VALDOSTA — Vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, is coming to Lowndes County Thursday to stump for votes in the upcoming November national election.

Vance, a Republican, is the running mate for former President Donald Trump. who is seeking to take back the White House after losing the presidency to Joe Biden in 2020.

The vice presidential candidate will speak at the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, located at the jail complex at 120 Prison Farm Road, at 1 p.m., said Sheriff Ashley Paulk.

The rally is expected to draw about 400 people and will take place in the jail’s parking lot, the sheriff said.

“There will be security on hand,” he said. On July 13, there was an assassination attempt against Trump that failed at a campaign rally in Butler, Penn.

The Trump-Vance campaign website describes the Valdosta stopover as “an Immigration Event” under a general day-long campaign theme of “Make America Secure Again.”

Vance will be campaigning in Valdosta the same day Trump’s expected election rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, is expected to accept the Democratic nomination for president in Chicago.

This is only Valdosta’s latest moment on the national elections stage. In 2016, presidential candidate Trump visited the city and appeared in a rally that gained national headlines when several black attendees claimed they were removed from the gathering; the police chief at the time, Brian Childress, said the decision about the ejection was made by Trump’s staff.

In 2020, in the days after losing the presidential election, President Trump was back in town on Air Force One, stumping for Republican Senate candidates facing runoffs.