By Tyler Arnold
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2024 / 18:10 pm
Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, at an Oct. 20 faith rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, accused the Biden-Harris administration of persecuting Christians and Catholics in particular.
In his speech, Vance also spoke about religious liberty and the impact of inflation, illegal immigration, and drug addiction.
“There are a lot of Catholics … [who] I think rightfully feel abandoned by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ leadership, and they’re just looking for somebody to protect their rights and make this country an affordable and decent place to raise a family,” Vance said at the Sunday afternoon rally in the battleground state.
“I think that’s true of a lot of Catholics,” Vance said. “It’s true of non-Catholics, too. But we cannot have an American government that is persecuting Christians for living their faith. We should be rewarding people and encouraging people to live their faith.”
Vance took Harris to task for her support for “suing Catholic nuns to force them to perform procedures that violate their conscience.”
The allegation appears to be in reference to Harris’ 2019 support for the Do No Harm Act, which would have ended religious liberty exemptions for certain government mandates, including for health insurance coverage. It would have scaled back the protections in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act so the government could force religious employers to include coverage for abortion and transgender surgeries in their health insurance plans.
Democratic lawmakers introduced the legislation to push back against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic community of religious sisters who were suing the federal government over a mandate that their health insurance plan cover abortion. The sisters won at the Supreme Court.
“I think that’s ridiculous,” Vance continued. “I think we’re a big enough country where we can actually respect the right of people of faith to live according to their conscience and not try to force Kamala Harris’ progressive values down their throat.”
The Trump campaign has also been critical of Harris for scrutinizing judicial nominees for being members of the Knights of Columbus and for a leaked internal Richmond FBI memo that called for an investigation into a supposed link between so-called “radical traditionalist Catholics” and “the far-right white nationalist movement.” Trump also criticized Harris for skipping the Al Smith dinner, which raises money for Catholic charities and is traditionally attended by both major-party candidates.
“Kamala Harris is the candidate of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic bigotry,” Vance said. “She brags about it. That’s her policy record. Donald Trump is the candidate of defending your First Amendment right to practice your faith however you want to, because this is the United States of America, and we believe in religious liberty in this country.”
Vance also blamed Harris and President Joe Biden for the rising cost of living, resulting from high levels of inflation. He blamed government spending for the inflation, which he said harmed families and “made groceries unaffordable for American citizens.”
Additionally, Vance blamed Biden and Harris for the flood of migrants illegally entering the United States. He said their border policies have made Americans less safe and sparked a rise in fentanyl-laced drugs in the country.
On a personal note, Vance referred to his mother’s past struggle with opioid addiction, saying she “has been clean and sober for 10 years, and we’re proud of her.”
“That, to me, is the grace of God,” he said. “I know in this room, [many people] believe that God sometimes works in mysterious ways, but he does work every single day in the lives of citizens of this state and of this country. I’m living proof of it, my friends.”
“But while we pray to God for recovery and we fight every single day for those of our loved ones who are getting caught up in this stuff, wouldn’t it be nice to have a president of the United States who stopped this poison from coming into our country in the first place?” Vance added.
Hundreds of people turned out for Vance’s rally, which took place outside of Milwaukee, the state’s largest city. Several people held campaign signs that read “Catholics for Trump.” Vance is a convert to Catholicism and noted during the speech that he was “baptized for the first time in 2019” and “returned to my faith as a young man.”
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“I know all of you are praying for me, and I know we got a lot of Catholics for Trump,” Vance said. “I see the signs here. Thank you, Catholics for Trump.”
While he was speaking, one attendee loudly yelled “Jesus is king,” to which Vance responded: “That’s right — Jesus is king” and received loud cheers and applause from the crowd. This appeared to be in reference to an incident that took place at a Harris rally two days earlier. Two college students say they were asked to leave a Harris rally after reportedly shouting, “Jesus is Lord.” A video circulating on social media, however, shows that someone in the audience also shouted “Liar! Liar!” before Harris told them they were “at the wrong rally.”
“Whether you’re a person of [the] Christian faith or not, Donald Trump and I are going to fight for your right to live your values because that’s what the First Amendment protects,” Vance said.
According to a polling average from RealClearPolling, Trump and Harris are virtually tied in Wisconsin, a state with 10 Electoral College votes. In all seven battleground states with the tightest races, polls show Trump with very narrow leads, with Harris less than two percentage points behind in each — well within the margin of error.
Some recent polls show that Catholic voters are nearly evenly divided on the 2024 presidential election. According to a September Pew Research Center survey, about 52% of Catholics support Trump and 47% support Harris. A poll conducted by the National Catholic Reporter found that Catholics in the seven most tightly contested swing states preferred Trump 50% to Harris’ 45%.
