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From Levi Rickert
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Local election 2024. GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Republican vice presidential candidate Senator JD Vance (D-OH) made a campaign stop at Cordes, Inc., an agricultural transportation company, in suburban Grand Rapids, Michigan, Wednesday afternoon.
Vance spoke to a small group of supporters outside the trucking company about the economy, which most polls show is the issue that most concerns voters this election year.
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“We’re going to take back the White House, we’re going to restore American manufacturing, we’re going to restore our entire country, and it’s going to start right here in the state of Michigan,” Vance said.
Vance blamed the Biden-Harris administration for high inflation, although the inflation rate has been declining in recent months. Earlier on Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor reported that the consumer price index fell to an annual rate of 2.9% in July and is moderating. The inflation rate has not been this low since 2021, when prices rose in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The vice presidential candidate also raised the idea that the United States should produce more domestic oil under a Trump-Vance administration, even though domestic oil production reached record levels during the Biden-Harris administration.
“When we say we’re going to make America great again, we mean something simple: safe streets for our families, a secure border, affordable food for our children, and the American dream, whether that’s buying a home or seeing your children do better than you. That’s attainable again,” Vance said.
Vance took aim at United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, who spoke at the Harris-Waltz rally in Detroit last week, saying Fain sounded like a communist at last Wednesday’s rally. The UAW supports the Harris for President campaign.
“Thanks to a generation of failed leadership, thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared in Michigan,” Vance told the crowd. “We must do better.”
Outgoing U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) held a press conference in Grand Rapids ahead of Vance’s visit. She said that as president, Trump had ensured that billionaires paid less in taxes than most Michigan residents and left the state with “hundreds of thousands fewer jobs” than when he took office in 2017.
While Vance was in Grand Rapids discussing the economy, Trump was in Asheville, North Carolina, preparing to speak on the economy later Wednesday.
Vance was reportedly chosen by Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump because he is from the neighboring industrial state of Ohio. Michigan is considered a swing state with 15 votes in the Electoral College.
Trump won Michigan by a narrow margin in 2016, the only time a Republican has won the state in over three decades. He defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes in 2016. Then President Joe Biden defeated Trump by an uncontested 154,188 votes in 2020.
It was Vance’s second visit to Grand Rapids since he was named the Republican vice presidential candidate three weeks ago.
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