JD Vance’s debate rehabilitated his image. He quickly went back to throwing bombs

Before Senator JD Vance took the stage at a town hall in Greensboro, North Carolina, attendees said he piqued their interest because of the civility he showed toward his Demoratic opponent for vice president, Governor Tim Walz, during their sole debate.

“I think he was very smooth with everything that he said,” Chase Johnson from Graham, North Carolina, told The Independent. “Actually one of the better debates we’ve had in the long time, probably the most civil debate since Obama and Romney.”

John Pittman, who is from Greensboro, told The Independent that he appreciated how respectful he was toward Walz when the governor mentioned how his son was present during a shooting.

Polling showed that Vance’s image – long battered because of his comments about “childless cat ladies” and his flip-flopping on his running mate Donald Trump – improved signficantly and he is now only slightly underwater.

But as he took the stage during a town hall at the Koury Convention Center, the image of Vance the civil statesman slowly began to peel off and he reassumed his image as Trump’s attack dog.

Initially, Vance showed a concilatory side as he took the stage with Danica Patrick, a retired NASCAR driver who led the event, talking about how and Trump would not abandon Western North Carolina as it has been battered by Hurricane Helene, which received a warm applause.

“And we’re never going to let the people of that region of our country, the region that really built our country, we’re never going to let them be left behind and forgotten,” he said. But immediately afterward, he criticized President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, for not dispatching the 82nd Airborne division of the United States Army.

Similarly, midway through a follow-up question, a woman nearly fell off a platform behind him and screamed.

“Kamala Harris built this platform behind me, that’s what happened” he said.

Vance’s events are decidedly different from his would-be boss. For one, they often run shorter and the playlist includes bands like The Clash, Led Zeppelin and Guns N’ Roses as well Merle Haggard’s “America First,” his walk-on song. Second, he often takes a more pugnacious tone that remains relentlessly on message, focusing almost solely on restricting illegal immigration and enacting Trump’s plans to conduct mass deportations.

Almost all of the solutions he suggests, from fixing Social Security to lowering the cost of housing, can only happen by restricting immigration.

For example, Vance was asked about deportiations and Trump’s lie that 13,000 murderers crossed the US-Mexico border during the Biden administration. In response, he used immigration as a wedge between Wester North Carolinians who are reeling from the effects of Helene and migrants.

“And if the message that our country sends after 25 million illegal aliens coming into this country is you get to stay here, you get to collect housing benefits, you get to collect welfare benefits, while folks in western North Carolina are struggling to survive, we will never have a border in this country again,” he said.

The Trump campaign and his allies have repeatedly spread lies that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was assisting immigrants with money meant for disaster relief, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked and that President Joe Biden has pushed back on.

The town hall comes as the election has tightened across the board, according to polls. Similarly, both Trump and Harris are competing for the state that has not voted for a Democratic nominee for president since Barack Obama won it in 2008. On Saturday, Harris will head to nearby Greenville.

Staying on-message, Vance said there had been an influx of undocumented children in Michigan and North Carolina’s public schools.

“It’s nothing against those kids, it’s saying something against Kamala Harris, who let those kids come in and deprive Americans of good education,” he added.

Things took a more obscure turn when host Patricks said “the globalist view of own nothing and be happy is not what the American people want.” Vance responded, claiming “they want you to live in a pod, eat bugs and own nothing.”

Returning to policy, the Ohio senator responded to a question from a retired health care worker who was worried that Trump would cut Social Security, which he refuted and touted that Trump supports removing taxes on the program.

“But you know what will bankrupt Social Security in this country? Giving it to illegal aliens,” he said. “And that’s what I think is so sick about what Kamala Harris is going out there doing. She is accusing us of doing the very same thing that she herself is promising to do.”

Later, Vance also attacked Harris for not speaking regularly to the media and for her fumbling a question from The View about how she would be different from Biden.

Toward the end, Patrick asked him to show a special skill, which led him to do his impersonation of Harris, saying “well, I was raised family,” and “that’s the Kamla Harris answer to any question,” before adding: “I forgot the awkward cackle afterwards.”

At the same time, shades of the personable Vance who wrote Hillbilly Elegy and became a sought-after pundit came out, such as when he suggested if he could drive any car right now, he would drive his mini-van. And right at the end, he mentioned how he is an avid baker with his four-year-old son and they made cinnamon rolls, dulce de leche rolls and chocolate chip scones.