Republican vice presidential nominee addressed a few hundred people at a rally in Raleigh on Sept. 18, 2024. (Christine Zhu/NC Newsline)
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance called for reducing inflation, lowering grocery costs, and making housing more affordable at a rally in downtown Raleigh on Wednesday.
Addressing a crowd of a few hundred attendees at Union Hall, the U.S. senator from Ohio sought to place the blame for the nation’s economic problems on the Biden-Harris administration and “Kamalanomics.”
Vance, who gained a measure of fame as the author of an up-by-the-bootstraps memoir entitled “Hillbilly Elegy,” shared a story about how, as a young man, his family in Ohio wouldn’t always be able to afford heat during the winter. To him, Vance said, the American dream is about being able to provide his kids what he went without. Critics, however, have challenged this narrative and argued that he grew up in a solidly middle-class family.
“We are a rich and prosperous enough nation that no American family should have to debate whether they can afford to turn on the heating in the middle of a cold winter night,” Vance said.
This is Vance’s second rally in North Carolina. He previously appeared in Asheboro on Aug. 21 alongside former President Donald Trump. He also made some stops in Greenville for a private fundraising event and an East Carolina University football game last week.
Earlier visits to Raleigh and Oakboro were canceled due to weather.
Trump will hold a rally in Wilmington on Saturday. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz spoke in Asheville on Tuesday, and Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz will appear in Charlotte on Friday.
It’s a sign that both parties are continuing to target the swing state, which has 16 electoral votes and was the only one of seven battleground states to vote for Trump in 2020.
At Wednesday’s event, Vance introduced Republican candidates for four of North Carolina’s U.S. House seats, who briefly joined him on stage: North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, Brad Knott, Addison McDowell, and Pat Harrigan.
After the Republican-led state legislature approved maps with heavy redistricting, the GOP is all but guaranteed to win 10 of North Carolina’s 14 congressional seats. Three Democrats will likely stay in office and only the first congressional district, where Democratic incumbent Don Davis faces GOP challenger Laure Buckhout, is considered competitive.
As has been the pattern for virtually all Republican candidates this year, Vance also criticized the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border and emphasized prohibiting illegal immigrants from entering the country, receiving chants of “build the wall!” from the audience. One man yelled “Latinos for Trump!”
The senator also called on Vice President Kamala Harris to “stop running from the media” and answered questions from reporters towards the end of the rally.
During the presidential debate last week, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act. Over the weekend, Vance gave more information on healthcare under a Trump administration while speaking on “Meet the Press.”
“The problem with American healthcare is it works really well for most Americans and it works really poorly for a lot,” Vance said at the rally in response to NC Newsline’s question.
He outlined a plan to separate individuals so that younger, healthier people wouldn’t be in the same risk pool as older Americans who are more likely to need medical care.
Many experts, however, have previously stressed the importance of having younger and healthier people in the same insurance risk pool as older adults who have more health problems to balance out the costs. Without that balance, younger adults may pay less, but older adults needing more care could see their premiums rise substantially.
Vance also echoed Trump’s recent claim that it was his administration, rather than the Biden-Harris administration, that was responsible for reducing the cost of insulin and implementing a $35 maximum copay for a month’s supply of each type of insulin.
As The Hill reported last month, however, this is not entirely accurate. “While the Trump administration implemented a temporary program under which some Medicare drug plans could voluntarily cap the cost of insulin,” the report noted, “it was the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed into law by Biden that barred such plans from charging above $35 a month.”
“We’re gonna actually implement some regulatory reform in the healthcare system that allows people to choose a healthcare plan that works for them,” Vance said.