Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (l), the Democratic nominee for vice president and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) the GOP nominee for vice president. (Official photos/ Capital-Star composite)
With just over six weeks to go until the general election and 10 days until the two candidates for vice president face off in a debate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) campaigned in neighboring counties in the eastern half of Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Walz, the Democratic Party’s candidate for vice president, led a rally in Bethlehem, while Vance, the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate, delivered remarks to supporters in Berks County in the afternoon.
Walz told the capacity crowd at Freedom High School that he had no expectation that there would be 100% agreement on everything in politics. “It’s pretty obvious to us that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance do not share our values in any way,” he said. Walz blasted his opponent for spreading debunked stories about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio even after Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said the stories were not true.
“What he did had consequences, and those consequences was that same Republican governor had to send state law enforcement to escort kindergarteners into their school to learn,” Walz said. “We can think about and extrapolate from that they’re probably not telling the truth about a lot of things if they’re not telling the truth about that.”
Walz touched on familiar themes from his stump speech, including Harris’ focus on reproductive freedom, and her policy proposals to provide first-time homebuyers $25,000 in down payment assistance and to build 3 million homes in four years.
He also criticized former President Donald Trump’s comments during the Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris about having a “concept of a plan” to replace the Affordable Care Act. “Their concept of a plan is to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, the very thing that protects us from insurace companies denying our care for pre-existing conditions,” Walz said.
He mentioned Minnesota’s Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act, which Walz signed into law in 2020. The law is named for a young man who had to ration his insulin after he lost health insurance under his parents’ plan at age 26. “Alec Smith died because he couldn’t get something that cost drug manufacturers less than $5 to manufacture, and he was being asked to pay $600,” Walz said. “The Affordable Care Act protects us, and Kamala Harris is making sure that every single person in every single state has access to insulin and the drugs they need.”
The Trump campaign in Pennsylvania pushed back on Walz’s comments Saturday. “Kamala Harris couldn’t find a better messenger for a pro-crime, pro-illegal immigrant agenda than Tim Walz,” Trump campaign spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “Instead of trying to con Pennsylvanians into another four years of rising prices and disaster under Kamala, Walz should first focus on trying to win over his own family members.”
The statement referenced news reports that some of Walz’s distant cousins were planning to support Trump.
On Saturday afternoon, Harris announced that her campaign accepted an invitation for a CNN-hosted debate on Oct. 23. However, Trump declined the offer, saying it was “too late to do another” debate.
During his speech at the Berks County Fairgrounds in Leesport, Vance took issue with the Harris campaign’s characterization of the GOP ticket. “We are not bad people for thinking that the drug cartels should not be allowed to bring fentanyl into our country,” he said. “You are not a bad person for having the courage to defy Kamala Harris and say ‘no more of this garbage.’ She is a bad person for letting this happen to our country.”
He also mentioned Springfield, Ohio in his remarks, saying his job “as the United States Senator representing the people of Ohio is to listen to American citizens and fight for them.” He said, without naming a specific city, that in Pennsylvania “there have been cities, small towns, that have been overwhelmed with migrants who are brought in by Kamala Harris.”
“So our message to Kamala Harris and Democrats is we’re going to keep on complaining about their politics because this is America and we have the right to speak our minds,” he added.
Vance and Walz are set to participate in an Oct. 1 debate on CBS News. Vance responded to a question from the Capital-Star saying he would “love to have a second debate” with Walz.
He also chided Harris for conducting fewer press interviews than Trump and Vance. “I think I found the secret to the reason Kamala doesn’t give very many interviews is because every time she does, we pick up about 100,000 votes,” Vance said.
When discussing high grocery prices, Vance blamed government spending by the Biden administration and Harris being the tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which he dubbed the “Inflation Explosion Act.”
Democrats have experienced a significant advantage with mail-in voting over the past few election cycles. Trump has criticized vote by mail in previous elections, but has encouraged voters to use it this time around and Vance relayed the message to supporters on Saturday to vote by mail, if they would like.
The Harris campaign responded to Vance’s visit Saturday. “JD Vance comes to Pennsylvania as Republicans across the Commonwealth are announcing their support for Vice President Harris, including over a dozen senior former national security officials who know Trump and know he’s unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief,” Harris campaign spokesperson Onotse Omoyeni said in a statement.
Supporters weigh in
Jean Vincent of Bethlehem Township attended Walz’s rally and said she views the economy, inflation, keeping the Affordable Care Act intact and the Harris-Walz campaign’s position on guns as key issues.
“Having kids in high school here, and then also in college, they’ve been through those [active shooter] drills too,” Vincent said, adding she supports common sense gun laws. “And just having somebody in office who makes sense and who, you know, isn’t possibly going to go to prison.I don’t even know what else to say; to me, the choice is really obvious.”
Also at the Walz rally, Joanna Dejesus Fenicle of Bethlehem Township said immigration was an important issue to her, adding she was concerned about the control Trump seems to have in the Republican Party. “Like telling the Republicans to nix the bipartisan border deal because it wouldn’t look good for him?” she said. “It’s like they don’t do anything unless he tells them it’s OK to do it.”
State Rep. Josh Siegel (D-Lehigh) told the Capital-Star before Walz took the stage that the cost of housing is a concern among his constituents in the fast-growing Lehigh Valley area, so he was “overjoyed” to hear about the Harris campaign’s plan to build more housing. Siegel added that candidates who do well in the Lehigh Valley area are the ones who campaign in regions that may not always swing Democratic, pointing to a recent rally in Luzerne County, and the large turnout Saturday in Bethlehem.
“I think the Harris-Walz campaign understands that they need to go everywhere in Pennsylvania,” Siegel said. “ I think the thing I hear most of all, honestly, beyond the issues, is general fatigue about just the constant state of crisis in our politics.” He said people seemed “burnt out” and want to “get back to a sense of normalcy, and, government that is just competent, trustworthy and responsible and serious.”
Diane Prince of Berks County said she admires Trump. “I like the way he connects with people. He doesn’t screw around. He’s not afraid to get down to the nitty gritty issues,” she said ahead of Vance’s remarks.
She said she was encouraged that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had joined the Trump campaign, because she agrees with his stance against vaccinations. “When you see a Kennedy … switch to Republican then you know something’s going on. Something great is coming along.”
Lisa Scheller, a former Lehigh County commissioner detailed her personal experience with addiction and said she’s now been sober for more than 42 years. She opened a coffee shop in 2018 in Tamaqua, Schuylkill County that employs addicts in early recovery with the mission to end the stigma of being in recovery and help them enter the workforce.
“We know that the opioid epidemic starts at our southern border and it’s here in Pennsylvania breaking our hearts and our families,” she said.
Echoing other speakers, Scheller said that she believed Trump would enforce strict border laws.
Campaigns spend time in battleground Pennsylvania
Both running mates have made multiple visits across the Keystone State since joining their respective parties’ tickets.
Walz visited multiple counties and held a rally in purple Erie County in the northwest on Sept. 5. Vance’s most recent visit was also in Erie County, on Aug. 28.
The communities hosting the vice presidential candidates on Saturday have sizable Latino populations. Data from the 2020 U.S. Census shows Lehigh County has the largest percentage of Hispanic residents in the state, with 25.9%, followed closely by Berks County with 23.2%.
Allentown, just a brief drive from Bethlehem, is Pennsylvania’s largest city with a majority Latino population. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff led a rally for the Harris-Walz ticket in Allentown on Sept. 7 with a focus on courting Latino voters, while Walz was joined by actors Liza Colón-Zayas and Anthony Ramos on Saturday.
Leesport, located in Berks County, is a short ride from Reading, a city with a Hispanic population of 69%, according to 2020 Census data. The Trump campaign opened a Reading campaign office in June with the intention of swaying Latino voters.
While both counties have sizable Latino populations, they typically don’t vote the same for candidates at the top of the ticket and had mirroring results in the previous presidential election.
In 2020, 53% in Lehigh County, where Allentown is located, voted for Democrat Joe Biden, while 53% voted for Trump in Berks County.
A bevy of national polls released this week showed Harris and Trump in a close race for Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, the battleground state with the most electoral votes up for grabs. The Cook Political Report and multiple other national ratings outlets rate the presidential race in Pennsylvania as a “toss-up.”
Harris was in Philadelphia on Tuesday for a panel interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.
Trump was originally scheduled to be in Bucks County on Sunday, but that visit has been canceled. However, Vance will visit the purple suburban county just north of Philadelphia for a rally on Sept. 28.
Trump will be in the western half of the commonwealth on Monday for a roundtable discussion on agriculture in Westmoreland County and a rally in Indiana County.
In addition to Vance’s rally on Saturday afternoon, he’s scheduled to participate in an interview with conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson at the Giant Center in Hershey in the evening. Carlson will host Alex Jones, a conservative conspiracy theorist in Reading on Monday.
This story was updated throughout with details from both rallies Sept. 21, 2024 at 9 p.m.
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Publish date : 2024-09-21 03:30:00
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