NEWTOWN, Pa. — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, spent the evening before Election Day courting undecided voters and Trump loyalists alike at a rally in Bucks County, one of the most purple districts in must-win Pennsylvania. 

Vance focused primarily on illegal immigration, the economy and the Trump-Vance plan for boosting American manufacturing. He also made the occasional joke. 

“It’s the last day of the campaign. I think today I’m just going to say whatever the hell I want to,” Vance quipped. 

Vance’s only foreign policy reference came toward the end of his half-hour address, when he talked about not putting American servicemembers in harm’s way unless there is a direct, imminent threat to the homeland.

“I’ve met veterans and active servicemembers of the military, people who put on the uniform every single day and offer to risk their lives for people in this country,” Vance said. “But you know what? If they are asked to risk their lives for the United States of America, they want it to be for our national security and not to be the policeman of the world.”

Vance then pointed to his discussions with Gold Star families who lost loved ones during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that those family members were frustrated that “not a single Pentagon bureaucrat, not a single person has faced accountability” for the pullout. 

“Think about all of those people: the woman praying for me even though she can’t afford groceries, the parents who just want to raise their teenagers in safe and secure neighborhoods, the veterans who love serving this country but only want to serve this country, not some foreign bureaucrat,” Vance said. 

“This is an incredible country that we have, my friends. We’ve got 250 years of the greatest tradition of liberty, of freedom, of self-government anywhere in the entire world, but I believe that the American people deserve so much better. I believe that our parents deserve to be able to raise their children in safe neighborhoods. I believe that our workers deserve to know that they’ve got a president who’s fighting for their job rather than fighting to send it overseas. Our brave personnel in the military deserve to know that they’ve got a president who respects their sacrifice and will only send them to war if we absolutely have to,” he continued. 

Both campaigns have committed resources to the area. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said last month that it had three campaign offices in Bucks County, where election officials said over the summer that they had registered more Republicans than Democrats for the first time in over a decade. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, called Bucks County “the swingiest of all swing counties in the swingiest of all swing states.”

Bucks County backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Trump in 2016 by just over 2,000 votes. Four years later, Biden won by 17,000 votes. The area went for Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) by similar margin’s to Biden’s 2020 win two years later. 

Trump beat former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP presidential primary by a 60-point margin in Bucks County, more than a month after she withdrew from the race. 

Still, Haley was popular enough in the area (especially in white-collar neighborhoods such as Doylestown, Yardley and Newtown, where Vance held his Monday night rally) that she came to neighboring Montgomery County last week to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick. Montgomery County is home to over 100,000 Jews, more than 10% of the county’s population overall. 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a moderate who chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and is in a competitive fight for reelection, did not appear at the Newtown event.