Republican vice president Senator JD Vance returned to the campaign trail Tuesday in the battleground state of Michigan.
On Wednesday, former 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold events in two more important swing states – Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
If it feels like déjà vu, it is.
“We’re going to make sure that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan go red,” the first senator from Ohio who preaches populism said in a recent Fox News Digital interview in Michigan.
Democrats reliably won all three working-class states in presidential elections nearly a quarter-century before Trump seized the White House eight years ago.
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Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) addresses an audience at a campaign rally on August 20, 2024 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (Andy Manis/Getty Images)
However, in 2020, President Biden winning back all three states by slim margins while defeating Trump.
the country remains extremely competitive as Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump face in the 2024 presidential election.
Last month’s Republican National Convention was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city. Trump and Vance held their first joint campaign rally after the convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan, just a few miles north of where Vance was interviewed by Fox News on Wednesday.
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Vance said he’s optimistic that the three states “will be red walls in November.”
The senator, a key Trump ally in the Senate, has made repeated stops in all three blue-wall states since joining Trump’s ticket nearly six weeks ago. He told Fox News that he will spend a lot of time in the states in the summer and fall spreading Trump’s working-class message.
“We’re going to make sure Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan go red. People are sick of the green energy scam that sends manufacturing jobs to China instead of staying at home in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A good, pro-manufacturing worker message, pro-America,” he emphasized. .
Vance said that being a working-class voter is “the core message that I and Donald Trump are trying to convey in this campaign and it’s a good place for people to listen.”
Vance is from Ohio, which borders Pennsylvania and Michigan, and his Midwestern and working-class roots in the region long known as the “Rust Belt” were key factors in Trump’s decision to name the senator as his running mate.
Before his Senate run, Vance gained national attention after his book “Hillbilly Elegy” — which tells the story of growing up in a struggling steel mill town and his roots in Appalachian Kentucky — became a New York Times bestseller and was later made into Netflix. puppet. The story highlights the values ​​of many working-class Americans who are supporters of Trump’s policies.
Fox News observed as Vance went viral his Midwestern folksiness with the owner and family of a trucking company hosting a recent rally in Michigan.
Vice presidential candidate from the Republic of Sen. JD Vance and his wife Usha meet with supporters before a campaign event in Byron Center, Michigan, on August 14, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Later, in a speech at a public meeting, he highlighted the instrumental role of his grandfather “Mamaw” in his life. Commentary has become a key ingredient in stump speeches.
“I’m one of the lucky ones — I got to live the American Dream. I got to build a life because I had a tough-as-nails Mamaw,” Vance told the crowd.
A longtime Vance ally said the senator will campaign in all seven key battlegrounds that will determine the outcome of the presidential election, but there will be a “particular focus on the three blue wall states.”
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The ally, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, added “I would expect him to spend most of his time in Pennsylvania.”
“This is a very deliberate strategy by the Trump team,” the ally asserted. “One of the many reasons JD was chosen for the VP slot was his personal attachment to the Rust Belt and his ability to appeal to working-class voters in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin… there.”
Sen. JD Vance spoke to reporters on Friday, August 16 in Milwaukee. (Kolam News/Fox)
Democrats have repeatedly targeted Vance, saying he is just a working-class hero, as he points to his years in San Francisco as a top hedge fund executive, when he worked as a principal at a venture capital firm owned by billionaire Peter Thiel.
Harris — who replaced Biden last month at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket and whose namesake Minnesota Governor Tim WalzAnother Midwesterner, as his running mate – charges that Vance is a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s “extreme agenda”.
“Make no mistake, JD Vance will only be loyal to Trump, not our country,” Harris said.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more in Fox News Digital’s election hub.
