Vance and Walz campaign in eastern Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

With just six weeks to go before the general election and 10 days until the two vice presidential candidates face off in a debate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) campaigned Saturday in neighboring counties in the eastern half of Pennsylvania.

Walz, the Democratic Party vice presidential candidate, led a rally in Bethlehem, while Vance, the Republican Party vice presidential candidate, gave an afternoon speech to supporters in Berks County.

Walz told the packed Freedom High School hall that he didn’t expect to find 100 percent agreement on everything in politics. “It’s pretty clear to us that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance do not share our values ​​in any way,” he said. Walz criticized his opponent for spreading debunked stories about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, even after Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine said the stories were not true.

“What he did had consequences, and those consequences were that the same Republican governor had to send state troopers to escort kindergartners into their schools to learn,” Walz said. “We can think about it and extrapolate from that that they’re probably not telling the truth about a lot of things if they’re not telling the truth about that.”

Governor Mike DeWine sends Ohio State Troopers to Springfield schools

Walz touched on familiar themes from his campaign speech, including Harris’ focus on reproductive freedom and her policy proposals to give first-time homebuyers $25,000 in down payment assistance and to build 3 million homes over 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 repeal the Affordable Care Act, the very thing that protects us from insurance companies denying us care for pre-existing conditions,” Walz said.

He cited Minnesota’s Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act, which Walz signed into law in 2020. The law is named after a young man who had to ration his insulin after losing his health insurance under his parents’ plan at age 26. “Alec Smith died because he couldn’t get something that cost pharmaceutical companies less than $5 to make, and he was asked to pay $600,” Walz said. “The Affordable Care Act protects us, and Kamala Harris is making sure that everyone in every state has access to insulin and the medications they need.”

The Trump campaign in Pennsylvania pushed back against Walz’s remarks on Saturday. “Kamala Harris could not have asked for a better messenger for a pro-crime, pro-illegal immigrant agenda than Tim Walz,” Trump campaign spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. “Rather than trying to make Pennsylvanians pay for another four years of rising prices and disaster under Kamala, Walz should first focus on trying to convince his own family members.”

The statement cited news reports indicating that some of Walz’s distant cousins ​​were planning to support Trump.

On Saturday afternoon, Harris announced that her campaign had accepted an invitation to a CNN-hosted debate on October 23. Trump, however, declined the offer, saying it was “too late to have a 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’re not bad people because we think the cartels shouldn’t be bringing fentanyl into our country,” he said. “You’re not a bad person because you have the courage to stand up to Kamala Harris and say ‘no more of this crap.’ She’s a bad person because she’s letting this happen to our country.”

He also mentioned Springfield, Ohio in his remarks, saying that his job “as a United States Senator representing the people of Ohio is to listen to and fight for American citizens.” He said, without naming a specific city, that in Pennsylvania “there have been towns, small villages, that have been flooded with migrants brought in by Kamala Harris.”

“So our message to Kamala Harris and the Democrats is that we will continue to complain about their policies because this is America and we have the right to express our opinions,” he added.

Vance and Walz are set to participate in a debate on October 1 on CBS News. Vance responded to a question from the Capital-Star by saying he would “love to have a second debate” with Walz.

He also criticized Harris for giving fewer press interviews than Trump and Vance. “I think I’ve figured out the secret of why Kamala doesn’t do a lot of interviews, because every time she does, we get about 100,000 votes,” Vance said.

Discussing high food prices, Vance blamed the Biden administration’s government spending and Harris, who had been the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which he called the “Inflation Explosion Act.”

Democrats have also enjoyed a significant advantage with mail-in voting in the past few election cycles. Trump has criticized mail-in voting in previous elections but encouraged voters to use it this time around, and Vance relayed the message to supporters on Saturday to vote by mail if they want to.

Harris’ campaign team responded to Vance’s visit on Saturday. “JD Vance comes to Pennsylvania as Republicans across the Commonwealth voice their support for Vice President Harris, including more than a dozen former senior national security officials who know Trump and know he is unfit to serve as commander in chief,” Harris campaign spokesman Onotse Omoyeni said in a statement.

Supporters weigh in

Jean Vincent of Bethlehem Township attended Walz’s meeting and said she sees the economy, inflation, keeping the Affordable Care Act intact and the Harris-Walz campaign’s position on guns as important issues.

“If you have kids here in high school, and in college, they’ve been through (active shooter) drills,” Vincent said, adding that she supports healthy gun laws. “And just having someone in the office who’s logical and, you know, there’s no way they’re going to go to jail. I don’t even know what else to say; to me, the choice is really clear.”

Also at the Walz rally, Joanna Dejesus Fenicle of Bethlehem Township said immigration was an important issue for her, adding that she was concerned about the control Trump appears to have in the Republican Party. “Like telling Republicans to scrap the bipartisan border deal because it doesn’t look good for him?” she said. “It’s like they won’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 Harris’ campaign’s plan to build more housing. Siegel added that candidates who do well in the Lehigh Valley area are those who campaign in regions that aren’t always going to go Democratic, citing a recent rally in Luzerne County and the large turnout Saturday in Bethlehem.

“I think the Harris-Walz campaign understands that they have to go everywhere in Pennsylvania,” Siegel said. “I think what I hear the most, frankly, beyond the issues, is general fatigue about the constant state of crisis in our politics.” He said people seemed “burned out” and “wanted to get back to some sense of normalcy, and a government that is just competent, trustworthy, accountable and serious.”

Diane Prince of Berks County said she admires Trump. “I like the way he connects with people. He’s not afraid to get to the heart of the matter. He’s not afraid to get to the heart of the matter,” she said before Vance’s remarks.

She said she was encouraged that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had joined the Trump campaign, because she agrees with his anti-vaccine stance. “When you see a Kennedy … switch to Republican, you know something is going on. Something big is coming.”

Campaigners spend time on the Pennsylvania battlefield

Both running mates have visited the Keystone State several times since joining their parties.

Walz visited several provinces and held a rally in purple Erie County in northwest on September 5th. Vance’s most recent visit was also to Erie Countyon August 28th.

The communities where the vice presidential candidates are staying on Saturday have significant Hispanic populations. Data from the 2020 United States Census shows Lehigh County has the highest percentage of Hispanic residents in the state, at 25.9%, followed by Berks County at 23.2%.

Allentown, a short drive from Bethlehem, is Pennsylvania’s largest Latino-majority city. Second Lord Doug Emhoff led a rally for the Harris-Walz ticket in Allentown on September 7 with a focus on courting Latin American voters, while Walz reportedly accompanied by actors Liza Colón-Zayas and Anthony Ramos on Saturday during the rally.

Located in Berks County, Leesport is a short distance from Reading, a city with a 69% Hispanic population, according to 2020 Census Data. Trump’s campaign opened a campaign office in Reading with the aim of influencing Latin American voters in June.

Although both districts have significant Latino populations, they tend to vote differently for top-ranked candidates, and the results were similar in previous presidential elections.

In 2020, 53% in Lehigh Countywhere Allentown is located, voted for Democrat Joe Biden, while 53% voted for Trump in Berks County.

A series of national polls This week it was announced that Harris and Trump are in a neck-and-neck race for the 19 electoral votes in Pennsylvania, the state where the most electoral votes are up for grabs. Cook’s Political Report and several other national rating agencies are rating the Pennsylvania presidential election 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 was cancelled. However, Vance visits the purple suburban county just north of Philadelphia for a meeting on September 28.

Trump will be in the western half of the Commonwealth on Monday for a roundtable discussion on agriculture in Westmoreland County and a meeting in Indiana County.

In addition to Vance’s rally on Saturday afternoon, he is also scheduled to participate in a 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 at 1:50 p.m. on September 21, 2024, with details about Walz’s Bethlehem appearance and again at 5 p.m. with details about Vance’s rally.