JD Vance makes campaign stop in Newtown, Pennsylvania
NEWTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance spoke Saturday at a Bucks County athletic club owned by a prominent GOP delegate.
Vance and Donald Trump have visited Pennsylvania several times leading up to the Nov. 5, 2024 election. Pennsylvania is a battleground state carrying 19 electoral votes and Bucks County is one area outside Philadelphia that Republicans have been working to flip red.
Vance was set to speak shortly after 5 p.m. at a rally at the Newtown Athletic Club's Sports and Events Center on Pheasant Run. The Ohio senator was expected to criticize Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris on the pause on approving new liquefied natural gas exports as well as inflation.
"You know Kamala, if you support fracking, if you support the police, if you support lower prices and you want to close down the southern border, you're welcome to endorse Donald J. Trump," Vance said during the campaign rally. "All of us have done it and you're welcome to join the team."
Vance also encouraged voters to get out to vote and bring their family members with them.
"I want every single person in this room to get out there and vote 10 times," he said. "Here's the way that we're going to vote legally 10 times. You're going to go to the polls and take nine of your friends and family and make sure every single one of them votes."
The Ohio senator took one more shot at Harris before closing out his rally.
"But the one thing that is broken about this country, is the failed leadership of Kamala Harris. Together let's fire her and send Donald Trump back to the White House."
A news release from the Trump campaign before the rally said, "Pennsylvanians have faced record-high gas and diesel prices, all thanks to Kamala's destructive war on American energy."
Bucks County has favored Democratic presidential candidates in every election since 1988, and even in 2016, when Trump carried Pennsylvania. But Republicans are working in Bucks County to turn that tide. In July, the GOP told CBS News Philadelphia that 3,000 new voters had registered as Republicans and pushed the party into the majority in the county.
Joe Biden carried the county by about 17,000 votes in 2020 while Hillary Clinton had a slimmer margin of 2,699 votes in 2016.
"Bucks County has rejected Donald Trump and his MAGA allies in every election since 2016 because they know he only fights for himself and doesn't care about us," Onotse Omoyeni, director of the Harris campaign's rapid response team in Pennsylvania, said in an emailed statement.
"JD Vance's visit will be an important reminder of the extreme, job-killing policies he and Trump are promising to bring back if re-elected. Trump and JD Vance's extreme Project 2025 agenda would ship jobs overseas and spike taxes by more than $4,000 per year, and to protect our economy and our families we need to reject him again and elect Vice President Harris," Omoyeni continued.
Democrats are making their own push this weekend rallying voters in the Philadelphia area. The Harris campaign says award-winning showrunner Shonda Rhimes will campaign with Gov. Josh Shapiro at a rally for reproductive rights in Montgomery County on Saturday afternoon. Then on Sunday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will help kick off a canvassing event along with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
The Newtown Athletic Club is owned by Jim Worthington, who chaired Pennsylvania's delegation at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer. At the convention, he made the announcement that the Keystone State GOP was committing its 67 delegates to Trump.
"It's going to be an epic day in Newtown," Worthington said on Instagram as he showed a walkthrough of the event space.
Vance is set to debate Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in the vice presidential debate on Tuesday at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. The debate begins at 9 p.m.
