Vance Campaigns In OH, Backs Ramaswamy, Pitches For Domestic Workers

CINCINNATI, OH – Vice President JD Vance has endorsed fellow Republican Vivek Ramaswamy for governor of Ohio, calling him a “great” candidate who would make a “great governor” while using a speech in his hometown of Middletown to promote the Trump administration’s America-first approach to jobs, manufacturing, trade and immigration.

Vance offered the endorsement on August 21 at the Cleveland-Cliffs steel plant where he appeared alongside political candidates and steelworkers as Cleveland-Cliffs announced a $1 billion investment in its Middletown operations. It also was the same steel plant where his grandfather had worked as a welder for nearly four decades when the facility operated as Armco Steel.

The vice-president also drew laughter by recounting an internet meme involving Ramaswamy and Vance’s six-year-old son, who is also named Vivek. Vance said he took his son to a polling station when he returned to Ohio to vote in the primary elections several weeks earlier.

“And I hold his hand into the polling booth and, you know, he votes for like, whether he prefers, you know, caramel apples or watermelon or something. They have some kid polling ballot to fill out.”

Vance said somebody subsequently posted online that he had brought “his son Vivek” to vote and used artificial intelligence to create an image showing him walking hand-in-hand with Ramaswamy towards a polling location.

“But I don’t think that anybody needed to encourage Vivek to go to the polling location that day. When your name is on the ballot, nobody needs to make you go vote,” Vance said.

The endorsement came during a speech focused largely on manufacturing, trade and immigration, with Vance arguing that US companies should create more jobs for American workers instead of relying on foreign labor.

“What we did is we told American corporations that if you wanted new workers, you got to start by training and hiring your own countrymen,” Vance said.

Vance accused previous political and business leaders of encouraging companies to move production abroad while allowing foreign labor to replace American workers.

The vice-president said the Trump administration was rewarding companies that invested in the United States while using tariffs against businesses that shifted manufacturing abroad.

Vance also said that the administration’s immigration enforcement had produced net outward migration and changed the distribution of employment gains.

He later broadened his criticism, accusing Democrats of defending foreign nationals at the expense of US workers and taxpayers. “Whether it’s child predators, Somali fraudsters, foreign gang members, or even visa fraudsters who are working to undercut American wages and steal from American taxpayers,” he said, “the Democrats know who they stand for.”

Vance did not identify any specific legal visa program, including H-1B, nor did he specifically mention India or Indian professionals.