A Cincinnati-area Democratic public official is urging Ohioans to vote against his party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
Supporters of Republican Senate nominee J.D. Vance and critics of Democratic hopeful Tim Ryan are enthusiastically sharing an opinion piece Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes (D) penned for The Cincinnati Enquirer on Friday. In the guest column, Rhodes calls Ryan “a fraud who must be defeated” and who “does not deserve your vote” irrespective of one’s party affiliation.
The county row officer characterized the congressman from Ohio’s Youngstown-based 13th Congressional District as a lockstep vote for the priorities shared by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12). This is something Vance and his party have insisted throughout the campaign and objective data bears it out: The data aggregator FiveThirtyEight examined several dozen major votes cast in the 117th Congress and it determined Ryan voted Biden’s preferred position in every instance.
Rhodes took particular issue with Ryan’s support for a phaseout of gasoline-fueled vehicles, a mitigated reliance on imprisonment of criminals, and significant increases in federal spending, which many experts believe is the cause of skyrocketing inflation. The auditor also suggested voters should find it unsettling that the congressman opposes continuing Senate rules allowing the filibuster, letting a simple majority pass any legislation through the chamber instead of the 60-vote threshold that senators currently must overcome.
Rhodes took a final shot at his fellow Democrat on abortion, a practice whose legality Ryan once said he opposed but now staunchly defends at every stage of pregnancy.
“None of this is ‘moderate,’” Rhodes wrote. “It’s far more radical than Roe v. Wade, and goes far further than abortion laws in Europe. Ryan’s barbaric abortion regime would align us with the likes of China and North Korea — and he wants your taxpayer dollars to fund it all.”
The county official opined Ryan’s path from relative moderation to hardline Leftism owes to the congressman needing “the far-left activist class” to back his failed 2020 presidential effort.
“Tim Ryan stands for one thing, and it isn’t our state,” Rhodes wrote. “It’s his own political ambition.”
Throughout the weekend, Rhodes’s original Twitter post linking his Enquirer essay received 792 retweets.
While the row officer called himself “a proud, lifelong Democrat,” he urged Buckeye Staters to vote for Vance, an attorney, venture capitalist, and author who Rhodes considers “an American success story.”
Vance issued an online statement that he was “honored” to receive the support of “a great public servant for Hamilton County.”
Ryan meanwhile continues to run on the very agenda that Rhodes chose to underscore as bad for Ohio, redoubling support for electric vehicles over fossil-fuel-powered cars on Sunday.
“JD Vance doesn’t just oppose investing in electric vehicles production, he actually called it a “scam,” the congressman tweeted. “That’s a slap in the face to thousands of workers here in Ohio.”
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Ohio Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tim Ryan” by Congressman Tim Ryan.
