Pa. voters find common ground with JD Vance, whose mom battled addiction

Erie, Pennsylvania – Sen. JD Vance struck a chord with Pennsylvania voters Wednesday when he touched on a topic that impacts millions of American families: drug addiction – which his mother battled when he was younger.

Many in attendance at Vance’s campaign stop in the city of Erie told The Post they’re glad former President Donald Trump chose Vance as his vice presidential running mate because he can empathize with the struggles their families face.

Political support in Erie County is paramount as it’s considered a battleground county in the state.

“I have two brothers who died of opioids,” said Mary Doyle, 63 and a stay-at-home mom from the city of Erie. “I know people in our neighborhood who have kids, they’re dropping like flies.”

“We saw Mary’s brother two years ago in a body bag. Opioids. Fentanyl poisoning. And nobody talks about it,” her husband Dan Doyle, a fracker who opened for Vance, added.

“Nobody cares,” Mary said, but “here you see JD Vance talking about it. Trump talks about it. You don’t see the Dems talking about it.”

She plans to vote for Donald Trump a third time this November, and is glad Vance is on the Republican ticket.

Vance’s New York Times bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy put him on the map in 2016. It describes how he overcame the violence and instability of growing up with a single mother addicted to opioids in Middletown, Ohio.

His mother is now 10 years sober, Vance said last month at the Republican National Convention.

Chris Knight, 68, brought a hard copy of Vance’s book to the event and said her daughter struggled with heroin for years and “now helps other people so they don’t go down this path.” They’re both big Vance fans.

“I can relate to him so well. I relate to him totally,” Knight, a head school cook from nearby Corry, Pennsylvania, told The Post. 

Vance said that Erie reminds him of where he grew up. “This is a beautiful place” with a “proud manufacturing tradition” that “has been left behind.” 

Automation and Chinese competition have hollowed out Erie’s economy. Erie County now has fewer jobs and residents today than it did in 2001, according to the Washington Post.

Vance blamed the consensus to offshore manufacturing and the “stupid policies of Kamala Harris.” 

“The number one issue when I go to places like Erie, Pennsylvania is inflation,” he said. “The number two issue is why did Kamala Harris open up the southern border and let these cartels bring in the poison that’s killing our families?”

Mary agreed: “The border is open. They just let it flow across.”

Deaths due to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids more than doubled since 2020, when the pandemic hit.

The Biden-Harris administration spent more on treatment and prevention rather than stemming the supply of drugs while illegal border crossings from Mexico, from which cartels smuggle fentanyl into the US, reached an all-time high in December 2023.

Under Trump’s plan for mass deportation, Vance promised Erie, “You’re gonna have fewer people dying of drug overdoses, you’re gonna have fewer people who are suffering.”

Erie County, which went for Trump in 2016 and narrowly for Biden in 2020, had the highest rate of opioid overdoses and second-most accidental drug deaths in 2023 among all of Pennsylvania’s counties. 90% of those 122 drug-related deaths were attributable to fentanyl. One day in June saw seven overdose deaths – in six hours.

“This is opioid central,” Mary said. “People have lost their jobs and the kids don’t have any hope.”

“Kids are scared,” said her daughter Maria Doyle, who’s 16 and a sophomore in high school.

Her twin sister Elena added, “It is laced everywhere.”

Young people, especially college students, “take a pill to stay up late to study and then they die,” Maria said. “That’s happened to our neighbor.”

They said that the Republican Party has trouble reaching younger voters like them, and that Vance could change that.

“I can’t see [Trump] in my shoes at all. I can’t understand how to be him because he’s so rich. JD Vance understands it more,” Elena said. Not only is he younger, but “his background story is also really inspiring to all of us – that everyone has a chance.”

Maria chimed in: “Anyone can relate to him.”

They saw the Hillbilly Elegy movie just the other day. “He’s kind of like a hillbilly like in his movie,” Maria said. “He understands addiction.”

“The whole Republican Party is changing, and we’re addressing the opioid problem,” their mom said. “Now the Democrats are the elitists and the Republicans have become the working man.”

Though Vance polls almost 10% more unfavorable than favorable, the twins agreed he was the future of the Republican Party. 

“He has a lot of time left,” Elena said with a laugh. “He’s forty years old.”