a lot. It’s very expensive, like food and gas. … I’m a veteran, so I like to work for a living and not take handouts.”
