Despite having less than 24 hours notice, a crowd of some 2,500 Trump supporters snaked through a long line outside the New England Sports Center in Derry, N.H. Sunday night to see vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. JD Vance.
“I was so happy when Donald Trump was president,” said Dawn Cote of Merrimack as she waited in the brisk, evening air. “It was four glorious years. And I just want to get back to that, because the last four years — I knew they were going to be bad, but they were way worse than I thought they were going to be.”
The crowd was so large, several hundred people were unable to get into the venue and listened to the speech outside.
What they heard from the Ohio senator was a speech with a light touch, but plenty of hard hits on Vice President Kamala Harris and the record of the current administration.
“I’ve heard already, since I’ve been in New Hampshire, about the terrible toll of Kamala Harris’ open border, about a migrant crisis that has made its way hundreds of miles from the American southern border right here to the state of New Hampshire,” Vance said. “I hear from New Hampshire families who can’t afford the cost of groceries, who can’t afford to buy a home. And I think our message in just two days to Kamala Harris is going to be very simple.
“As my running mate loves to say it: ‘You’re fired!'”
And, Vance said, there’s no reason to believe Harris can’t be beaten in New Hampshire.
“I gotta be honest; a couple of months ago, I wasn’t necessarily sure that a day before the last full day of the campaign, we’d be in the great state of New Hampshire. I think it suggests that we’re expanding the map. We’re bringing new voters into this coalition, and for the folks in New Hampshire who want to ‘live free,’ we are the only ticket in town,” Vance said.
Vance also reminded the crowd that, “In 2016, New Hampshire was decided by .037 percent. That was the difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. And I think what’s different this time around is that we have seen for the last four years, the incredible failures of Kamala Harris’ governance.”
And while polls show a steady five-point lead for Harris in the Granite State, it’s also true that Democrats have sent the biggest names in the party to campaign here in recent weeks, including Harris, President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton.
While Vance is known for his edgy — if not harsh — rhetoric from previous appearances on podcasts and right wing media outlets, in Derry he presented a more accessible message.
For example, Vance used his biography to talk about the fentanyl crisis.
“My mom struggled with opioid addiction, so I know what it’s like for families who are dealing with addiction,” Vance said. “And by the way, my mom, she’s coming up this January, will make 10 years clean.”
Vance told the crowd he’s grateful his mother got a second chance, but he doubts if she could have beaten her addiction today.
“When she finally got clean 10 years ago, the poison (fentanyl) that’s coming across our border today was not coming across the border 15 years ago. When you look at the number of our citizens who are dying of overdose deaths…Think about all the people and — it breaks my heart — who have been deprived of the second chance that we got with my mother.
“I think that if we want to give more of our fellow citizens second chances — and we do — we have got to do the job that Kamala Harris refuses to do: Close down that border and go to war with the drug cartels.”
(Courtesy Trump/Harris campaign, photo by Maya Harvey)
Vance also made some New Hampshire-specific pitches, talking about an issue that other national figures have largely skipped during their Granite State stops: Taxes.
“I know that in the great state of New Hampshire, you guys don’t like high taxes, and I appreciate that, because I don’t like high taxes, either,” Vance said.
Harris “is going around saying that the Trump tax cuts — that put more money in your pocket to the tune of thousands of dollars per family — she wants to get rid of (them) and raise your taxes,” Vance added.
Harris has repeatedly called for the repeal of the 2017 tax cuts, but she says she would not raise taxes on families earning less than $400,000 a year.
“I’m so glad he brought it up because this election really is about taxes,” said state Rep. Erica Layon (R-Derry). “Here in New Hampshire, we know at the state level it is because Democrats love taxes. But it really matters on the federal level too, and we need Trump back.”
Another point where Vance broke with Harris: New Hampshire’s First in the Nation presidential primary.
Harris was part of the Biden-led effort to strip Granite State Democrats of their place at the front of the line. Campaigning in Portsmouth, N.H, soon after becoming the presidential nominee, Harris declined to use the opportunity to express her support for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status.
“We believe in democracy. We believe that you ought to vote for the people who serve as your (presidential) nominee, not have them installed like Kamala Harris,” Vance said. “We also believe that the first-in-the-nation presidential primary ought to stay in New Hampshire because the people of New Hampshire have got some real wisdom.”
The people who attended Vance’s speech liked what they heard.
“I think he did a good job of talking about the next four years, and what they mean for young people,” said Thomas Betsy, a student at New England College who attended the speech with his girlfriend. “The costs of food, of trying to buy a home, the cost of everything.”
Several women who attended the rally went out of their way to say they found the way the Harris campaign talks about women off-putting.
Bernice Clemons and her daughter Emily Joback were in the crowd, both with their husbands. All four are engineers and, Clemons said the comments about women needing permission to ‘hide’ how they’re voting from their husbands “makes me mad.”
“My parents, they raised me like to be a strong woman,” added Joback.
They both mentioned the transgender issue and boys playing in girls sports.
“I want an end of the transgender stuff, all the craziness. I’m just a normal person for Trump,” said Clemons.
The latest University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Sunday morning found Harris leading Trump in the Granite State 51 to 46 percent.
