LAWRENCEVILLE — JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, visited a campaign office for former President Donald Trump in Gwinnett County to praise volunteers for helping the GOP ticket achieve victory in November.
The Ohio senator encouraged the volunteers gathered at the county’s Trump campaign headquarters to continue their work calling voters, knocking on doors and writing postcards to make sure every supporter votes.
“If we vote and our people get out there and vote, we’re going to win,” he said.
The margins matter because four years ago Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia’s presidential contest by fewer than 12,000 votes. Biden defeated Trump in Gwinnett with 58% of the vote.
Friday marks Vance’s latest visit to the battleground state. He spoke last week to a few hundred people at a shuttered textile mill in northwest Georgia. He also headlined the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual gala in September.
Justice Nwaigwe, who was part of the Gwinnett crowd, said he has knocked on more than 250 doors near Dacula since he began canvassing this summer because he prefers face-to-face interaction with voters.
Vance, he said, “is a super down-to-earth guy with a typical American upbringing and military service that makes him a leader and good citizen.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Nwaigwe, 40, uses Vance’s story as a Trump skeptic, or “never Trump guy,” to show how even a critic can become one of the former president’s biggest supporters.
While at the office, Vance called two Georgia voters, including a woman who told him she was concerned about whether young people were supporting their campaign.
“I understand what you mean, but I think we’ve got to do as well as we can with the youth voters,” he said. “But I do think that we’re going to do very well among folks who realize how bad it can get if we don’t have good leadership.”
Vance did not take questions from reporters. He did take questions from attendees who asked what his biggest challenge is on the campaign trail, what he has enjoyed as he travels the country, and his favorite kind of pie: cherry.
“Every single time we make a voter contact, and you expand that by 10,000 contacts a week, and you take what all you’re doing, and then every other county where we’re doing the same thing in the state of Georgia, this is how we win the election,” he said.
And voter turnout “is really good for us,” he said, adding that voters can connect with concerns about policies from the Biden administration.
“They’re worried about paying their mortgage. They’re worried about paying their bills,” he said.
Early in-person voting in Georgia begins Tuesday.
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