MIDDLETOWN, OH – Vice President JD Vance visited a steel plant in his hometown for a speech that was one part grant announcement – and several parts campaign rally ahead of the November midterm elections.
Vance took the stage at the Cleveland-Cliffs steel plant in Middletown to applause and chants of "USA! USA!" He was preceded by a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and politically tinged speeches from multiple Ohio Republican officials and candidates.
In a wide-ranging speech, he urged the crowd to tell "far left radicals" that "this is not your country, it's our country" at the ballot box.
Vance's speech comes just two-and-a-half months before midterm elections, at a time when two in five likely voters say they approve of President Donald Trump
and some progressive left Democratic candidates have had surprising wins.
Here are four takeaways from his Middletown remarks.
Focused on midterm elections
Vance began by praising Ohio's U.S. Sen. Jon Husted who is running against former Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in November.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted to the Senate seat vacated when Vance became vice president.
Vance also praised Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running against Amy Acton to be Ohio's next governor, and Jay Edwards, a former state representative running for Ohio treasurer against Cincinnati City Council member Seth Walsh.
"I got a lot of other people I can shout out, but I don't think any of you are up for election in a few months so that's going to be it," Vance said.
'America's comeback'
Vance said he planned to talk about "America's comeback."
He lamented the loss of American manufacturing jobs and referenced the death of Kevin Flanagan. Flanagan was a 41-year-old Bank of America programmer who lost his job in 2003 and died by suicide soon afterward.
Vance said he remembered when classmates at Middletown High School would come to school and say their fathers had lost their jobs.
"If you were lucky, your neighbor's job got shipped to a foreign country, or their tax dollars got shipped to fraudsters," Vance said. "And if you were unlucky, as I know many people in this room were, you were left raising a grandchild while you were mourning the child killed by the very poison brought across that border."
He said the Trump administration plans to add more factory construction jobs and target illegal immigration, which he blamed for reducing manufacturing workers' wages.
Vance criticizes Sherrod Brown
Vance criticized Brown, who he said was not tough enough on illegal immigration.
"Democrats, including people like Sherrod Brown, people who pretend to be the friends of the workers in this facility, said that they couldn't do anything to fix it, that we needed a new law," Vance said. "As we've learned over the past 18 months, it didn't require a new law to close down that border. It just required a new U.S. president."
In February, Brown called on Trump to delay revoking temporary protected status, which was the legal immigration status for many of the estimated 15,000 Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio.
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end TPS in June. Haitians in Springfield say they cannot safely return to Haiti.
Asked for a response to Vance's comments, Brown's campaign called Husted's campaign "failing" and pointed to some of Brown's attacks on his opponent.
“Jon Husted led the charge to bring hundreds of data centers to Ohio that have sent electricity rates skyrocketing, is at the center of the largest bribery scandal in state history, and voted to keep the Epstein files secret," campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer said via email.
Ohioans won't be "fooled" by Husted, Eisenhauer said, "and they will vote him out in November.”
'The lord of your own family'
Vance ended his speech by telling the crowd he wants them to have peace and security.
"I want you to have the real freedom that comes along with knowing that you are the lord of your own family," he said.
He referenced "every man a king," a famous slogan from former Louisiana Gov. Huey Long, who was assassinated in 1935. Vance said that slogan was the goal of reducing violent crime in the county.
"No man is a king if they can't take their family out to dinner without being mugged or having their car tapped," he said. "And of course, the Biden border evasion was a big part of why we've changed that in the last 18 months."
Last year did see the largest year-over-year decline in violent crime rates since the FBI began making estimates in 1936, according to FBI crime statistics.
It's not clear exactly what's behind the drop. Criminology experts said rates have fallen in cities with varying political leaders and public safety strategies. One year of crime statistics is not enough to draw conclusions, according to FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.
Regional politics reporter Erin Glynn can be reached at eglynn@enquirer.com, @ee_glynn on X and @eringlynn on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Vance criticizes Democrats and immigration in rally-like speech
