Avon, Ohio– On Saturday morning, hours before he was to speak at former President Donald Trump’s Save America Rally in Youngstown, Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance spoke to a crowd of about 150 to 200 people, with only a few people standing room. event.
Vance spoke candidly about his upbringing during his speeches, including being raised by his Grandma and Grandpa because of his mother’s drug addiction. He used his personal experiences to connect with the crowd and related them to issues the country is facing today. This included the fact that sometimes they couldn’t always afford buns for their hamburgers and warm dogs, so they sometimes used white bread.
“And the reason I’m telling you this story is because think about the terrible inflation that we have in this country, inflation caused by Joe Biden’s and Tim Ryan’s reckless spending and reckless spending policies. They caused it, it was fine two years ago, they came into office and did what they were going to do, and now we have this terrible inflation problem,” Vance said, naming his opponent.
Vance shared that during a conversation with one of the leaders of the largest grocery chains in the country, he was told that they had seen a decline in sales of warm dog and hamburger buns and a “drastic increase” in sales of white bread. “It’s because of their policies,” Vance said, referring to President Joe Biden and Rep. Tim Ryan.
Inflation came up again during a press conference after the event. Vance said that while he had heard “Very” about gas prices six months ago, now he hears “a lot about food prices” and that “inflation is still the priority, but the basket of goods that people are focused on is just much more focused on food.” He added that “it’s more heartbreaking in some ways” because “food is even more necessary for life than gasoline.”
Vance spoke more about Ryan toward the end of his speech and how the mainstream media might try to portray the race. “We’re in a tough campaign, okay? Again, I don’t believe the media when they say we’re doing well, I don’t believe the media when they say we’re doing badly.”
Vance argued that this “difficult campaign” is due to the fact that “Tim Ryan, who voted 100 percent with Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, ran for three months using out-of-state money, deceptive television ads that portray him as a moderate, even a conservative,” despite having “voted for everything that has made this country less free, less prosperous, and less safe.”
He told the crowd to “look at this guy’s voting record,” warning that he’s “not Joe Manchin’s Democrat.” While Vance said, “I disagree with a lot of Joe Manchin’s votes,” there’s still some guesswork about how Manchin might vote. Not so with Ryan. “With Tim Ryan, you never have to wonder. He’ll vote exactly how Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden tell him to vote.”
So Vance reminded those in attendance that “we have a job to do in the next few days,” specifically, his job is to raise money for TV and radio ads to correct his opponent’s record. He assured them there would be more as the election gets closer.
Vance also urged those gathered to “tell everyone on social media, tell everyone at the table, tell your friends and neighbors that Tim Ryan is not who he says he is,” listing specific rules.
“This is a guy who says he doesn’t support defunding the police, but voted to strip our police officers of qualified immunity just two years ago. This is a guy who says he doesn’t support an open border, but has never seen a border security measure he would actually vote for. This is a guy who says he supports Ohio workers, but voted for every Biden policy that destroys American energy and American manufacturing, which Ohio workers actually depend on to get to work and do their jobs,” Vance said of Ryan.
At the end of his speech, Vance declared that “Tim Ryan, ladies and gentlemen, is a fraud. We know it, and it is our job to make sure the state of Ohio knows it.”
After the event, Vance responded to a question from Townhall regarding the remarks. he did it Fox News’ “Hannity,” in which he assured the host that “if we can just tell the truth, Sean, everything will be fine in November.”
Asked “what do you think is the most important thing that people need to get straight,” Vance told Townhall that he was focused on “generally speaking, we need to tell the truth,” but he turned to his opponent again.
“Tim Ryan is not the moderate he claims to be. I mean, I think he’s a guy who’s really running as a diet version of me, when in fact his voting record shows that he believes the exact opposite. So I think that’s particularly – we have to correct my opponent’s record, because he just takes all of my issues, most of which are popular, some of which are not, but you know, I believe in it, so you pick the popular and the unpopular. I think that’s Really making sure people know Ryan is NO moderate, that he voted with Biden 100 percent of the time and that a lot of the policies that people in Ohio disagree with are a result of Tim Ryan’s record,” Vance shared.
The problem with Ryan isn’t just his voting record, but also that “obviously Ryan has said a lot of dishonest things about me, he’s lied about my nonprofit, he’s lied about my positions on trade,” which Vance acknowledged is “the nature of the campaign, and we need to correct the record on that as well.”
Vance is currently leading in the polls, averaging +2.7 by RealClearPolitics. Weather forecasts also favor Republicans, and the race under consideration “Lean Republican” or “Likely Republican.” Decision Desk HQ currently awards Vance 72 percent chance winning.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who spoke before Vance, warned against “complacence” though he nonetheless predicted Vance would “win in a big way.”
It was a very significant theme during Saturday morning’s event that the mainstream media had gone with a narrative that the candidate wasn’t focused on. Bernie Moreno, who ran against Vance in the primary, spoke earlier at the event, at which point he called for people to rally around Vance. He also warned the crowd that Ryan had the mainstream media behind him.
Vance echoed Moreno’s warnings while making clear he wasn’t concerned with what the mainstream media thought about the race, but what Ohioans were doing, which was met with applause from the crowd.
After the event, its organizer, Tomie Patton, who serves as chairwoman of the Avon Lake Avon Republicans, also spoke to Townhall about what she was hearing on the ground, in contrast to her view that the constantly changing polls show that the media “just likes to try to upset people and promote their thinking, their agenda.”
On the other hand, Patton confirmed, voters are excited about the race, which she stressed “goes hand in hand with inflation” as the “top issue.”
While Patton made it clear that “nothing is as energizing as running in a Trump year,” it is still “an exciting year because Republicans really have an opportunity to do something for the country,” adding that “if Republicans win, it will be a drastic change in the direction of this country.”
Noting that “people are scared,” especially about what happened with Trump and “overreaching government,” Patton also said, “I’ve never seen people so well-versed in what’s going on, not all of them are, but more people, and a lot more people are involved.” Patton confirmed that “for a year of inaction, that’s Very “An energetic year.”
During his rally, Trump also issued a warning about Rep. Ryan, as pollster Rich Baris highlighted.
Trump added: “That’s complete nonsense.”
— Rich Baris “People’s Pundit” (@Peoples_Pundit) September 18, 2022
In a call to “Morning Joe” last Tuesday, Ryan declared that we must “kill and confront this movement” of so-called “extremist Republicans,” an irony he made as an aide, trying to portray himself as bipartisan.
