U.S. Sen. JD Vance pitches the GOP as the party of American workers at firefighters' convention

A day after Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz got a warm reception from the International Association of Firefighters at their annual convention in Boston, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance made his own pitch to the group.

While the powerful union typically backs Democrats, and endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 election, its members are divided this year and have yet to make a formal endorsement. From the moment Vance walked onto the stage, the split in the crowded convention hall was clear.

There was applause. There were boos. But Vance asked critics to give him a chance.

"Sounds like we got some fans and some haters. That's OK," he said. "Let's listen to what I have to say here."

Vance's pitch to the largest firefighter union was fairly straightforward: Firefighters, he claimed, are worse off than they were before President Biden took office.

"Under the economic mismanagement of this administration, firefighters have had already strained budgets and pensions stretched to the breaking point by this affordability crisis," he said. "And under the open border policies of this administration, America has experienced a massive increase and a massive influx of illegal aliens and deadly drugs."

But, he suggested, a second Trump administrated would fix these problems.

"President Trump and I want exactly what you want, more jobs, rising wages, a secure border, safe streets and an affordable country," he said.

In one of the larger applause moments of the speech, Vance said the country should spend less money housing immigrants and more money on schools, police and fire departments and U.S. citizens: "And under President Donald J. Trump's leadership, we will."

Vance, whose memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" described growing up in Middletown, Ohio amid the opioid epidemic, spent much of his speech Thursday on the nation's drug crisis.

"There's a hidden trauma among our firefighters," he said. "A trauma that comes from staring death in the eye every single day and worrying that you are fighting a losing battle."

He shared with the crowd a time he called 911 as a child, while his mother was struggling with addiction. Firefighters and EMTs calmed his mom down, he said, "but as you all know, they calmed me down too. They calmed my sister down." He added, "They did that public service that only they can do."

"So believe it from me, believe it from a kid who's seen it with his very own eyes, you are making a difference. You are saving lives, and you are giving people an opportunity and a second chance, even if you don't see them take that opportunity every single time," Vance said. "You make a difference every single day, and I thank you for it."

Vance also pledged to protect firefighters' pensions and to respect their right to collective bargaining. On the campaign trail, he's been making an effort to rebrand the Republican party as pro-worker.

"You may have noticed that Donald Trump is not exactly like Mitt Romney or some of the Republicans of the past," Vance said. "He is a different kind of Republican. And under his leadership, the Republican Party is the party of the American worker."

It's a message that didn't resonate with Bryan Copeland, a firefighter from Lakewood, Washington.

"I felt like the speech lacked perspective on professional firefighters in the country and that there was no real specifics as to how we could benefit from a Trump-Vance administration," he said. Walz, by contrast, appeared to "understand what we do as firefighters [and] he understands what our union stands for," he said.

During Trump's presidency, there were a number of setbacks for unions, including changes that created a more difficult process to organize at nonunion workplaces and shaking up the financial stability of public sector unions.

Josh Pitts, a firefighter from South Walton, Florida, and president of the local union chapter, had a different take on the two candidates' speeches.

"[Vance] didn't just show up and tell us, 'Hey, I support you.' He backed it up with facts," Pitts said. "I felt like [Walz's speech] yesterday was sort of a nice hoo-rah speech, try-to-get-you-going type speech, but it didn't have a lot of substance."

Robert Smith, a firefighter with a local union chapter from Florida, also found Vance's speech more substantive.

"I thought the speech was great," he said. "It was informative. It was issues that we needed to hear about. It was fact-based."

What Smith didn't appreciate, he said, was the vocal dissent from some in the audience. While everyone was "respectful" during Walz's speech, Vance's speech was meet with "a lot of booing and not as much tolerance as I expected," he said. "It was disappointing."

Both Smith and Pitts noted that the political divide among attendees was palpable at this year's convention, and said the union should avoid endorsing either candidate this election season.