Ohio Senate race: JD Vance calls polls ‘big joke’ and vows to have the money to fight Tim Ryan

DALLAS – With three months to go until Election Day, Ohio Republican Senate candidate JD Vance says he feels “very confident about where we are.”

Vance, a former hedge fund executive and best-selling author who won the GOP Senate primary in early May, trails Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in the latest polls in the Ohio Senate race, one of the few in across the country that may determine whether Republicans regain a majority in the House in November’s midterm elections.

“I think the polls are honestly a big joke, especially so far,” Vance said Friday in an interview with Fox News before speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas.

Vance pointed to polls leading up to the 2016 presidential election that showed a close matchup in the Buckeye State between former President Donald Trump and then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Ohio, at the time, was a prime battleground state for the general election, but Trump won it by eight points in both his 2016 White House victory and President Biden’s 2020 re-election, swinging the state from purple to red.

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Ohio GOP Senate candidate JD Vance takes the stage to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022.
(AP Photo/LM Otero)

Vance was also dramatically brought up by Ryan in the crucial campaign cash battle to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman. He acknowledged that “certainly fundraising is something that Democrats always do better than Republicans.”

However, he maintained that “we started our TV ads a few days ago, fundraising is going well and we will definitely have the money we need to tell the story Ohioans deserve to hear.”

Vance’s campaign, in conjunction with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, launched what they say is a $1 million ad buy. Ryan has been running on TV since the May 3 primary, spending about $6 million to date.

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Vance, taking aim at his general election opponent, argued that “Tim Ryan is running a gas-powered campaign. He’s trying to convince people that he’s a moderate, when in reality, he’s been with Joe Biden 100 percent of the time. His people Ohioans realize they’ve been lied to, and we’re going to make sure they understand they’ve been lied to, they’re not going to vote for this career politician who has no business being in the Senate.”

Ryan, a longtime congressman from Northeast Ohio who championed the working class during his many years in Congress and during his failed 2020 White House bid, easily beat two lesser-known opponents to win the seat. Democratic Senate nomination.

Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio answers a question during a Democratic primary debate
(Joshua A. Bickel/The Columbus Dispatch via AP)

Ryan campaign spokeswoman Izzi Levy, responding to Vance’s comments, argued in a statement to Fox News that “it’s funny to hear JD Vance lying to the people of Ohio when he’s a con man in San Francisco who started a bogus non-profit organization. nothing to address the opioid epidemic and everything to help JD Vance launch his political career. JD is campaigning in Texas right now because he couldn’t find Ohio on a map if he tried.”

Former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Vance, less than three weeks before the primaries, propelled the first-time candidate to victory over a handful of Republican challengers who also sought the former president’s endorsement. Vance ran a populist primary campaign that showed his support for Trump’s America First agenda.

But during the general election race, he has faced a lot of criticism from Democrats, as well as some Republicans, for what they describe as his absence from the Ohio campaign.

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Asked about the jabs from other Republicans, Vance said “it’s a very small number of voices, frankly, that generally didn’t support me in the Republican primary. My argument to them is, look, I understand that you didn’t necessarily like the always. It’s time to unite the party. It’s time to stop complaining and do the hard work to make sure we beat Tim Ryan in November.”

And Vance emphasized that “for every loud voice criticizing our campaign, there are 100 people in the state of Ohio who are working hard, making sure we get the message out. Those are the people who will ultimately be responsible for us winning this election.” match”.