Vice President Pence rallies supporters in northern Minnesota

“She put her radical environmental agenda ahead of American jobs and American workers.”

Vice President Pence during a campaign stop in Hibbing, Minnesota. (Mike Pence/Twitter)

With eight days until the general election, Vice President Mike Pence campaigned on a frigid Monday afternoon in front of about 650 people in Hibbing, Minnesota.

Pence delivered 45 minutes of remarks with Rep. Pete Stauber, Mike Lindell, and others at Range Regional Airport, encouraging voters in a region President Donald Trump needs to win big to have a chance to turn Minnesota red.

Mike Pence/Twitter

Pence also promoted U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis, who planned to attend amid his surging in recent polls, but underwent successful emergency hernia surgery today.

Claiming “the Iron Range is Trump country,” Pence focused on law enforcement, the economy, mining, Chinese tariffs, veterans affairs, farms, factories and local communities.

On trade, he reminded attendees that Kamala Harris was one of only 10 senators to oppose the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement because “by not addressing climate change, the USMCA fails to meet the crises of this moment,” the vice presidential nominee said earlier this year.

“She put her radical environmental agenda ahead of American jobs and American workers,” Pence explained.

Additionally, Pence said he believes the first coronavirus vaccine and tens of millions of doses will be ready distribute before the end of 2020. He boasted that almost 200,000 Minnesotans have returned to work since the outbreak.

He also touched on the Minneapolis riots, the two campaigns’ different views on religious liberty and said millions lost health insurance under Obamacare, a point Biden incorrectly denied last week.

“We are coming to a time for choosing; the choice never clearer, the stakes never higher,” Pence closed. “Joe Biden will be nothing more than a Trojan horse for the radical left … he will steer our nation on a path toward more government, less freedom, socialism and American decline.”

Mike Pence/Twitter

The Biden campaign criticized the visit, releasing a boilerplate statement on the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response.

The current vice president was last in the area two months ago, when he spoke along with Lewis in Duluth.

Trump campaigned at Duluth International Airport Sept. 30, the day after his first debate with Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden. The former vice president campaigned in northern Minnesota Sept. 18.

Trump also hosted an event that night in Bemidji. While he was speaking, news was announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. The president learned this after his speech ended.

The president carried Minnesota’s long-time Democrat-leaning Eighth Congressional District by 15 percentage points in 2016. Republicans flipped the seat in 2018 when Stauber won by five. If the former police officer wins next week, he will be the first Republican re-elected in the district since the 1940s.

 

A.J. Kaufman

A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.