Speech: JD Vance Holds a Midterm Political Rally in Howell, Michigan - October 27, 2026

[Audience chants "JD"] Oh, man it's great to be back in Michigan, ladies and gentlemen. Let's go win. I've got to admit, you know, I love this state even though I'm a Buckeye. And I feel -- [Audience boos] Yeah, get the boos out of the system. Well, I've got to say, I feel a little bit like I'm betraying my family today because my six-year-old -- you all know this, that you kind of indoctrinate your kids into your sports fandom.

And so, a few weeks ago, he starts saying -- in our house he'd say, mom, dad, you can't say that; you can't use the M word. I was like, what the hell is the M word? I have a very broad vocabulary of curse words, ladies and gentlemen, I'd never heard the M word. He said the M word is Michigan. [Laughter] And I said son, we've got to chill out a little bit.

Sports fandom is one thing, but I am not going to not say the M word in the house, because my six-year-old has decided that it's a new cuss word. So, the thing that I always remind people in the state of Michigan is I should be biased against you as a Buckeye, but I love this state, it's a beautiful state, and it is going to elect Mike Rogers to the United States Senate.

Now we've got to remember, for all the friendly family rivalries between our states, the reality is that the place that I come from shares much in common with this beautiful place. Both are filled with Americans who work hard and have sacrificed much for their country. And I'm talking particularly about the grandsons and granddaughters of those who built the arsenal of democracy during the Second World War.

I'm talking about the people in Ohio and Michigan who showed the world what America was capable of building. I'm talking about the people who showed that when our workers, our businesses and our political leaders work together we could do anything in the United States of America. You know, it was our states that built the great American middle class, it was our states that ushered in an era of prosperity unlike anything the world had ever seen.

We showed everybody that everyone had a part to play in the great American success story, whether you were a welder, a janitor, or a CEO. But unfortunately, over the decades, we forgot that, and much of what made our states, Ohio and Michigan, successful, but made our country successful, we ignored and we left behind.

We allowed the people who made decisions, we called them the elites, who are running this country -- and this great country that we love, prosperity bred complacency, and complacency bred indifference to the fate of communities like my hometown in Middletown, Ohio, and the towns all across the state of Michigan that built this country.

And over the years, I suspect that people in places like Howell came to harbor many of the same doubts about our country's failed leadership that I did growing up. Now, I remember very distinctly driving around my hometown with my grandfather, who was a union welder at the Middletown Works of Armco Steel.

And I remember how he could identify the cars that were made with American steel and he would beam with pride when he did it. You know, I remember playing peewee football in leagues where the kids of working-class black families joined together with the kids of working-class white families, never worrying about the color of our skin or our privilege, we were all privileged to live in the United States of America.

And back then, and I remember it's still like this today, the local peewee football league, the teams were sponsored by our local small businesses. So, you'd show up and your jersey would bear the name of a place where you'd go with your grandma for ice cream or where your friend's buddy, his dad, worked.

And so, we remembered, too, and we had a personal connection, when a lot of those small-town small businesses closed down. I remember reading in the paper about a factory in my hometown that had moved to Mexico or to Asia, and then we'd find out that our buddy's mom had lost her job. And then, of course, a few months later that that family had lost their home.

And I distinctly remember looking in my old jerseys and seeing the names of the businesses that had sponsored those teams and realizing that most of the teams I played for, those businesses no longer existed. They were casualties of politicians in a faraway place who didn't give a damn what happened to Michigan or Ohio, and it was us that paid the consequences.

Now I remember, too, 9-11, 25 years ago. I remember that sense of pride -- remember that sense of unity that we had. Democrats and Republicans, we loved our country regardless of what political party you belong to. And I also remember going to a gas station and waiting in line for hours for gasoline that, of course, had shot up in price because of a region of the world made up of countries whose name I couldn't even pronounce.

Now, of course, you all know this very well, in the aftermath of 9-11, it was not primarily the politicians' children who went off to fight the wars, it was us. It was us, it was our kids, our grandkids, kids from Michigan and Ohio whose love for this country reached so deep that they were willing to put their lives on it and we are damn proud of them for doing so. As a matter of fact, in 2003, there were only two kids from my block who graduated from high school that year; it was me and a buddy of mine named Nick.

And both of us immediately enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. And Semper Fidelis to all the Marines out there. And I remember coming home from Iraq to labor strikes in my hometown, because there was a threat that even more of the factories that my town relied on would be closed down and shipped to another country.

And I remember distinctly wondering why it was that politicians seemed to care so little for the places that farmed our food, that built our cars and that sent our troops to fight in wars. And if we're being honest, ladies and gentlemen, you know this as well as I do, it was not just Democrats, it was everybody.

But here's the good news, in 2024, this town and the whole state of Michigan sent a message to Washington -- we are sick of being ignored, we are sick of being left behind, and we are going to put America first for a change. Now, if you think about it, at its heart, our movement is about sovereignty, the idea that the people's government belongs to the people, not to lobbyists, not to bureaucrats, not to foreign money and not to illegal aliens.

At its heart, our movement is about returning control of the United States of America to you, which is exactly where it belongs. And every day -- every day, we fight to preserve jobs and the dignity of the people who grow our food, of the dignity of the people who build our cars, we fight to preserve the dignity and the prosperity of the people in Michigan who keep this country running every single day.

And there's still, of course, ladies and gentlemen, so much work to do. But I'd ask you to consider just how much has changed in less than two years. Remember, we inherited the worst inflation crisis in a half a century in the United States of America, we inherited a country that was shedding factories and shedding factory jobs.

We inherited a country with a wide-open southern border. Jobs were going out the door and the drug cartels were coming in. Now, for years, I watched politicians talk about tax cuts or tax increases and, I've got to be honest, I largely ignored them. Sure, I wanted to pay less in taxes to the government, who doesn't? But all that these guys seemed to do was talk, talk, talk; they refused to actually do their jobs.

But under President Trump's leadership, ladies and gentlemen, that has changed. We got to doing the work of the American people, not just talking about it. Last year we ended taxes on overtime, we ended taxes on tips, and we ended taxes on Social Security. Over the past few months, we have taken $250 billion away from the bureaucrats and the fraudsters and given it back to the people of Michigan.

And we've done this, my friends, because sovereignty starts when you control more of your own money. You work hard for it, it's yours, you ought to be sending less of it to the government and keeping more of it for your family. But it's not just about keeping more of your hard-earned money. For too long, people like my grandmother, the woman who raised me, paid sky-high prices for medicine, while European nations freeloaded off of the innovation that was created right here in the United States of America.

Now, sovereignty is when Donald J. Trump hauled those pharma companies into the Oval Office and demanded they treat Americans fairly and lower your drug prices. We've cut down on visa fraud and fought against CEOs who would lay off an American worker and replace them with a low-wage foreigner, because sovereignty means American jobs go to the American citizenry.

Ladies and gentlemen, sovereignty means that you control your streets and that every American child, whether they're rich or poor, whether they're black or white, should be able to walk to a park or a school without their parents worrying about their safety, which is why we back the blue and wage war on criminals.

Sovereignty means that American homes go to American citizens, which is why we banned Wall Street from buying up American homes in communities like this one. One of the things I'm proudest of is that we ended the tyranny of DEI and racial discrimination in jobs and universities. And we did that because nobody, none of us, can be truly free if your government cares more about segmenting us into racial categories than it does about fighting for all Americans, regardless of skin color.

But we have got, my friends, a critical battle in this war to regain American sovereignty, to return the government, and to keep it in the hands of the people it should belong to. And that's in just a week, because we know that in one week, we have an opportunity to vote for three Michigan Patriots who are fighting for you.

Now I want to talk about each of them, but I want to talk first about a son of this area of Michigan, a man who has fought hard for the people of Michigan seven. To secure the border, to create new jobs and to keep your neighborhoods safe and clean, we are going to reelect Tom Barrett to the United States Congress.

We also have a man running to return control of schools to parents, a person running to bring more good jobs into the state of Michigan, a person who is going to make sure that Lansing answers to the people. Your next governor, John James. And last, but certainly not least, a man I have come to admire a great deal who is going to make a great fighter for the people of Michigan.

Your next United States Senator, Mike Rogers. Now, did you all see the interview that Mike did with Kristen Welker of fake NBC news? What you saw in that interview is the reason why Mike Rogers is going to make a great United States Senator. He didn't lose his cool, I would have. He didn't get angry; he sat there and he calmly and carefully explained why Abdul El-Sayed is a crazy person that should never be in the seat of power.

You know, one of the important jobs of a United States Senator, because you spend your life around a bunch of politicians, is that you have to be able to calmly and carefully deal with bullshit, ladies and gentlemen. [Laughter] And that's exactly what Mike showed he was able to do. But it's not just that; we've got to remember that as much as the media and as much as the Sayed campaign lie about Mike Rogers, this is a man who was born and bred, who is a son of the state of Michigan.

A person -- this is a man whose dad was a teacher in this community, whose mom led the local chamber of commerce, and then when he had an opportunity, he did not shirk from duty, he put on the uniform of law enforcement and fought every day to put bad guys behind bars, which is where they belong. And when I talked about so many political leaders who never have the courage to serve themselves; in Mike's family, it's not just him who has served this country, but he is proud of his son, who spent time in the Naval Academy and spent time in the United States Navy.

And that shows commitment to the United States of America, Mike. Now Mike -- Mike knows that sovereignty means defending our country and our children's futures from those who would seek to destroy it. It's defending our country from those who would seek to tear down our culture, our way of life and the common bonds that united us kids back when I was playing peewee football in Middletown, Ohio.

Look, when I was down in Monroe just two weeks ago, I said, and I'll repeat it today, Michigan is the most important election in the United States of America in a week, because because more than any other state, it highlights the clash of competing visions that the far left has decided to run with against common sense American values.

Now, next week, Mike and Tom and John are going to face off against far-left Democrats who call for, quote, destroying the American way of life and the nuclear family. They're running against Democrats who shrug off the attempted mass murder of Michigan children by foreign born jihadists by saying, and I quote, hurt people, hurt people. [Audience boos] And I want to speak specifically -- I want to speak specifically about the man behind that last quote, the man that Mike Rogers is running against.

Because the battle for your Senate seat is a proxy fight over whether America can be truly sovereign if it belongs to men who feel contempt and disdain and hatred for the United States of America. Just think -- just think about what Abdul El-Sayed says about himself. Now, Abdul El-Sayed was born just north of Detroit in a town called Rochester Hills, yet he has claimed to be, and I quote, an immigrant from North Africa.

For decades, he's gone even further than that; he's told people he is an Egyptian citizen. Why? Why would you tell people that you were not from the community that you're actually from? It's an insane claim to make. And you'd think the media might be a little bit more curious when the tape is there for everybody to see it. But it shouldn't be that surprising.

El-Sayed has called to, quote, open our doors to the world and leave American workers behind. He says that he wants to pass the Green New Scam and kill the auto industry of the state. [Audience boos] El-Sayed says that he wants to defund the police and abandon Michigan to crime. [Audience boos] All year, Abdul has campaigned with his best friend, Hasan Piker, a man who said that we deserved 9-11. [Audience boos] A man who says the United States is worse than al-Qaida. [Audience boos] A man who says that we shouldn't care about black Americans. [Audience boos] Ladies and gentlemen, in this movement and in this room, we care about black Americans, we care about white Americans, we care about every American because that's your job to fight for everybody.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to understand what happens when our nation gives in to these kinds of people, to young men with zero attachment to its land or to its history, with a man who would lie, who is so ashamed of this state that he would lie about being an immigrant from another continent. Like so many of you today, I've been watching the terrible scenes taking place across the ocean in France, which, by the way, is a beautiful country, one of America's -- arguably America's very first ally more than 250 years ago.

And we've all watched hordes of masked rioters, many from distant lands, taking over historic city centers, burning down schools and burning down beautiful historical buildings, turning over cars, and looting the storefronts that working families rely on to make a living . My friends, the scene of destruction in Paris may be an ocean away, but ask yourselves, are they really so hard to imagine here in the United States of America?

And I guarantee you, if those rioters were burning down New York or Detroit, the Hasan Pikers and the El-Sayeds would be right there leading them and cheering them on. Because what we saw in France, the hatred, the ingratitude, the desire to destroy rather than the desire to build, that exact same cancer is what has corrupted Abdul El-Sayed writ large.

It is absolutely the sort of thing that has taken over the man's soul, and you can see it in the way that he talks about Michigan, and you can see it in the way that he talks about the United States of America. That hatred is downstream of leaders who stopped feeling any obligation to the people they serve, who threw open our borders, let our jobs leave and taught our children to hate their own country.

And if sovereignty means anything, ladies and gentlemen, it means that the United States of America belongs to its people, it belongs to the people of Michigan. When you forget that, it's how you get Paris in flames. And unfortunately, it's exactly what El-Sayed seeks to bring to the shores of the United States of America.

But you know what I believe? I believe that this country belongs to the people who love it enough to defend it. I believe it belongs to you, ladies and gentlemen. And I believe that the state of Michigan refuses to turn over its Senate seat to a man who would tear down this state and tear down this country.

Next Tuesday, Michigan is going to remind the entire country exactly who it is. It loves the United States of America, and it's going to send Mike Rogers to fight for it in the Senate. Now, I want to speak to not the faithful, which hopefully you all are going to vote the right way. I'm not worried about you.

But I want to speak to the TV cameras, to the people who are watching at home, who are still undecided about exactly who they're going to vote for. And I want to talk about the importance of having fighters like Mike Rogers, like Tom Barrett, like John James, so that we can further build upon the great momentum of the last 18 months.

So that we can further add factories, so that we can further cut your taxes, so that we can further bring good jobs into the state of Michigan and the United States of America. We have got to keep building, ladies and gentlemen, and we need good fighters to make it happen. Now you're going to hear -- again, I want to speak to the voters who are undecided.

And you'll hear many say that gas prices are too high. Ladies and gentlemen, I understand that, it's true. But the deeper truth is that the price of gas goes up each time a foreign leader in the Middle East throws a tantrum. That's been true, by the way, since before I was alive starting in the 1970s. But what's different -- what's different about this country's and this leadership's agenda, and what's different about the Democrats, is that the Democrats talk about high gas prices, even though their policies have made us more vulnerable to the foreign despots in the first place.

We have to remember the Green New Scam that El-Sayed supports, we have to remember that the Biden administration shut down 20 percent of America's West Coast refinery capacity, leaving us more reliant than ever on those tinpot dictators in the Middle East. But under President Trump and under the policies supported by these great patriots, we just announced, for the first time in a long time, a major expansion of an American refinery right here with American workers.

For the first time in a long time, we are drilling more and we are making energy development a core priority. We are fighting every single day for energy dominance, the kind of independence that leads us to rely on nobody except for the workers of our country. So, it takes a certain kind of audacity from Democrats like Abdul to talk about the very problem they created.

Their policies are the things that give these Middle Eastern dictators control over our lives in the first place. And you know what Mike Rogers is fighting for? To give power back to the people by investing in our country. And given that Abdul El-Sayed allegedly came from Egypt, maybe he just wants to give a little bit more to his former neighbors, his former fake neighbors.

But I think that we ought to give more to our neighbors right here in the state of Michigan. Ladies and gentlemen, November the 3rd is just one week away. And I want to make one final point about Mike in particular, because what I've seen Mike do in this campaign is something that is very hard. You know, as I know, that President Donald Trump is a powerful personality.

And you know as well as I know that Donald J. Trump is willing to pick a fight if he has to. What Mike has done in this campaign, sometimes he has said things that have been independent of the administration. And a lot of people have said, does that make you mad at Mike Rogers? And I say, absolutely not, because I don't want, in Mike Rogers, a servant for the administration; I want, in Mike Rogers, a servant for the people of Michigan, that's his job.

So, I'd ask the people who are still on the fence, who is the candidate in this race who is willing to fight for Michigan, regardless of political party? And who is bending the knee to the national Democrats? Mike is showing real courage for the people of Michigan and Abdul El-Sayed, has he done a damn thing that is the opposite of what Chuck Schumer has told him?

No. And if you cannot stand independent of Chuck Schumer, then you cannot stand for Michigan in the United States Senate. So, I'd like to ask you, in just one short week, Michigan, are we going to stand with the fighters who are going to stand with us? Are we going to stand with people who believe in America?

Are we going to re-elect Tom Barrett? Are we going to make John James governor? And are we going to send Mike Rogers to the United States Senate? Ladies and gentlemen, send a message on November the 3rd, Michigan belongs to those who love it, not those who hate it. Thank you, Michigan. God bless you.