JD Vance’s team just can’t get the hang of campaign stops

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance

Primanti Bros., a sandwich shop founded in Pittsburgh, is an icon in Pennsylvania, probably the most important state in this presidential election. It’s a swing state with 19 electoral votes, and as such, Primanti Bros. is an attractive campaign stop, a place where candidates look to shore up their street-cred bona fides. 

And yet Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance screwed it up big time.

As in an embarrassing stop at a doughnut shop earlier this cycle, Vance’s staff has proven once again unable to perform the most basic advance work. According to the restaurant, Vance’s team didn’t notify anyone that he—or his Secret Service agents, or his police escort, or a group of his supporters—would be stopping there. Because of that, the shop’s manager initially refused to allow Vance inside.

Awkward. 

After this, Vance held a little meet-and-greet with tens of his supporters in the parking lot. But eventually, once the initial confusion was cleared up, the restaurant says that Vance was allowed inside.

Still, a 2024 Trump delegate from New Jersey called the event “reminiscent of Jim Crow.”

Altogether, this was an easily avoidable screwup—if your team has competent people in it. But with Donald Trump’s team, everything is chaos, anger, and confusion.

Want to know how avoidable all of this was? Vice President Kamala Harris made a similar but screwup-free stop not too long ago.

Nothing beats a stop at Primanti Bros https://t.co/OvpcYLIO69 pic.twitter.com/lfYzVzgF6Y

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 29, 2024

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