JD Vance talks immigration, public school curriculum in a Montgomery County appeal to the ‘mom vote’

Seeking to appeal to an audience of conservative mothers, Sen. JD Vance persistently returned to personal stories about his wife, Usha Vance, and their three young children at a Montgomery County town hall Tuesday night.

He played up his role as a husband and father, describing his family’s experience on the campaign trail, including a trip to Hersheypark, and the first time Usha Vance met her husband’s running mate, former President Donald Trump.

The conversation, hosted by the right-wing group Moms for America, focused heavily on illegal immigration and school curriculums regarding race and gender.

Vance referred to his own marriage and children when asked about the discussion of race in public schools. He explained his own mother’s frustration with people’s questions over the race of his biracial children.

“She’s like, they’re just our babies, right?” said Vance, whose wife was born to South Indian parents. “And I want us to think about all of our kids, whatever the color of their skin, they’re just our babies. They’re America’s babies.”

The town hall in Lafayette Hill marked Vance’s second visit to the Philadelphia suburbs as the Trump campaign turns new attention to the collar counties in the final weeks before the election. Republicans have lost ground in Philadelphia’s suburbs in recent years and Trump will need to limit Vice President Kamala Harris’ gains among independents and moderate Republicans to win the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania in November.

» READ MORE: The Trump and Harris campaigns are flooding the zone in Pennsylvania this week

However, the group hosting Tuesday’s event, Moms for America, has adopted positions prominent on the rightmost edge of the Republican Party. The group has been outspoken in its opposition to abortion rights and sponsored Trump’s rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Moms for America has also advocated against the participation of transgender athletes in girls sports and school curriculums intended to be inclusive of LGBTQ students. The group has accepted large donations from a fund closely tied to the Bradley Foundation, which has previously contributed to anti-LGBTQ initiatives, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Before Vance came on stage, the group’s founder, Kimberly Fletcher, appeared to compare members of the Democratic Party to dictators like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, who she said came to power and held it by targeting children.

“They are going after our children. They’ve openly said it,” she said, not directly identifying who she was referring to. “But that’s not all. They are trying to disrupt our whole entire system.”

In a statement before the town hall, a Democratic National Committee spokesperson said that Vance’s appearance with Moms for America was “dangerous pandering to far-right extremists.”

Tuesday’s town hall was arranged around shoring up the “mom vote” for Trump and Vance.

Women in Philly’s suburbs could play a key role in determining who wins the commonwealth in November. They helped power Biden’s 2020 victory in the state and have been an increasingly reliable voting group for Democrats after the overturning of federal protections for abortion rights in 2022.

» READ MORE: Women in Philly’s suburbs are key to determining the 2024 election

Harris’ campaign has been persistently sending surrogates to the Philly suburbs, and Harris herself was visiting Bucks County for a rally on Wednesday. On Monday, Trump also held a town hall in Montgomery County, an event that took an odd turn after two attendees had medical emergencies and the former president opted to listen to music rather than continue the question-and-answer session.

Despite Democrats’ focus on the issue, Vance didn’t discuss abortion once during the Tuesday event. Instead, he took questions from seven mothers who spoke before he came on stage about issues they said they’d encountered over the last four years.

That discussion centered on immigration, the economy, and public schools’ approach to LGBTQ students and curriculums regarding race and gender.

Vance sought to draw a line between curriculums about racism and discussion of gender and sexuality in schools and the ongoing fentanyl crisis, arguing funding that could be teaching kids to say no to drugs was instead going to “radical gender curriculum.”

“We don’t even realize how much of our tax dollars, how much money of the people in this room, goes into funding very radical curriculum,” Vance said, pledging to defund curriculums that “indoctrinate” children without saying how that would be accomplished.

Since 2020, school curriculums over race and gender have been flash points across the country as parents and right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty flooded school board meetings, requesting bans on specific books and claiming schools are indoctrinating children to a specific belief system. The efforts have been panned by critics as harmful to LGBTQ students and teachers, and an effort to whitewash history.

In Bucks County, several school board members were elected in 2021 as a result of the so-called parental rights movement, and many of those same members were voted out in 2023 after facing criticism for book bans and pursuing policies targeting transgender students.

The focus on parental rights, immigration, and the economy resonated with the crowd of Philly-area Republican parents who gave Vance a warm reception.

“I’m very focused on parental rights and making sure that parents have the fundamental right to the upbringing of their children,” said Tiffany Barbato, 48, of Haverford, who has been active with Moms for Liberty.

Similarly, Jennie Stokley, a 36-year-old teacher from Conshohocken, said Trump and Vance thought more about middle-class families like hers.

“I think about my kids and what I want for them when they’re older, and I want them to have a better country than we have now,” she said.

As he finished the town hall, Vance acknowledged that polls have persistently shown female voters preferring Democrats. He urged the several dozen attendees in the crowd at the Union League Liberty Hill, as well as those watching online, to speak to their friends and neighbors who were uncomfortable voting for Trump.

“Moms are the best ambassadors to say, ‘Look, don’t believe the lies that you’ve heard about these guys, vote for what’s in your best interest,’” he said.

This story has been updated to correct Tiffany Barbato’s age.