Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance in Las Vegas Oct 23, 2024. (C-SPAN stream screengrab)
Former President Donald Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, blamed undocumented immigrants for Nevada’s housing crisis and encouraged supporters to vote early in a campaign stop in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
With less than two weeks before Election Day, Vance spoke to a crowd at Treasure Island before heading to Reno.
Polls have indicated Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump are neck and neck in Nevada. Vance said winning the state, as well as the presidency, is possible but “only if you get out there and vote.”
Though Trump and other prominent Republicans have disparaged early voting in previous elections and spread misinformation about unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud particularly with respect to mail voting, the campaign has recently been pushing people to vote early, and by any means, this cycle. Early voting in Nevada began Saturday and runs through Nov. 1.
“We are now in a world where early voting, mail-in voting, Election Day voting, these are all the election methods that we have to vote,” Vance said. “If Kamala Harris’ team is using everything, and we are only using one of those methods of voting, then we are going to get killed.”
Vance also told supporters to vote for Sam Brown, an Army veteran who is running against incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen.
“Sam is a once-in-a-generation guy,” Vance said of Brown, who is running for his second time for U.S. Senate in Nevada after losing the Republican senate primary in 2022. “If we don’t take the seat this time with that candidate, you guys may have a Democrat in the chair for the next 20 years.”
During his speech, Vance criticized Harris, the sitting vice president, for not doing enough to pass policies to address the housing crisis or tackle the cost of inflation.
“Who is the majority leader of the United States Senate? A Democrat,” Vance said. “Who is the president and vice president of the United States? Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. If Kamala Harris really believes these policies will make American citizens more prosperous, she is welcome to try them right now.”
He omitted the fact that Republicans have controlled the House since 2022. Additionally there needs to be a 60-vote majority in the Senate in order for legislation to overcome a filibuster.
Vance also blamed Harris for the rise in “illegal immigration,” which he called “the biggest crisis confronting the United States of America.”
Congress was working on bipartisan immigration legislation earlier this year, which among other things would have given Biden the authority to shut down any asylum requests. The bill was killed after Trump came out against it.
Trump launched his campaign in 2015 by attacking immigrants. Both Trump and Vance have continued to spread anti-immigrant remarks on the campaign trail, including spreading lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Trump has vowed if he wins the presidency he will order mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Vance used most of his speech to blame undocumented immigrants, without evidence, for the lack of affordable housing and the rise of drug overdose deaths. Economists have largely dismissed the claim, frequently made by the Trump campaign, that immigrants have a significant impact on the cost of housing.
Vance said if elected, Trump was committed to building millions of new homes.
The administration would do so, Vance said, by opening up federal land for development, eliminating regulations that “make it harder for our construction companies” to build, and by deporting undocumented immigrants “so American homes go to American citizens.”