What Really Happened to JD Vance in Erie

ERIE, Pennsylvania -- The chaser last Wednesday in Sen. JD Vance's (R-Ohio) trip to this all-important county in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania came when the Republican vice presidential nominee said Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris can "go to hell" for her handling of the 2021 attack at Abbey Gate in the final days of President Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Harris, for her part, has claimed that she was the last person in the room when Biden made the decision that led to the death of 13 American soldiers.

It was a decision that Harris pointedly said she was "comfortable with."

Vance said that if he was going to discuss any questions related to Abbey Gate, "It's that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. ... She can go to hell."

His remarks came in response to a reporter's question about an alleged incident that occurred when former President Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery with family members of those who were killed in the attack.

While the "go to hell" quip made headlines, it was all the other things Vance did last Wednesday and the groundswell of support he received that are important in understanding where voters' sentiments lie toward either ticket.

While the national audience read about Afghanistan, what was not written but will definitely be talked about by voters in Erie was Vance's well-received off-the-cuff speech at Team Hardinger, a local logistics and trucking company, where he talked about the dignity of work and the importance of community.

It was a speech that connected so well with those in attendance that one woman wondered out loud where the heck his teleprompter was, to which Vance quipped, "Ma'am, I don't need a teleprompter. I've actually got thoughts in my head, unlike Kamala Harris."

There was also nothing written about his visit to Firestone's Kitchen, located at Gordon's Butcher Shop, where one of the cooks, Mark Spagel, gave the former Marine a beer after everyone around the bar asked Vance to join the group in a toast.

An ice cold beer he downed to cheers.

The standard narrative coming from the national media is that Vance is weird, that he doesn't connect with Midwest voters, that Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) is everybody's father and coach, and "Oh look, he wears plaid," because that is what the national media is writing.

Or they are writing about one incident in which a woman became uncomfortable when Vance walked into a bakery and there were dozens of cameras on her because he was there.

These are the same blind spots in the media that were in place in 2016, and they really haven't changed. If, by chance, Trump and Vance do win and the national media are again surprised, it is because they only wrote about Arlington and did not balance it out.

What they do not understand is that the majority of people who were at the events in Erie will be talking about what they experienced and heard there, not what happened in Arlington, Virginia.

The happy-warrior vibe Vance gives out comes from a place of gratitude, he told me in an interview.

"I'm here, and I've been given this incredible opportunity, and I'm going to try to make something of it, and the way to make something of it is to actually get out there and talk to people," he said.

"And yeah, sometimes that's mediated through a really hostile interviewer, but I'm not going to sit here and whine and complain because somebody asked me a tough question," he said. "There are still a lot of people who are going to hear the answer. It's very amazing to know that I get to make this case directly to the American people, and you should take every opportunity you get."

Vance said that on his drive into Hardinger, he was struck by how similar the post-industrial city was to Middletown, Ohio, where he was born.

"I just think it is important to go where a lot of politicians often don't go and make the case directly to people, and hopefully, they feel seen," he said of places such as Erie.

Once upon a time, the General Electric plant here employed 18,000 people. Just about everyone who lived here had an uncle, father, grandfather, sister or mother who worked there. Today, after being known as GE Rail, it is now called GE Transportation and owned by Wabtec.

The most recent report by the Erie County Data Center found that Wabtec employed 2,240 people in the county. Like Middletown, Erie is a region left behind by globalization, automation and technology. The locomotive, tool and die shops, machine shops and factories that once prospered here have struggled to rebuild and rebrand the region.

Voters here matter, and they want to hear what Vance and Trump have to say, as well as Walz and Harris. Whatever way Erie County goes, so goes Pennsylvania, and so go places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia.

"Not everybody's going to agree with me on every issue, not everybody's going to agree with Donald Trump on every issue, but I hope that after the campaign, what they'll at least be able to say is they cared enough to show up and they cared enough to take questions and they cared enough to come to the places where we work and where we live, because that's what a person who wants to be our president or vice president should do," Vance said.

Christopher Borick, political science professor at Muhlenberg College, said it cannot be overstated how important Erie is.

"It also cannot be overstated how important showing up and meeting people where they are and connecting with them on issues that impact their lives, like the economy, (is)," Borick said.

Borick said that while Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have larger populations than Erie, "it is counties like this and Northampton, Luzerne, Cambria and Beaver who will decide the election because, as I say all the time, in our state, it is the margins in those places that matter."

Vance said one of the things he hears a lot from people he meets and talks to on the trail is the struggle to achieve the American dream of homeownership.

"It is the most common complaint that I hear, and I hear the same exact complaint coming from younger people versus more elderly people, but the perspective on it is slightly different," he said.

Vance said he hears frustration from the young people and heartache from the elderly.

"Young people tell me that when their parents were their age, they could work and as long as they played by the rules and did a good job, they could afford to buy a home," he said. "They could put down some roots. They could send their kids to a nice school. And they can't do that anymore.

"When you talk to their grandparents they'll say, 'Well, we just want our kids to be able to have as good of a life as we did, and we're worried they're not going to.' And we are worried that they have no prospects of homeownership, and they'd like to build a life down the street from us but they can't because they can't afford it.

"It just makes you realize that we really have failed in a very big way in this country," he added.

Vance said one way to think about Trump's presidency is that it was a brief respite from 25 years of things broadly going in the wrong direction.

"And I think it's always possible to overstate these things," he said. "There's still a lot of joy, and there's still a lot of great things in this country, and people are still raising families, and it's not all bad, but it's a hell of a lot harder than it should be, and I think people feel that in a very acute way."

Vance said one of the things that has surprised him as he is going across the country trying to earn votes happened just the day before and involved his mother.

"We were in Big Rapids, Michigan, and we go to this A&W root beer stand at Big Rapids -- one of these places that's open six months out of the year because the other six months out of the year, it's way too cold -- and the very first person wants to give my mom a hug," Vance explained. "And the person said to Mom, 'You're such an inspiration, and a lot of us have struggled with addiction and the fact that you and your son kept at it, that's an inspiration.'"

He said with a smile, "When you come from a nontraditional or nonconventional background, I think there's a certain tendency to want to hide it a little bit and not to tell the story. And obviously, I told the story in 'Hillbilly Elegy.' But even then, you don't necessarily want to talk about it so much because it feels a little uncomfortable. You realize that there are a lot of people who take, not even from my story, but from my mom's story, take some inspiration from that.

"And that is definitely something that I've learned, and it's been a very cool thing to watch it unfold."

After Vance's speech and press conference, which included local and national press questions, he visited Gordon's Butcher Shop, which, despite the power outage across the entire city block, was packed with people wanting to take a selfie, shake his hand or just say hello. Vance took the time to fulfill every request.

On the 3-mile drive to the retail stop, people stood outside their homes, businesses and cars to wave at him.

The same thing happened on the 7-mile drive through neighborhoods and business districts to the airport where his campaign plane was waiting to take him to Wisconsin.

What mattered at this stop was the people of Erie and how they responded to Vance. That is the thing people will be talking about for weeks.

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Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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