MIDDLETOWN, Ohio – Senator J.D. Vance was not happy when President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaignthrowing the Democratic Party ticket into turmoil and robbing Vance of a moment he had been waiting for: debating Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I was told I was going to debate Kamala Harris,” Vance said here Monday during his first solo event as a former President Donald Trumpin running mate. “And now President Trump is going to debate her? I’m kind of upset about it, to be honest with you.”
The event, held at the school where Vance graduated in 2003, came a day after Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. Biden, who was under pressure to step aside amid questions about his fitness for office and ability to lead a campaign, he supported Harris to replace him as the Democratic candidate. Much of the party establishment followed suit – a development that Vance, in his remarks, called an affront to democracy.
“Elite Democrats,” Vance said, “walked into a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard. It is not how it works. That’s the threat to democracy, not the Republican Party.”
A moment later, Vance made a pitch to Democrats who might not be satisfied with his choices.
“You are welcome to the Republican Party, where we think we should persuade voters and not lie to voters,” the Ohio senator said. “Come in, the water is hot.”
Vance, whose comments were filled with expressions of gratitude to his hometown, also criticized Harris, accusing her of not sounding grateful enough when she speaks.
“Every country – just like every family, certainly mine – has its marks, right? Not everything is perfect,” said Vance, who wrote about his family’s struggles in his 2016 book “Hillbilly Elegy.” “But if you want to lead this country, you should be grateful for that. You should feel a sense of gratitude, and I never hear that gratitude come across when I listen to Kamala Harris.”
Trump’s campaign relies on Vance’s upbringing in the industrial Midwest to be a selling point in three key states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — that Biden flipped in 2020. Vance structured his speech on Monday as he did in his speech upon accepting the nomination for vice president. at last week’s Republican National Conventionaround working-class voters in places like Middletown.
Vance criticized trade deals that have made it easier for companies to move jobs to other countries and emphasized Trump’s long-standing opposition to such pacts. He also delved into culture war issues, warning about “indoctrination” in public education at one time and at another accusing Democrats of believing that “it’s racist to do” or believe in “anything.”
“I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today — I’m sure they’re going to call that racist too,” Vance said, drawing laughter from the audience and adding, “I love you guys.”
But the most heated rhetoric of the afternoon came from a local lawmaker, state Sen. George Lang, who warned of a “civil war” if Trump and Vance lose the election this fall.
“I believe with all my heart: Donald Trump and JD Vance of Butler County are the last chance to save our country politically,” Lang said during the event’s opening program. “I fear that if we lose this one, it will take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved. It is the greatest experiment in the history of humanity.”
A campaign official told NBC News that more than 1,000 people were inside the Middletown High School auditorium for the speech, and a firefighter had to close the entrance. About 1,000 were left out; Vance came out to greet them before his comments.
Vance wrote about his hometown in his memoir, which covered his grandparents’ migration from the hills of eastern Kentucky to the industrial cities of southwestern Ohio and his mother’s drug addiction. In the book, Vance describes the people she grew up with in terms of admiration and criticism. In his words, Middletown was aptly named.
“As kids, we joked that our hometown was so generic that they didn’t even bother to give it a real name: It’s in the middle of Cincinnati and Dayton, and it’s a city, so here we are,” Vance wrote. “Middletown is generic in other ways. It exemplified the economic expansion of the Rust Belt industrial city. Socioeconomically, it’s largely working class.”
During his speech on Monday, Vance was full of nostalgia.
“I can have the Secret Service take me to Central Pastry later,” he said at one point.
Someone in the crowd tried to correct him, shouting to a different bakery: “Milton’s!”
Vance also stated his appreciation for Milton.
“I skipped lunch, so I’m thinking donuts here,” he said.
The mix of Trump fanatics and locals loyal to Vance, or at least curious about the hometown boy chosen for the Republican ticket, lined up hours in advance. Their line snaked through the middle school and the neighboring high school, almost reaching the college campus a half-mile away.
“I know what the kids here deal with,” said Jenny King, a high school teacher, as she waited to enter. “And I think it’s fantastic to be able to say that, you know, he stopped by and, you know, we’re here to support.”
“I can look at the yearbooks and say I knew him way back when, which is really cool,” King, 53, added. “I never had him in class. But, you know, it’s really cool to be able to say that…Middletown City Schools, you know, he’s a product of that.”
Mike Smith, a longtime Middletown resident, said he was a fan of Vance’s book and the Netflix film adapted from it.
“I’ve never been to one of these things before,” said Smith, 68, as he waited in line. “Just kind of curious. … It’s kind of a rags-to-riches thing and everything in between.”
Not everyone in the crowd was impressed. Steve Albert, a retiree from nearby Cincinnati, where Vance now lives, said he is voting the Democratic ticket, “but he wanted to go see the circus.”
“I think I would be concerned about how he’s changed in terms of his positions and how he’s changed in terms of his support for Trump,” said Albert, 67, referring to Vance’s past criticism of Trump. “But can anyone label it [an] opportunist.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
