From Rust Belt to Reno: What does MAGA think of JD Vance?

Reno, Nevada — JD Vance preached Donald Trump’s America First vision in Nevada on Tuesday to thousands of MAGA faithful, who said they see the Republican vice presidential candidate as the torchbearer for a transformed Republican Party.

At the rally, Vance promoted the mass deportation of migrants and said he would support policies to combat globalization, putting the needs of American workers ahead of the desires of the nation’s elites.

Vance pressed these priorities, and said Vice President Kamala Harris’ had failed to achieve them, during a rowdy rally in Reno, one of his first solo campaign events since Trump selected Vance as his running mate on July 15.

After coming under attack by Democrats for statements he made several years ago, Vance is trying to regain his footing and to win over not just Trump’s biggest fans, but Americans in swing states across the country. The voters who attended Vance’s rally Tuesday seemed ready to embrace the relatively young senator from Ohio.

The rally attendees, wearing red, white and blue Trump-Vance gear — including one T-shirt that read “I’m voting for the outlaw and the hillbilly” — roared their endorsement of Vance, with some predicting the “Hillbilly Elegy” author was in the midst of solidifying himself as the future of a Republican Party characterized by Rust Belt blue-collar conservatism.

“Now, some of you know my story, and some of you don’t, but I grew up in a poor family. I was raised by my grandmother. I called her ‘Mamaw,’” Vance said, recounting how his gun toting grandma nearly shot his Marine Corps recruiting officer. “That amazing, incredible, undefeatable American spirit, I believe, is on the ballot this November.”

Vance leveraged his life story — rising from the bottom of the broken American heartland to the top of the American Dream — to pin the blame for working class struggles on America’s ruling establishment, who he said Harris personifies.

The majority of his 30-minute remarks, read from a teleprompter, attempted to draw a comparison between the policies of the first and potentially second Trump administrations with those of the vice president, whose recent rocket ride to the top of the Democratic ticket appears to have unsettled Trump’s path to victory in election battleground states like Nevada.

Responding to a video in which Harris said Vance would be “loyal only to Trump, not to our country,” Vance said he and Trump are loyal only to one thing: policies that “put the interests of American citizens first.”

“Loyalty to this country is closing the border, not opening it up. Loyalty is safeguarding Medicare for American citizens, not bankrupting it by giving it to illegal aliens,” Vance said. “Loyalty is protecting our children from the poisonous fentanyl, not inviting Mexican drug cartels to deal it on our playgrounds. Loyalty is serving in the United States Marine Corps — something I did. Loyalty is taking a bullet for this country — something Donald Trump did.”

The riff earned Vance a standing ovation with shouts of “USA, USA, USA!” from his newest fans, dozens of whom wore shirts featuring a photo of Trump raising his fist in the aftermath of the assassination attempt against him on July 13.

Vance attacks Harris

With President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 general election, Trump and Vance have turned their attention to Harris. Vance focused on her role in the administration’s immigration policy.

He claimed the millions who entered the country under Biden’s more relaxed asylum system “will steal American jobs and undercut American wages.”

“If you are in this country illegally, start packing your bags right now,” Vance said. “We’re going to launch the largest deportation program in American history.”

Vance echoed Trump’s departure from free market capitalism in the form international trade agreements that Vance says have hollowed out American communities like his native Middletown, Ohio. Vance said he and Trump were united in their belief “that a million cheap, knockoff toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job.”

“For decades, politicians have sold out this country,” Vance said. “They brag about trade deals, they promise cheap products, they call it globalization and for so many that’s exactly what it meant — American jobs went to some other part of the globe instead of staying right here in Nevada.”

Vance also promised Nevadans, with their disproportionately sized tourism industry, that a future Trump administration would end taxes on tips.

“If you’re out there today, and you’re trying to make ends meet, if you’re scraping by instead of thriving, if your hope is dwindling as quickly as your bank account, I’ve got good news: in November, help is on the way,” Vance said.

Who is JD Vance?

Despite his warm reception, Vance is a relatively new figure on the Trump train. He previously criticized the former president after his memoir was published in 2016. Some in the crowd said they had braved long drives and long lines just to find out for themselves who Trump had picked to replace his former running mate, Mike Pence, who has yet to endorse him.

“I wanted to hear JD Vance firsthand,” said Davis Northnagel, a precinct manager for the Washoe County Republican Central Committee. After reading the tale of Vance’s childhood, and seeing his endorsements from conservative talk show stars Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, Northnagel said he already felt confident Vance was the best positioned candidate to carry on “the MAGA movement.”

After publishing a memoir of his childhood at age 31, Vance, who will turn 40 on Friday, became something of a spokesperson for Appalachian Americans hit hard by a wave of shuttered factories and drug addiction. Vance’s book recounts his unlikely exit from “a culture in crisis” and describes how enlisting in the marines, graduating from Ohio State summa cum laude and receiving a degree from Yale Law School led to him reflecting on why communities like his were left behind and how it created resentment toward government institutions and elites.

Kim Rhoda, who traveled two hours from Taylorsville, California, to attend the rally, said she felt this pessimism personally decades ago as a single mom raising four kids, and now as she watches what she says is the unfair treatment of Trump by the judicial system.

“Now we don’t trust anybody,” Rhoda said. “I love America. I’m not crazy about the government.”

It’s Trump’s love for America, more than his policies, Rhoda said, that draws her to the former president. After reading Vance’s book, and watching the Netflix adaptation, Rhoda said she is convinced Vance will remain a top figure in the Republican Party.

“I feel like he is the hope for our future,” Rhoda said. “I think he’ll be a president.”

After founding a venture capital firm to spur startups in underserved areas in the Midwest, Vance ran for the Senate in his home state of Ohio in 2022, powered by a late Trump endorsement. Upon entering the Senate, Vance became one of Trump’s most vocal supporters and one of the chief proponents of a “populist” agenda, including bipartisan work on regulations aiming to increase railway safety, punish bank executives and eliminate corporate tax breaks.

Vance’s support of the former president, as well as his ability to articulate Trump’s America First agenda in debates, legislation and cable news hits, eventually led to his selection as Trump’s vice presidential nominee.

Leslie Sawyer, of Redding, California, where she serves as chapter chair of Moms for Liberty, shares Rhoda’s confidence and said Vance’s pick is a harbinger of what’s to come.

“The America First party is going to become the new GOP,” she said.

Flailing newcomer, or future of the GOP?

However, the first few weeks after Vance’s debut as Trump’s running mate have already shown his inexperience on the national stage as well as “a sort of delayed-onset cancel culture” caused by a barrage of resurfaced video clips from 2021. The resulting media attention has focused on Vance’s past comments on support for federal abortion restrictions, enhanced child tax credits and criticism of the country being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies(.)”

In a statement released Tuesday evening, the Harris campaign lambasted Vance for his awkward pronunciation of “Nevada” and said his policy preferences are out of touch with Nevada residents.

“This is a state where we care about freedom — and we’re going to fight back against Vance and Trump’s plans for a national abortion ban. It’s a state where we stand up for workers — and we’re going to fight back against Vance and Trump’s attacks on our unions and policies that would raise costs on our families. And it’s a state where we believe in democracy — and we’re going to fight back against Trump’s plans to give himself virtually unchecked power over our daily lives and to rule as a dictator on ‘day one,’” Maddy Pawlak, the Harris campaign’s Nevada Communications Director, said.

Trump’s former lead in Nevada polls, which showed him beating Biden in a rematch by up to 10 percentage points, is now up in the air with a newly energized base ready to support Harris. But Ryan Korson, a 19-year-old Reno resident, believes it won’t be enough to overcome the Trump ticket strengthened by Vance, who he says gives hope to the politically disenchanted.

“I think he comes from a pretty strong background,” Korson said. “I think he’s going to appeal to a lot of Americans in a way that most candidates I feel might not have been able to.”

Korson, who finished “Hillbilly Elegy” one month ago, said he has friends dealing with addiction who previously never would have voted for Trump but “they’re actually a little bit more open to the Trump-Vance ticket because of Vance.”

Carlene Hopkins, a Yerington, Nevada resident, whose self description — always armed, ready to speak her mind and politically independent — gives her a striking resemblance to Vance’s own “mamaw,” said Vance’s outsider approach to politics won’t be hindered by bad press or the rigors of a national campaign. Vance, at half the age of Trump, isn’t just a boon for Trump in 2024, according to Hopkins. He is shaping up to be Trump’s successor.

“He’s a spark that the GOP needs,” Hopkins said. “They need somebody that we can look at, not just the next four years, but the next eight to 12 and beyond because us old folks aren’t going to be around.”