Johnsonburg is a small borough on the Clarion River in Elk County, Pennsylvania. Home to a paper mill, it has a unique scent in its air. “You can smell it before you can see it,” people endearingly say. My family, like many others, made it their home around the turn of the 20th century. Like so many locales in north central Pennsylvania, it was a boom town – a place where productive industry was growing wealth, population, and optimism.

My grandfather grew up there before relocating an hour or so north to Buffalo, New York – a booming, wealthy city home to what was then the largest steel plant in the world. Lackawanna Steel employed more than 20,000 people at its height. It produced the steel that won the world wars. It helped my family and so many others realize the American dream.

Johnsonburg and Buffalo are still great places full of amazing people. That will never change. But the paper mill that once provided jobs for thousands now employs a few hundred, and Johnsonburg is less than half its former size. The steel plant in Buffalo shuttered in 1982, taking the jobs and leaving behind only empty remnants along Lake Erie as reminders of the city’s once-envied dynamism. In 1950, Buffalo was the nation’s 15th largest city; now it’s number 81.

I am a proud son of the Rust Belt. I know how hard my mom worked to give our little family what we had. I have seen firsthand what deindustrialization and offshoring do to families. I know what it is like to hail from a community that feels forgotten and left behind.

That is why I am buoyed by the selection of J. D. Vance as the Republican nominee for vice president. Another son of the Rust Belt, Vance empathizes with those countless communities who need a champion in Washington. His selection signals a shift in the Republican Party back to a strain of belief that has lain dormant for years – one that staunchly champions free enterprise and dynamism, balanced with a role for government that ensures, in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, that every American gets a “square deal.”

Republicans of the past would recognize many of the positions Vance advocates:

• A need for federal antitrust action to ensure that corporations do not exercise undue influence over our political processes or penalize consumers;
• An embrace of trade policies that protect industries critical to our national security from the unfair trade practices of international competitors;
• An assurance that regulations provide responsible and effective oversight of corporations, especially in light of the East Palestine rail disaster and the recent Boeing controversy;
• A dedication to investing in infrastructure and other projects necessary for economic development, especially in those forgotten communities across the Rust Belt;
• A belief that the freedom and dignity of the individual are inseparable – and that sometimes the government must play a role in helping to provision the public goods necessary for people to attain and retain those freedoms and dignity.

Vance espouses an agenda that my family and friends instinctively connect with. The agenda resonates as well with working-class, formerly Democratic-leaning or Republican-skeptic voters. Many reside here in Pennsylvania, the key state to victory in 2024. What should Vance be doing from now until Election Day? Spending every moment he can in Pennsylvania talking to them.

Whether it is working-class black voters in Philadelphia, working-class Latino voters in Allentown, or working-class white voters in the Mon Valley outside Pittsburgh, the concerns are the same. No communities have been hit harder by the inflation of the last four years or the deindustrialization of the last 30.

Large majorities of these communities have become familiar with Republican support for commonsense and targeted industrial policy, and an immigration policy that prevents illegal immigration and tightens the labor market for those at the lower end of the income distribution. Vance must continue to emphasize the gains that will follow from the implementation of these measures: faster wage and productivity gains for lower-income earners, the rejuvenation of communities through sustainable, broad-based growth, and a greater ability for both individuals and families to stand on their own with dignity without needing to flee the places they love.

If I were Vance, however, I would focus on another issue as well: healthcare. From rural to urban Pennsylvania, access to healthcare – from emergency to specialist services – remains limited. A message of expanding access to care and enlarging our healthcare workforce will resonate deeply, especially in light of the opioid and overdose crisis raging in many of these communities.

Families already struggling to keep their heads above water in many of these communities are one medical emergency away from financial Armageddon. An unplanned surgery, a case of cancer, or the need for a drug to treat a chronic illness can be what tips a precarious financial situation into a disastrous one. A policy focus on lowering costs, lessening the burden of medical debt, and ensuring that consumers benefit from a competitive healthcare market will demonstrate that Republicans understand the problems that people in these places care about.

Senator Vance has spent the better part of his adult life serving just such people. Pennsylvania is filled with them. His addition to the Republican ticket finally gives these communities one of our own as a potential champion in the halls of power. His frequent presence in Pennsylvania from now until Election Day may well determine the outcome.