The 2024 election season is heating up, and the latest clash comes from Ohio Senator JD Vance, who’s taking aim at Vice President Kamala Harris. Vance, a Republican, recently held a campaign event in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he didn’t mince words, accusing Harris of running a “copycat campaign” and shifting her stance on key policies, particularly those involving the American trucking industry and energy policy.
Here’s what went down: Vance criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s approach to electric vehicle (EV) mandates, a hot-button issue that’s increasingly dividing the political landscape.
He claimed that Harris, who previously led the Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan in 2021, is pushing to raise the price of diesel and gasoline, ultimately forcing truckers across the country to switch to electric vehicles. Vance argued that such mandates would devastate the trucking industry, worsen the inflation crisis, and put countless truckers out of business.
Vance’s remarks come in response to recent shifts in Harris’s campaign positions. Over the past few weeks, her staffers have indicated that she’s adjusted her stance on several critical issues, including fracking, an automatic weapons buyback program, border wall construction, and even Medicare for all.
One of the most significant changes involves her position on electric vehicle mandates. Despite her earlier push for 50% of car sales to be electric by 2030, Harris’s campaign now insists she does not support an outright mandate.
Vance seized on this apparent shift, accusing Harris of mimicking Donald Trump’s positions in an effort to appeal to a broader base. “If you look at her campaign, the past week and a half, she pretends that she agrees with Donald J. Trump on every issue. She is running a copycat campaign,” Vance told the crowd in Erie.
But Vance didn’t stop there. He warned that if Harris’s policies were implemented, it would severely damage the American economy, particularly for truckers.
“If you force all these great truckers to buy electric trucks instead of the trucks they’re currently using, you’re going to make this inflation crisis way worse than it currently is,” Vance said, highlighting the importance of the trucking industry to the nation’s economic health. He vowed that a Trump-Vance administration would put a stop to what he calls “job-killing regulations like the EV mandate.”
In response to Vance’s accusations, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign pushed back, emphasizing the differences between her policies and those of Trump and Vance. The spokesperson pointed out that Harris supports abortion rights, middle-class tax cuts, and unifying the country—key areas where she and Trump-Vance stand on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They also took the opportunity to criticize what they described as the “dangerous” Project 2025 agenda promoted by Trump and Vance.
