Ben Gray / Associated Press / CC BY

Donald Trump shakes hands with JD Vance. Vance, an Ohio senator, was selected as his running mate on Jul. 15.

A subset supporting vice presidential candidate JD Vance has emerged in the Bay Area due to his positions on the economy, gender, and immigration, and his personality.

Vance has been described as a right-wing populist. He firmly opposes abortion, vaccine and mask mandates, gun control, same-sex marriage, and gender-affirming care for minors. He supports mass deportations and a wall on the southern border. He has also spoken against what he perceives as Democrats being anti-family and has argued that being childless is correlated with sociopathy.

“He’ll do whatever he needs to get ahead. Whether that leaves a lot of things burned up on the ground or not, my sense is he doesn’t care,” said San Carlos resident and former mayor Mark Olbert.

When Vance hosted his second fundraising event in the Bay Area on Oct. 9 in Woodside, the attendance costs ranged from $3,300 to $500,000. About 50 supporters rallied nearby, waving bright blue Trump 2024 flags for almost four hours prior to Vance’s arrival. Trump has also made several trips to this area, which is known by both parties as a strong place to fundraise due to the deep pockets of local tech moguls.

The Bay Area is accurately known as a liberal stronghold, with 63.3% of voters in San Francisco being registered with the Democratic Party. However, it has moved somewhat rightward over the past few years, with 3% of those who donated to the Democratic nominee in 2016 or 2020 switching to Trump in the following cycle. Trump’s positive stance on AI and cryptocurrency technologies has appealed to some of the Silicon Valley elite who support and profit from them, while Vance is connected to the Bay Area due to his past venture capitalist work. He is also close with Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, who has financially supported him.

In Belmont and San Carlos, those who do not support Vance believe that he is a great threat to the country and that his views are harmful. Meanwhile, his supporters tend to align with his views and see him as a strong figure.

“Vance is highly intelligent and he wants to save our republic,” Belmont resident and Republican Erika Hathaway said. “He has a very intelligent foreign policy view, so we’re not going to be engaged in all the bloodshed that’s been going on with the current administration. I’m very pro-life, so I think that’s important. Instead of spreading liberalism throughout the world, he would be making it safe for most people. The proof is that when Trump was president we didn’t have wars.”

While no major wars occurred during Trump’s presidency, there were still major international conflicts, such as the U.S. getting involved with the Syrian civil war and the injury of U.S. forces in Iran in retaliatory strikes after the U.S. struck down an Iranian general.

Hathaway also agrees with Vance’s ideas on the economy and immigration.

“Vance would be for safe streets, not defunding the police, and also for a safe border. If Trump and Vance win, they will clean up the mess that the Biden-Harris regime made. It’ll take years and years to get it back to the booming economy it was when Trump was president,” Hathaway said.

Cecilia Baranzini, a Carlmont senior who identifies as a leftist and would vote Democrat if she could vote, does not feel the same way.

“I strongly disagree with Vance’s viewpoints and I think they cause a lot of harm,” Baranzini said. “It would be really bad if he got into a higher position of power.” 

Recently, Vance created and repeated several hoaxes about Haitian immigrants in the Ohio cities of Springfield and Dayton. This led to bomb threats and anti-Haitian sentiment increasing in Springfield. When repeatedly fact-checked, he doubled down and eventually stated that though the statements were false, he stood by them as a way to create a media narrative. 

San Carlos resident and Republican Jeff Dominge agrees with Vance regarding immigration. 

“I think Vance and Trump will go after some of the illegal immigrants who are repeat offenders or gang affiliated,” Dominge said. “I doubt they will meet the numbers that they promise, especially if California is not cooperating with them, but I certainly think every community benefits when you remove criminals.”

Baranzini thinks that Vance’s ideas, including his views on abortion, climate change, and immigration will hurt and divide people.

“His worst quality is his stance on gun control because it’s incredibly dangerous. His response to the gun crisis is to make schools more like military places instead of putting up regulations for how people can access guns,” Baranzini said.

Dominge thinks that Vance’s economic ideas will be beneficial, especially locally. 

“For lower income earners, including students, eliminating tax on tips would provide significant relief. For retirees, especially those on fixed incomes, eliminating taxes on Social Security would be a significant benefit in a community where the cost of living is often driven by high-tech incomes,” Dominge said.

Vance’s economic views differ from most of the Republican Party as he supports antitrust laws and increasing the minimum wage; he aligns with the party on other issues such as trade protectionism and lower taxes.

In addition to his views, Vance’s personality is very polarizing.

“I think he’s a really positive choice. His family was on food stamps. His father was not present, nor was his mother. I think someone who starts with such disadvantages and is able to work through them to become a very successful adult should be admired regardless of political affiliation,” Dominge said. 

Baranzini has concerns about how Vance carries himself, and how it may lead people who pay less attention to become attracted to his campaign without noticing his inaccuracies and potential for harm. 

“He speaks very fluidly and he’s spectacular at evading questions. It confuses people when they listen to him. If you don’t think about it too critically, he makes statements that seem to make a lot of sense,” Baranzini said.

Olbert is also concerned about Vance’s personality but for a different reason. 

“He has demonstrated that he is perfectly willing to sell his soul for political ambition,” Olbert said. “I consider JD Vance to be a more serious long-term threat to the United States than I do Donald Trump because he is more cunning. I worry about the fact that he started out a few years ago being very clearly opposed to Donald Trump, and now they’re like two peas in a pod. That kind of quick turn from one extreme to another is a hallmark of somebody who is willing to do whatever they need in order to achieve their personal goals.”

Hathaway and Dominge did not like Vance’s past comments on Trump, but feel that his change of perspective is not worrisome. 

“I had family members in 2016 who were not pro-Trump, but once the policies came through and the things that he did were positive for the country, they really evolved their perspective. I don’t think JD evolving from being anti-Trump to now being on his ticket is a problem, because he had 4 years of evidence to judge him by,” Dominge said.

In addition to disliking his ambition and cunning, Olbert sees little value in Vance’s views. However, despite his personal disagreements, Olbert believes that selecting Vance was productive for Trump, especially in the Midwest.

“Vance’s name popped up because he’s a younger guy, and he’s willing to be a firebrand,” Olbert said. 

Baranzini, Hathaway, and Dominge agree. However, if the Trump-Vance ticket gets elected, most stated that it would not have a sizable local effect.

“Because we have Gavin Newsom and the California Congress is dominated by Democrats, I honestly don’t think anything could change locally,” Olbert said. “When there’s a Democrat in the White House it’s a lot easier to get certain things done that involve federal energy. Significant local effects are unlikely, but there’ll be second-order effects like that.”

Baranzini had a similar viewpoint, noting the importance of the election for different communities.

“In Belmont, it probably wouldn’t affect us much unless they managed to pass some sort of national law or act, in which case we would be screwed. But there are still so many people in the country that would absolutely not be okay because of the laws and practices that they want to impose,” Baranzini said.

Dominge has a more positive view of how Trump and Vance winning would affect America.

“A ship will tilt heavily in both directions unless it has some ballast that stabilizes it. I think Trump needs that at times, and Vance will offer it to him, which will be good for the nation,” Dominge said.

Overall, most are aware that supporting Vance is a minority viewpoint in Belmont and San Carlos. 

“I think a lot of people in the Bay Area don’t like anybody Republican. It doesn’t matter who’s on the ticket,” Dominge said.

Olbert had a more nuanced view of the local breakdown, noting that many may not necessarily oppose Vance but are instead begrudgingly drawn to him or are uninterested in politics.

“I’m sure there are some absolutely stalwart Republicans in San Mateo County. Beyond that core cadre, I could imagine there are quite a few people who like Vance if they don’t want to vote Democrat and have misgivings about Trump. Now they can at least have an intelligent, sane person who might be able to smooth him out a bit. There’s also probably a lot of people who don’t vote at all and just don’t care,” Olbert said.

Finally, each individual’s sources of information on Vance varied greatly and did not appear largely divided along party lines. 

“I’ve sourced most of what I know about him from watching the vice presidential debate, and I also read a couple of articles. I don’t think I’ve seen a lot about him on social media,” Baranzini said.

Dominge mentioned a few sources that lean left-center despite his own positions being conservative, while Hathaway cited articles from one website as her primary source.

“I’ve sourced most of what I know about him from lifesitenews.com. I prefer to read because with interviews, you watch a whole hour and you get just a little bit of information. It’s a waste of time,” Hathaway said.

Life Site News is considered a questionable source by Media Bias/Fact Check, with extreme rightward bias, low credibility, and low factual reporting.

Olbert brought up left-center-leaning sources.

“Most of what I’ve sourced comes from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and various other news organizations that I consider high-quality. A fair amount is also from friends and colleagues who have been intimately involved in politics, there’s sort of a network out there. Almost none of it comes from TV news because I don’t tend to consider it real news. It’s easier to twist things on TV than it is with written words,” Olbert said.

Election Day 2024 is Nov. 5, and the new president and vice president will take office by January 2025.

“Despite my very steadfast feelings about JD Vance and Harris-Walz, I really hope that more people vote, whoever it’s for. The turnout rate for young voters is terribly, ridiculously low. When you abdicate your right to vote, you’re letting old farts like me set the agenda,” Olbert said.