Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) seems to have an fascinating approach to defeating his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance. During his Interview on Tuesday with CBS News’ Robert Costa on “Red & Blue,” used the lack of Democratic support to his advantage. The interview took place just after Ryan debated Vance on Monday.
When Costa asked after the debate if Ryan had “heard at all from the Biden White House or Senate Democratic leaders” and if they had “committed to putting more resources into the race,” Ryan shook his head, explaining that “we haven’t heard from anyone.”
Despite his party all but abandoning him, Ryan tried to paint it as an opportunity, talking about the polls he was leading in and the campaign having “a group of grassroots supporters who are helping us.” The fact that he was “willing to go it alone,” Ryan argued, would lend a hand him when he got to Washington, if he won the race to replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), so he could be “an independent voice for Ohio.”
Costa didn’t mince his words, saying it was “a striking thing to hear,” referring to “single-handedly” when it comes to Ryan, who is moving forward with his campaign without support from Democratic leadership. He wondered if “the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is doing enough and spending enough in Ohio at this point.”
On Monday afternoon, hours before the debate began, NBC News published an article by Henry J. Gomez on how “Tim Ryan ‘all alone’ as national Democrats ignore tight Ohio Senate race.”
Ryan touted the polls in which he was leading, and referred to himself as a “blue-collar” man from Youngstown, Ohio, and other “working-class people,” as well as how well he did with Ohio voters of all political persuasions, arguing that “you would think they would want to be actively engaged in this race, that winning this seat would be good for us, but also good for the party.”
He then added, “but, you know, we’ll have to see, they have a lot of different, you know, calculations they have to make,” emphasizing that “we’re willing to handle it ourselves,” while the congressman made a claim without evidence when it comes to Vance’s support.
One of the “advantages” Ryan spoke of is that Vance is supposedly “losing support, losing Republican support, and after the debate last night, our phones are ringing off the hook from Republicans, Republican donors, Republican voters who want to come in and help.”
Rep. Ryan has previously claimed to have Republican support. As Joseph Simonson of the Washington Free Beacon reported in Augustone such Republican is John Bridgeland. As Simonson wrote:
The founder of Republicans for Tim Ryan, Bridgeland has worked on left-wing policy initiatives for years. Former President Barack Obama appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council on Social Solutions in 2010. Bridgeland also co-founded the COVID Collaborative, which is working with the Biden administration on vaccine messaging. In December 2020, Bridgeland wrote an editorial on the website of Maria Shriver, a Democratic activist and Kennedy family member, about how he was “so encouraged” by Biden’s victory.
Later in the interview, when asked about the Jan. 6 selection committee, Ryan again tried to appeal to Republican and independent voters, especially those “who are also concerned Dobbs decisions who are also concerned about what happened with the Supreme Court and the abuse of choice and then the invalidation of same-sex marriage and the desire to go down the road of birth control.” He later referred to it as “big government in our bedrooms and in our doctor’s offices.”
Such comments, especially on same-sex marriage and contraception, were more of a scare mongering than viewers of the debate saw Monday night. Ryan was referring to Justice Clarence Thomas’s lone concurrence in Dobbs v Jackson a decision that was overturned Roe v. Wade. It is worth emphasizing that the Supreme Court’s opinion, as well as the opinion of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, indicate that this ruling applies solely to abortion.
He also spoke out against “a group of extremists who will defend the indefensible” and claimed, tying Vance to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), that his opponent “is in the GOP’s crazies,” which would supposedly give moderates a reason to support Ryan over Vance.
In response to Costa’s question about whether such issues mobilize voters, Ryan said yes. Polls showHowever, while abortion is the second most critical issue to Ohioans, it ranks much lower than the economy.
Another conclusion from the interview: as our friends at Twitchy pointed outis that Rep. Ryan is snubbing Biden, just as he did when the president came to visit in July, though Ryan’s campaign argued there were “unavoidable scheduling conflicts.”
As for the “choices to make” that Costa pointed to Ryan, he asked the congressman “do you want President Biden to come to Ohio and publicly campaign with you in this final lap?”
Ryan was clearly opposed to that. “No, no, I will not be asking the president to come — or very, very few, if any, people from the country to come and actually campaign with us, because I want to be the main face, the main messenger of this campaign,” he said. He went on to tout his Ohio roots and how he is part of an “Ohio family that wants to connect with other Ohioans.”
This CBS News report He also had an fascinating point about candidates snubbing Biden. “And he plans to continue to distance himself from Democrats, including President Joe Biden, as the country continues to be squeezed by high inflation and rising prices. He said he will do it alone, without their help, on the campaign trail in the coming weeks ahead of Election Day“,” one could read in the article about Ryan.
Ryan once again used the opportunity to attack his opponent, albeit in a laughably false way, claiming that former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and continued support had hurt Vance’s campaign because it was “completely negative” for him.
In fact, after Trump endorsed Vance in April, his support in the crowded GOP primary surged in the polls, and he ultimately won the May primary by a margin of 32.2 percentage points, nearly 9 points more than second-place finisher Josh Mandel.
Trump won Ohio in 2016 and again in 2020, 51.7 percent AND 53.3 percentrespectively. Last month’s Emerson College poll also I discovered that The 1,000 likely voters surveyed would support Trump by a margin of 50 percent to 40 percent over Biden.
The same poll found that 56 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Biden, while 41 percent approved of him. Civiqs Survey The latest update on Tuesday showed that 35 percent of those surveyed expressed disapproval and 58 percent disapproved.
The polls where Ryan mentioned he was in the lead are from last month and include: Spectrum News/Siena poll where it is plus +3 and Cincinnati Enquirer/Suffolk poll where is plus +1. Both leads were within the margin of statistical error.
Overall, forecasters and polls are favoring Vance. RealClearPolitics overall has an advantage of +1.4 for Vance. Race is also considered “Leaning Republican.”
