Remarks: JD Vance Holds a Midterm Political Rally in North Carolina - October 19, 2026

How you doing? [Audience chants "USA"]

Thank you, thank you. Henderson, it is great to be back in North Carolina. Thank you for having me. [Audience member calls out "We love you, JD."]

We love you too. We love Hendersonville and, most importantly, we love the great Senator Ted Budd from North Carolina. I've got a few other shout-outs and thank you's. Please, please, thank you all. Have a seat before we get started here. And I've got to first give an amazing shout out to the incredible House Speaker, Destin Hall.

Destin, where you at, man? We've also got one of the very best GOP chairmen in any state in the union, Jason Simmons. Jason, thank you for everything you do. We've got four friends who are already in Washington, DC, fighting for the people of North Carolina every single day. We've got the amazing Addison McDowell, my dear friend, Addison.

We've got Mark Harris, there's Mark. The best hair in Congress, I would say, is Mark Harris. [Laughter] We've got the great Tim Moore. Where's Tim at? Tim, thank you. And of course, I already gave a shout out to the great Ted Budd. Now, it's my privilege to introduce three warriors for this state. First is the amazing Lori Buckhout.

Tough as nails retired Army Colonel. And of course, Lori, with your help and your motivation, your passion, Lori is going to make the next Congresswoman for the great state of North Carolina. And of course, Hendersonville, we've got to hear it for your next Congresswoman, the amazing Jennifer. Jennifer, thank you.

Now, Jennifer Balkcom. Jennifer, thank you. Now, Jennifer is not somebody who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She is the daughter of a single mom. She is an eighth generation native of Western North Carolina. She wasn't born into a political dynasty; she had to hustle to get here today and she's going to hustle for you every single day, North Carolina.

This is a woman who worked three jobs to put herself through community college and save her family farm. And she's going to bring that same hustle, she's going to bring those mountain values, she is going to bring that work ethic to Washington, DC, when we send her to Congress in two weeks. And finally, last but certainly not least, is my dear friend, a man who needs no introduction to this great state.

And that is your next Senator, the amazing Michael Whatley. Now, Michael Whatley, when he was the Republican chair of North Carolina, he was the person who made it possible for us to win that historic landslide victory in 2024. Michael Whatley is the reason why we were able to cut your taxes forever, why we were able to secure the border, why we got no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime and no taxes on Social Security.

And every single day in the United States Senate, Michael is going to fight to put North Carolina first. He's going to fight, ladies and gentlemen, to make your state safer. He's going to back our law enforcement, unlike the guy he's running against, who every single day has tried to make the jobs of our police officers harder.

Michael Whatley is going to fight for good jobs, for good wages, and he is going to fight to rebuild Hendersonville and the entire state of North Carolina. I love this state, ladies and gentlemen; I love this area of the state in particular. I was talking to the amazing host, the person who made it possible for us to be here, earlier today.

And I asked him what business was he in? And I expected some complicated answer. Normally when -- no offense to our business leaders, but when you asked a business leader what business he's in, you kind of stroke his ego a little bit; you get the guy really fired up. And this guy just said, you know, I work for a living. [Laughter] And I love that.

I love a guy who's not proud or pretentious. I love a guy who just goes to work every single day and makes it possible for this country to run. But as much as I'm proud of people like that, and as amazing of a job as they do, it is hard to get ahead when politicians in Washington don't fight for you. And so, the reason why we've got to send Lori and Michael and Jennifer is because we need candidates who fight for North Carolina for a change unlike [Inaudible] You know, these amazing candidates, like President Trump, they believe in a simple truth that unfortunately elected Democrats and Congressional leaders in Washington, DC, have completely abandoned.

That the American government ought to serve the American people -- common sense. You know, it's commonsense that American homes should go to the American people, which is why we banned Wall Street from buying up homes that ought, by right, go to the American citizens. It's common sense that your medicine should not cost double or triple what it costs in Europe, which is why we created TrumpRX, and the president of the United States told pharma CEOs to quit ripping you off.

And that's what they did. It's commonsense, think about this, that if you're behind a gigantic semi-truck, you ought to be able to read highway signs, which is why we made English proficiency mandatory to obtain a commercial driver's license in this state [Inaudible] Ladies and gentlemen, commonsense is why, under the Trump administration, we've seen the lowest year-over-year illegal border crossings in American history.

It's why we've now had 17 straight months of zero Border Patrol releases . It's commonsense that we end the Joe Biden border invasion, which is exactly what we did. When 25 million -- remember, ladies and gentlemen, when Joe Biden and Don Davis were working together to open up that border, 25 million illegal immigrants entered the United States of America.

And the foreign-born share of the population soared to the highest level in recorded history. Not because you voted for open borders, because Don Davis and Joe Biden fought every single day to open up the border of the United States of America. But you know what Donald Trump did, working with some of our great allies in Congress, we have gotten to net negative migration for the first time in 50 years by kicking the illegal criminals out of this country.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's common sense. Sovereign nations ought to be able to control who comes into and who goes out of their country, and America is no exception. And common sense is why we fought back hard against attempts to replace American workers with foreigners who are going to work for pennies on the dollar.

American jobs ought to go to American citizens, not to people who don't have a legal right to be here. One of the things I'm proudest of is that we will never allow major corporations to abuse the visa programs and replace hard-working Americans in North Carolina with what amounts to indentured servitude.

But, ladies and gentlemen, the sad thing is that these commonsense victories, all of the things I just described, are actually a little bit controversial when you look at the other side of the Congressional line. Because for many decades, regions like Western North Carolina -- they were not treated first by their government, they were treated last, unfortunately, by both Democrats and even a few Republicans in Washington, DC. We all know the story, we know what opened borders, we know what disastrous trade deals like NAFTA meant for furniture makers and apple farms, like the one that Jennifer grew up on. So, even today, it is controversial, even though it shouldn't be, but it's controversial when you try to put Americans first for a change.

But we're not voting for candidates like her or Michael or Lori to get to DC to go along -- to get along. The reason why we're fighting for them is because they are the rare breed that fights for the people of North Carolina first and is going to shake up that establishment and fight for you [Inaudible] They're going to fight for you, they're going to fight for your families, they're going to fight every single day for lower costs, for lower taxes.

They're going to fight for better health care for our rural North Carolina citizens and also for our veterans. And they're going to be warriors, warriors for safe communities. They're going to reject the Democrat plan to defund our police, to open our border, and to release violent criminals all over the state of North Carolina.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are people who will never bend the knee to the far-left activist groups, to the far-left teachers unions, or to the far-left universities. They know that when you send them to Washington, DC, they are there to fight for you, and they're never going to forget it. For too long, ladies and gentlemen, we have been ruled by a corrupt, far-left cartel that subjected this country to woke insanity for years.

[A protester calls out from the audience]

[Audience chants "USA"] Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to have to amend something I said earlier. I said that we have had zero illegal border crossings in the United States of America. [Laughter] But one isn't bad, right? Ladies and gentlemen, we know what the guy yelling at us behind us stood for, and we know what the far-left Democrats like Don Davis stand for.

They stand for the idea that your government exists for fraudsters or criminals or illegal aliens when we know the American government exists for American citizens, that's who it belongs to.

[A protester calls out from the audience]

[Audience chants "USA"] We know look, this guy, Don Davis, the unfortunate reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that the people the Democrats have put up against Michael and Jennifer, they're props. that guy doesn't know what he's hollering about. He's a person who did exactly what he was told. and the people who are telling them what to do and what to say, whether it's in Washington, DC or Raleigh, Durham, they are props for an insidious agenda that would destroy our country from the inside.

Now, Roy Cooper -- yes, Roy Cooper, he was a terrible governor. He did all sorts of crazy things like veto the parents Bill of Rights. He released thousands of violent criminals from jail early. And he used your taxpayer dollars to fund sex change surgeries for children. He vetoed legislation to keep boys out of girls' sports, completely unhinged stuff and Roy Cooper did it. But I hope my saying so doesn't bother Roy, because I heard that he's actually a very sensitive guy.

He's literally sending lawyers after anyone who asks about his age. Is that right, Michael? Which raises a good question, what does Roy Cooper have to hide? Or is he just worried that he'll look even older than he is already next to the young communists of the Democrat Party he'll be voting with if he goes to Washington?

And you've got Jamie Ager, this person who the Democrats picked against Jennifer. Jamie comes from Democrat political royalty. He was a man who, unlike the people in this room, were handed everything. His family business for decades has been making North Carolina dirtier, poorer and less safe. And look, Jamie Campaigns is a so-called commonsense Democrat.

He wants you to believe that he's one of those old school Democrats who actually fight for working people. But his farm hosted and welcomed children into a festival featuring, quote, The Beer City Sisters, a drag group that mocks nuns. [Audience boos]

Now, I happen to believe there's nothing common sense about exposing little kids to drag queen performances that mock and ridicule our faith. It is sick and disgusting stuff, and anybody who gets anywhere close to it never ought to represent the great people of North Carolina in Congress. But the reality is that Roy Cooper and Jamie Ager have been groomed by far-left Democrats in Washington, DC, to be your next Senator and your next Congressman.

In Roy's case, Chuck Schumer spent years, literally years, teeing this man up to run for Senate. Democrat operatives in Washington raised millions, millions of dollars of far-left money to convince Roy to run for Senate, and then millions and millions more creating this fake image of Roy Cooper as a common sense, folksy, moderate.

So, you know how Roy's going to vote if he's in the Senate? Don't judge the man by his well-produced TV advertisements. Roy Cooper is going to vote exactly how his boss tells him to vote. And his boss is not the people in this room; his boss is Chuck Schumer. We know what Chuck Schumer wants Roy Cooper to do; he wants Roy Cooper to open the borders and that's what he'll do. He wants Roy Cooper to defund the police and that's exactly what he'll do. He wants Roy Cooper to give the people of this state more and more transgender insanity, which is exactly what Roy Cooper will do. We know what Roy Cooper will do because it's what he did when he was governor.

He's going to bend the knee to Chuck Schumer 100 percent of the time. And I happen to believe that anybody that is going to bend the knee to Chuck Schumer 100 percent of the time ought to be kept the hell out of the people's seat in Washington, DC. Now, Jamie Ager, unfortunately, is not that much better, ladies and gentlemen.

You know how he's going to vote, exactly the way AOC, Ilhan Omar and the other crazies in the Democrat caucus tell them him how to vote. If he wins, he'll be right there with the other freshman Democrats, crazies like Darializa Avila Chevalier, who calls white woman, and I quote, ugly colonizers. Or Claire Valdes, who says that July 4th is about liberation from Palestine to Puerto Rico, which doesn't make any sense, ladies and gentlemen.

Can you just imagine Thomas Jefferson sitting down to a desk with his qui- -- quill pen 250 years ago [Inaudible] we need to write about is the liberation of Palestine and Puerto Rico. But a person who says that is a radical, and these are the radicals that Jamie is going to follow in Congress. You judge a person not by their TV commercials; you judge a person by who they respond to, who owns them and what they have done.

And ladies and gentlemen, Jamie Ager has shown that once he gets to Congress, the far left is going to own him completely every step of the way. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a lot of work to do. There's so much that we've done over the past 18 months that I'm so proud of. We cut taxes on tips, cut taxes on overtime, cut taxes on Social Security because, you know, I happen to believe that when you pay into Social Security your whole life, the grubby Democrats in Washington, DC ought to keep their hands off of it, it belongs to you.

But every single day, we're working to increase refining capacity, bring down the price of gas, and dig ourselves out of the hole that the Democrats put us back in in 2024. But the solution to our problems isn't to hand the shovel back to the party who dug the hole in the first place. You look at what Democrats say, and they'll talk about affordability, they'll talk about the cost of gas.

The party that banned fracking in the United States of America, the party that shut down refinery capacity in the United States of America, the party that tried to end oil drilling in the United States of America and shove the green new scam down our throats, they do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to the cost of gasoline.

So, vote for the people who have solutions to lower the cost of gas, don't vote for the people who made the problem to begin with. Ladies and gentlemen, these Democrats, we know what they want to do -- they'll talk about health care and their TV commercials. But in reality, we know that they want to take away your healthcare and give it away to fraudsters and illegal aliens.

They talk about being reasonable on men in women's sports, but they are the very same people who would fund transgender illegal alien surgeries with your money. [Audience boos]

Ladies and gentlemen, we know what they're going to do if we give those people more power. They're going to make this country worse, they're going to fight against you, and they're going to try to give as much of your money as possible to the fraudsters and the illegal aliens, not to the people of North Carolina.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to think I know this state. I served here when I was in the United States Marine Corps. I came to love the great state of North Carolina. And I think you know, as I know, that the far left of the Democrat Party abandoned the good people of this state a long time ago. And I believe that you want real fighters who are hitting the pavement for you every single day in Washington, DC. You want warriors like Michael and Jennifer who are going to take nobody's orders, and whose only loyalty is to the people of North Carolina who got them into that office to begin with.

You want warriors who have stood with you during one of your most devastating disasters in recent memory. My friends, I know some of you will remember my first visit to Western North Carolina right after I was elected vice president of the United States but before I was sworn in, 20 minutes north of here in Fairview.

I hadn't been sworn in yet, but I will never forget that visit because all of you were hurting in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. And we knew that we needed to show up for you. [Audience member calls out "Amen"]

We needed to make sure that your leaders, or at least the people who would become your leaders in 20 days, that we didn't just care about you, but that we actually were going to fight for you, and that we'd do everything we could to help you get back on your feet when we were in power. And you know what one of the things I'm proudest of is that FEMA committed $7.5 billion to rebuilding all the damage caused by Helene.

And of course, we know that the recovery and the rebuilding is still going on; it's going to take years to rebuild the beautiful state that you guys saw suffer after Hurricane Helene. But I'm proud to announce today that, thanks to the hard work of President Trump and the advocacy of these fighters, Secretary Sean Duffy, and of course, because Michael Whatley would not shut up about it. [Laughter] We're announcing $858 million in additional disaster relief funding from the Department of [Inaudible] Now here's what that money is going to do. We're going to rebuild eight major corridors destroyed by Hurricane Helene, including, of course, the I-40 and Pigeon River Gorge.

But, ladies and gentlemen, that highlights the contrast in this election, because when Democrats were in power, they were doing nothing for Western North Carolina. And now that we have Republicans in power and people like Michael Whatley and Jennifer advocating for you, we are making sure that this state gets the money it deserves to rebuild the lives of our fellow citizens.

Every single day, your people, your government should be fighting for you, not for fraudsters, not for illegal aliens, not for criminals, it ought to be fighting for you. And ladies and gentlemen, I am proud that in the Trump administration, that is exactly what we are doing. And unfortunately, we've got to remind everybody of the contrast, because the leftists who care first and foremost, not about you, but about handing out your money to anyone but you.

Michael and Jennifer's opponents, they are nothing more than the pawns of the far left who stand for all that BS. So, it's up to you. I don't get a vote in this state, I don't get a vote in this district, but it's up to you. You have the ability. When it comes time in November, what are we going to say to those radicals?

Hell no, this is our state. It's time for us to say once and for all that we're not going to put up for the politicians who tell you they're moderates on the campaign trail, but then they immediately get to Washington, DC, and they stab you in the back. They stab you in the back by defunding the police; they stab you in the back by raising your taxes; they stab you in the back by putting boys in girls' sports.

So, let me ask you something, North Carolina. On November the 3rd, are we going to stand for your children and for your way of life? On November the 3rd are we going to say hell no to all the crazies the Democrats have been selling? Are we going to fight for lower taxes and a brighter future for the citizens of this state?

Are we going to elect Jennifer and Michael? To Hendersonville and to the entire state of North Carolina, send a message on November the 3rd that America belongs to those who love it, not to those who hate it. Let's go win, ladies and gentlemen. God bless.