The 36-year-old author of Hillbilly Elegy won in a close race against incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance wins Ohio Senate seat Vance, who has no experience in elected office, will replace incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown.
JD Vance, a former Marine and Yale Law School graduate, has won the Ohio Senate race by a wider margin than predicted. Vance, from Middletown, Ohio, defeated incumbent Sen. Tim Ryan by 52% to 4%. Vance’s victory is a major upset, as Brown was widely expected to win re-election in a state that has trended Republican in recent years.
Republican JD Vance Wins The Ohio Senate Election In 2022
Vance ran on a platform of economic populism and promised to bring jobs back to Ohio. He also made headlines during the campaign for his criticism of the Affordable Care Act. Vance’s victory boosts Republicans, who will now control the Senate by a margin of 52-48. Vance’s victory also boosts President Donald Trump, who endorsed him in the race.
He also descended into social concerns, challenging the necessity of exceptions to abortion restrictions while arguing that it would be a “good idea” to establish a “minimum national standard” for abortion similar to Sen. Lindsey Graham‘s 15-week abortion ban accomplishes. Trump’s erroneous assertions contesting the outcome of the 2020 election have also received support from Vance.
Trump’s backing was vital in helping Vance win the Republican primary, but it’s unclear if it positively or negatively impacted the electorate as a whole. When Vance defended Trump as unfit for office when he was president but later embraced him when he needed his support to win the primary, he was accused of being untruthful.
In the end, broad dissatisfaction with the status of the economy, both in Ohio and elsewhere, and polls indicating that the majority of voters think Joe Biden’s policies are making the situation worse may have rescued Vance.
Vance benefited from the state’s Republican tilt and other favorable electoral dynamics this season. When the president has lower approval ratings, as with Biden in Ohio, there is frequently pushback against the party in power.
It appears that worries about the economy and inflation also played a role in Vance’s victory. Vance originally gained notoriety for his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which tried to document the struggles that white working-class voters in Appalachia faced, and he made an effort to win over working-class voters across the entire state.
Despite his criticisms of the former president, Vance, who has also worked for Republican megadonor Peter Thiel, has previously welcomed Trump’s “America First” slogan and overall leadership. This indicates that he is most likely one of the Senate GOP caucus members who leans the most to the right.
Beyond focusing on the additional costs Ohioans must bear, Vance also emphasized strict border security measures and the need to combat the opioid epidemic, which has wreaked havoc in some areas of Ohio. Vance is expected to be a more conservative senator than his predecessor, which will probably change the conference’s overall slant.
Ryan’s campaign was centered on pledges to help working-class neighborhoods affected by deindustrialization and the export of their jobs, which he attributed to the policies of both major parties’ governments.
Ryan’s concession speech was directed at the several Republicans who have repeatedly refused to accept Trump’s loss in 2020 and who have threatened to challenge the outcome of the election if they lose. Vance claimed that Trump’s victory in the election was fraudulent, but he insisted that he accept the poll results on Tuesday.