COCHISE COUNTY—On the U.S. side of the southern border, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) stood before a gap—a hole in the border wall—as he prepared to speak.
As the land rose behind him, the thin, rust-brown line separating the United States from Mexico blinked out: wall, wall, wall, then nothing at all.
“We see the border wall sitting here, waiting to be completed behind us,” Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said during his Aug. 1 trip to a part of rural Cochise County south of Sierra Vista.
Unused wall material was stacked up nearby, looking every bit the casualty of partisan politics….