Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance released a new television advertisement this weekend contrasting his Democratic opponent Tim Ryan’s hard-left record with his moderate rhetoric.
In his ad monologue, Vance tore into the 13th-district congressman’s voting history.
“TV Tim Ryan pretends he’s with you, but D.C. Tim Ryan votes with Biden-Pelosi 100 percent,” the GOP candidate told viewers. “D.C. Tim’s been in Washington 20 years, supporting amnesty [for illegal immigrants] and opposing the border wall that would slow down illegals and drugs flooding Ohio. I’m J.D. Vance and I approve this message because TV Tim is fake; D.C. Tim’s bad for Ohio.”
Interspersed with Vance’s reproaches of his opponent were clips of Ryan speaking.
“I don’t answer to any political party,” the Democrat was show saying in one of his own commercials. Seconds later, the Vance ad shows MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asking Ryan, “You’ve said you don’t ‘like’ [left-wing House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, you ‘love’ Nancy Pelosi?” to which the candidate replied, “Yeah, I do love her.”
The anti-Ryan broadside, the third TV spot Vance has broadcast in his general-election campaign, began running via digital venues over the weekend and will hit TV screens across the Buckeye State on Monday. The ad can be seen on the Vance-owned website TwoTims (twotims.com), which outlines a number of areas in which the Republican candidate feels his opponent defies the legislative wishes of Ohioans who make up a relatively conservative electorate.
One section of the site complains that, although Ryan has frequently promised to back tax reduction, he voted for what his party terms the “Inflation Reduction Act.” The nonpartisan Joint Economic Committee determined that that legislation, which Biden signed into law last month, will actually demand as much as $16.7 billion from those earning under $200,000 next year and will take $222 billion from the manufacturing sector.
Another section of TwoTims documents Ryan’s flip-flop on the Biden administration’s cancellation of student loan debt, something the Democrat used to back but now says he opposes. Elsewhere, Vance takes his rival to task for bashing police, calling American criminal justice “racist” and “the new Jim Crow,” as well as incorrectly accusing police of killing black Georgia murder victim Ahmaud Arbery.
Other parts of the site castigate Ryan for his opposition to the tariffs former President Donald Trump imposed on China and for what Vance considers excessive political correctness. Ultimately, the Republican asserts, the Democrat is a “liberal rubber stamp” for President Joe Biden, voting the White House’s preferred position on every one of the nearly 90 votes tracked by the data aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
Analysts from that organization now find the two candidates essentially tied in the polls at just under 45 percent each. Via Twitter, Ryan sounded an alarm to supporters about a new survey showing Vance three points ahead. That margin matches a Civiqs poll conducted between September 10 and 13. Ryan called on sympathizers to make a show of “grassroots power” to oppose Vance’s “billionaire backers and the GOP’s dark-money machine.”
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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 “Two Tims” by JD Vance for Senate.
