Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Metallus plant, Monday, July 28, 2025, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Lauren Leigh Bacho)

CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Vice President JD Vance promoted Republicans’ new sweeping tax and spending law at a steel plant in his home state on Monday, telling factory workers that the new law would allow them to keep more of their paycheck in their pockets.

Vance spoke to a crowd of steel workers in neon green, orange, yellow and red hardhats and safety glasses gathered inside a rolling mill at Metallus Inc. in Canton, a competitive congressional district about 60 miles from Cleveland.

The trip marked Vance’s second visit this month to a swing district in his role as lead cheerleader for President Donald Trump’s signature law, an assortment of conservative priorities that Republicans dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” The vice president spoke at an industrial machine shop in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, shortly after the law was enacted.

Echoing themes from the earlier visit, Vance said Monday that American workers should be able to keep more of their hard-earned money and U.S. companies should be rewarded when they grow.

He highlighted the law’s new tax deductions on overtime and its breaks on tipped income.

“For 40 years, while those great American factories closed their doors, we know what went right along with them. It was great American jobs, it was great American dignity and it was great American wages,” he said. “We know that because we’re making smarter decisions in Washington, D.C. We’re going to reward all of you for the great work that you’re doing and we’re going to reward American companies for investing in American companies, not foreign workers for a change.”

Both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to capitalize on the law ahead of next year’s critical midterms. Democrats are zeroing in on its cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, which will leave nearly 12 million more people without health coverage and millions of others without food assistance, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Vance was instrumental in the law’s passage. He broke a tie in the Senate to send the bill to Trump’s desk. He has decried Democrats — including U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, whose district he was visiting — for opposing the bill, which keeps in place tax cuts that otherwise would have expired this year and sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars for Trump’s immigration agenda.

In response to criticism that the bill will strip millions of Americans of Medicaid coverage, Vance said the administration is confident that the way the legislation is structured will not lead to reduced health care outcomes.

“If you want to protect Medicaid — and President Trump certainly wants to — then the best way to protect Medicaid is to ensure only the needy get access to Medicaid, not people who don’t even have the legal right to be in our country to begin with,” he said.

Vance characterized the administration’s immigration crackdown as an effort to keep gangs trafficking deadly fentanyl out of the country.

He said the new law includes billions of dollars “to secure our border, to deport those criminal migrants and to allow the United States to take control of its country once again and kick those drug cartels the hell out of the United States of America.”

Vance’s decision to visit Sykes’ district — across the state from where he grew up in Middletown, Ohio — comes as the National Republican Congressional Committee has named her narrowly split district as a top target this cycle. His northeastern Pennsylvania stop was in the district represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a first-term lawmaker who knocked off a six-time Democratic incumbent last fall.

Katie Smith, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called his visit “another desperate attempt to lie to Ohioans about the devastating impact the Big, Ugly Law will have on working families.”

In response to a question, Vance said he believes the bill represents delivery on Trump’s campaign promises and he said it will be an advantage to Republicans in the midterms.

“I think the way Republicans are using it to help us is pretty simple: We think this is a great bill for the American people. We think it’s great for the incredible American workers that I see smiling up at me right now,” he said.

Polls before the bill’s passage showed that it largely remained unpopular, although the public approves of some individual provisions such as increasing the child tax credit and allowing workers to deduct more of their tips on taxes.

Lorraine Wilbern, a book store operator from North Canton, stood with a group of protesters across the street from the event, some carrying signs that called the measure “Big Ugly Lies” instead of Republicans’ preferred “Big Beautiful Bill.”

“It’s hard for me to see how this bill is really in the benefit of hard-working Americans when billionaires are benefiting so strongly from this bill,” she said. “It’s easy to twist and turn talking points, it’s easy to say, ‘We’re looking toward the future, and it’s going to be very successful,’ but the proof will be in the pudding.”