Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance made a campaign stop at Toledo’s Maumee Bay Brewing Co. on Monday.
He spoke about inflation, critical race theory, trade, and the challenges he himself has overcome in life.
“They’re focused on these ridiculous, fake issues, and they’re failing at their most basic tasks,” Mr. Vance said about the state of the country’s current leadership.
Mr. Vance, who first rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, has made trade one of his biggest talking points, taking aim at China and corporations that aren’t using American labor.
“The real way to bring a lot of our manufacturing base back from overseas is to penalize the companies that are doing business with regimes who hate us, and the only way to do that is with tariffs,” Mr. Vance said. “For 30 years a bipartisan group has said tariffs are bad, and it's led to the decimation of places like Toledo and Middletown and others all across Ohio.”
Mr. Vance, 37, is seeking the Republican nomination to replace Rob Portman in the Senate. Mr. Portman, a two-term Republican from Cincinnati, will retire at the end of 2022.
Other Republicans in the field include former state treasurer Josh Mandel, investment banker Mike Gibbons, entrepreneur Bernie Moreno, and former state party chairman Jane Timken. U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, from northeast Ohio, and consumer protection attorney and former congressional candidate Morgan Harper are running for the Democratic nomination.
The messaging bringing American jobs home resonated with the voters who came to listen to Mr. Vance.
“I think that I was drawn to the Vance campaign, ... he’s the one that’s truly out there touting for the Ohio worker,” said Toledo voter Mark Weisenburger. “He’s got a background, he’s asking for us to come together. We need jobs back here.”
Mr. Vance didn’t address any of his GOP opponents, but he did call out Mr. Ryan during a conversation about term limits, which he said he would be in favor of and would only serve 12 years in the Senate himself.
"If I have not done something useful for you all in 12 years, it's time for me to find a different source of employment,” he said. “Tim Ryan, who's going to be my Democratic opponent, this guy has been in Washington, D.C., for 20 years. What other profession do you fail miserably and get a promotion?"
Mr. Ryan’s campaign released a statement in response to that claim.
“These are empty talking points from a Silicon Valley millionaire who will try anything to distract from the fact that he called Donald Trump a racist and an idiot — effectively crushing any chance he might otherwise have had to make it past primary day,” stated Izzi Levy, spokesman for Mr. Ryan’s campaign.
In the wake of recent ads attacking Mr. Vance for his previous criticisms of former President Donald Trump, he decided to address the issue with the room head-on, saying that Mr. Trump won him over during his term.
“He just was willing to take on special interests in a way that most normal people, most normal politicians wouldn’t,” he said. “The other thing is, having watched the press and having watched our entire country's leadership, the past 5 years, how could you watch that and not become a fan of Donald Trump? Because it revealed the corruption.”
Voters in attendance were also happy with Mr. Vance’s views on critical race theory. He did not hold back on his feelings about the issue, placing much of the blame on the country’s higher education institutions.
“It comes from the American university. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on American universities, and what we’re supposed to get is well-formed, well-rounded leaders for the next generation,” Mr. Vance said. “What we’re instead getting is brainwashed goblins who repeat the talking points of the left.”
Critical race theory has become a major policy issue for Republicans, and one that is growing in voters’ concern for the issue.
“The majority of what is trickling down, and you can call it critical race theory or critical-race-theory influenced, but it's in there,” said John Sluhan, a Toledo voter who came to listen to Mr. Vance. “I think it comes from Washington, it comes from American universities, it comes from this great plan, and I think (Mr. Vance) understands that. If we don’t stop that, American democracy is over...I don’t care what color you are, I’m an American, you’re an American...hating each other and dividing each other, it’s the end of our great experiment.”
The group of Republican candidates will continue to campaign and travel around Ohio until the primary election on May 3, 2022. A late October poll conducted by Fabrizio Lee found Mr. Mandel leading the primary race at 19 percent, with Mr. Vance polling at 16 percent, a much narrower margin compared to the 25 to 6 gap that was found between the two candidates in April. The poll also found that 43 percent of primary voters remain undecided.
First Published November 22, 2021, 5:35 p.m.
