Columbus, OH – Former GOP State Representative Joan Lawrence scorches J.D. Vance as a “craven shapeshifter” and a “chameleon who will do anything to get elected” in a new op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch. 

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Columbus Dispatch: Former Ohio lawmaker: J.D. Vance a ‘craven shapeshifter’ regurgitating MAGA speak
October 3, 2022

• Joan W. Lawrence served in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican from 1983 to 1999 and was director of the Ohio Department of Aging under Gov. Bob Taft from 1999 to 2006.
• If you don’t know who J.D. Vance is, you’re not alone. Neither does J.D. Vance.
• He’s running for the U.S. Senate as a hardcore MAGA Republican and a diehard Trump fan, never mind that he used to be a Never-Trumper. In fact, he’d love nothing more than for you to forget that inconvenient fact.
• But that’s the J.D. Vance I could’ve seen myself supporting.
• In 2016, Vance said Trump was “reprehensible” and “cultural heroin” and wondered whether Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” But when Vance decided to run for the Senate, he went full MAGA, complimenting Trump at every opportunity.
• Even Trump knows it. “J.D. is kissing my a**. He wants my support so bad!” the former president said at a rally in Ohio recently.
• His opposition to Trump isn’t the only thing he has backtracked on.
• Vance has flip-flopped on issue after issue. During the 2016 campaign, Vance wrote in USA Today, “Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.” That year, he said that building a wall was “a simple solution” to a “complex problem.” But in April, he said at a rally, “Can we please, for the love of God, finish Donald Trump’s border wall on the southern border?”
• One of Vance’s favorite issues is the opioid crisis. He discussed it in his memoir, and he’s talked about it for several years. But here too, Vance’s record isn’t as good as it seems. Vance founded a group called Our Ohio Renewal to fight opioid addiction.
• Not only did it not achieve much success, but Vance hired someone who questioned the role of prescription painkillers in the opioid crisis. Most of the money the nonprofit raised was spent on staff salaries. None was spent on charitable activities. So much for Vance’s concern about opioid addicts.
• Vance used to call for a more moderate GOP. A little more than a decade ago, he wrote a series of articles where he endorsed affirmative action, savaged Republicans as anti-science, and rejected partisan vitriol. “Of all the things I can’t stand about politics,” he wrote, “the tendency to emotionalize a difficult topic is probably the worst.” He wanted a more measured and moderate Republican Party, one that was more socially inclusive.
• But now Vance is anything but moderate. He opposes same-sex marriage and wants to ban abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. He said people in “violent” marriages shouldn’t get divorced. He said that rape and incest were “inconvenient.” That’s certainly putting it mildly.
• Instead of distancing himself from extremists in his party, he welcomes them.
• He said he was “proud” to have Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s endorsement. Greene, in case you don’t know, blamed wildfires on space lasers funded by “Rothschild Inc.” and said there’s no evidence that a plane crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. She is, in other words, a lunatic. But rather than denounce her, Vance embraces her.
• These flip-flops and contortions aren’t just embarrassing. They show exactly the kind of person J.D. Vance is—a craven shapeshifter who will say whatever he needs to say to get elected.
• I have a hard time believing that he actually cares about border security or even the opioid crisis.
• He simply regurgitates MAGA talking points because that’s what it takes to get MAGA votes. But here’s my question: Once he has their votes, what will he do next? Who knows? Vance surely doesn’t.
• He’s a chameleon who will do anything to get elected. That’s why we shouldn’t elect him.

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Columbus, OH — Madison Gesiotto Gilbert FINALLY filed her financial disclosure this week after months of breaking campaign finance laws. And now that she has, it’s easy to see why she waited so long. Despite her claims that she knows ‘first-hand’ how ‘an unfair tax code hurts working families,’ the Ohio Capital Journal reports that Madison and her husband ‘hold numerous investments in municipal bonds and treasuries, both of which generally offer tax-free income.’ And while Madison presents herself as a ‘small business owner’ the OCJ report shows it’s ‘unclear’ who actually owns the golf course – or who took out the PPP loan the company received last year after Madison has been critical of COVID relief packages that made these loans possible.  

“Turns out the candidate who bought three different houses to run for Congress isn’t exactly living up to her campaign trail rhetoric about feeling the pain of the working class. From her tax-free income to her dad’s purchase of her ‘small business,’ it’s clear Millionaire Madison’s talking points ain’t living in reality. She’s proved time and time again that she’ll do or say anything to get herself elected,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes. 

“The disclosure itself is a scanned, and often illegible, document. It appears, though, that that the couple hold numerous investments in municipal bonds and treasuries, both of which generally offer tax-free income. Their most substantial holdings are a handful of exchange traded index funds and an investment property. The report lists each of these assets as worth at least half a million dollars,” writes Nick Evans for the Ohio Capital Journal. 

Read more from the Ohio Capital Journal HERE and below:   

• Republican congressional candidate Madison Gesiotto Gilbert filed her required financial disclosure this week — more than six weeks after The Ohio Capital Journal first reported it was missing.
• Federal law requires office holders, candidates and even certain staffers to disclose details about their finances in order to serve. For candidates those requirements kick in once they’ve raised $5,000 and no later than May.
• Madison Gesiotto Gilbert and her husband Marcus Gilbert made most of their money in the past two years through passive income. Financial disclosures group investments in buckets, so the reported amounts are inexact.
• Last year the couple cleared $50,000 in interest and dividends but could’ve made as much as $182,000. They supplemented that with capital gains of anywhere from $17,800 to $59,000. The biggest share of those gains came from selling bitcoin worth between $15,000 and $50,000.
• This year the couple didn’t realize any capital gains, but their income from interest and dividends grew enough to leave then in a similar financial position. According to the report they brought in between $66,000 and $220,000 in interest and dividends alone this year.
• The disclosure itself is a scanned, and often illegible, document. It appears, though, that that the couple hold numerous investments in municipal bonds and treasuries, both of which generally offer tax-free income. Their most substantial holdings are a handful of exchange traded index funds and an investment property. The report lists each of these assets as worth at least half a million dollars.
• Madison is an attorney but her income from legal work is hazy. Under earned income, she discloses earning $24,000 last year as a contributor to conservative media outlet, The First. She lists her legal services under a separate section covering any compensation of more than $5,000.
• Gilbert’s describes herself as a small business owner and points to Seven Hills golf course. In an interview with Spectrum News, she described picking up shifts tending bar when they had trouble hiring.
• Past news reports suggested her father purchased the course and the disclosure lists her corporate position as a member of Seven Hills Country Club, LLC. The disclosure describes Seven Hills Country Club, LLC as an asset worth $250,000-$500,000 that produced no income in the past two years. But whether Madison and Marcus own the golf course outright or with other family members is unclear.
• While the Gilberts are easily millionaires (according to overthecap.com Marcus earned north of $32 million in his ten-year career in the NFL) Madison may be eligible to have some of her student debt canceled. Because their income over the past two years appears to come primarily from investment proceeds, it’s conceivable they could come in below the $250,000 filing jointly.
• Gilbert’s campaign did not respond to an interview request for this story.

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Columbus, OH —A new report from Cleveland.com shows how Vance’s extreme comments and stances on abortion are blowing the gender gap in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race wide open. 

Vance supports a national abortion ban (which he described as “reasonable”), called rape “inconvenient,” compared abortion to slavery, wants to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth, and floated dangerous antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories to explain his support of a national abortion ban. 

“Ohio women are rejecting J.D. Vance because J.D. Vance believes survivors of rape and incest should have to give birth to their rapist’s baby. He’s an extremist who believes that rape is ‘inconvenient’ and a woman’s right to choose is akin to slavery,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson from the Ohio Democratic Party.

Read more below:

Cleveland.com: Polling shows wide gender gap in Ohio, factoring into competitive Senate race
Andrew Tobias
September 29, 2022

• COLUMBUS, Ohio – It’s a consistent trend in politics: for whatever reason, men and women tend to see things much differently than each other.
• That gender gap is playing what appears to be a key role in Ohio’s surprisingly competitive race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman. The dynamic points to women as a key bloc of potential swing voters in the race – and also may offer clues about how abortion may factor into the Nov. 8 election.
• A Siena College/Spectrum News poll of likely Ohio voters released earlier this week found Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan holding a big lead among women voters over J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate nominee. Vance also held a significant, but relatively smaller, lead with men. It added up to an effective tie in the race.
• Political polls have been inaccurate during most recent Ohio elections, consistently undercounting support for Republican candidates. But while the specific numbers vary, the Siena poll’s general findings – Vance significantly underperforming DeWine among women voters – were similar to those in public polls released earlier this month by other independent, university pollsters like Suffolk University/USA Today, Marist College and Baldwin Wallace University. Private polls from both Republican and Democratic alike paint much the same picture.
• “J.D. Vance is pretty far behind with women,” said one Republican pollster who spoke on condition of anonymity. “At one point he was 2-1 behind, but that’s gotten a little bit better. And some of that is natural closing that’s going to happen at the end of the race because voters will kind of go back to their fox holes a little bit.”
• “All I can say is women don’t like J.D. Vance. I think he’s creating a bigger gap than you might typically see,” said Molly Murphy, a national Democratic pollster who’s working for the Ryan campaign.
• But previous actions from Vance and other Republican Senate candidates also suggest they realize they have ground to make up with women.
• In August, Vance was among several male Republican Senate candidates in battleground states who ran television ads featuring women family members to vouch for them, according to Politico. Vance’s ad, the first of the general election campaign, featured his wife, Usha, who spoke directly to the camera about her husband’s life story and her relationship with him.
• In an interview on Tuesday, Ryan said he thinks the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June striking down national legal protections for abortion and turning the issue over to the states is a key factor in how women view the race. Ryan is an advocate for abortion rights, while Vance opposes abortion.
• Ryan also said Vance has made “extreme” comments – which the Ryan campaign has highlighted – including defending his position opposing rape exemptions in abortion bans.
• “We’re feeling it at our events,” Ryan said. “We’re hearing about it on doors. Women are energized… And then we’ve got a strong economic message that’s appealing to men. And so I think that’s going to be the coalition.”
• In recent elections, men have been more likely to tell pollsters they’re supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies while the opposite has been true of women. Suburban women, meanwhile, have been viewed as a swing bloc, potentially voting for either party.
• But Lauren Copeland, a political scientist at Baldwin Wallace University who runs the school’s voter research operation, said this year’s gender gap seems especially pronounced.
• Copeland said she suspects that the June decision from the U.S. Supreme Court overturning national abortion protections is a key factor. She said women are much more likely to say the issue is a key motivating factor for them when deciding who to vote for.
• State voter-registration data also shows a disproportionately high number of women registering to vote since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in late June, according to TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, although the significance is unclear, especially given larger voter registration numbers in Republican-leaning counties from earlier in the year.
• “I think politics doesn’t get more personal than that. But it’s also one thing for government to grant rights or to create programs, it’s another thing to take those away,” Copeland said.
• The Siena College poll surveyed 642 likely voters by telephone, with their responses weighted by factors like gender, race, education and geographic location to try to match the 2020 electorate. It was conducted from Sept. 18-22, the most recent public poll in Ohio. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4%, although the margin for error is greater for subgroups, like men and women.
• Siena College has an A rating for accuracy from FiveThirtyEight, the polling website. Siena didn’t conduct a presidential poll in Ohio in 2020, but it undercounted Republican support by roughly 5 percentage points that year in nearby Michigan and Pennsylvania.
• When asked for the number-one issue that will influence who they’ll vote for in November, 47% of men and 36% of women in the poll cited the economy and inflation, making it the number-one issue. And similar numbers of men and women – 61% and 64% respectively – said rising costs of living had caused them or their families to make cutbacks in their expenses.
• But beyond the economy, men’s and women’s views on issues diverge widely.
• Women are much more likely than men to say they oppose conservative policies when it comes to issues like guns and especially abortion. Women also are more likely to say abortion is a top issue – ranking second – while men ranked it fourth, behind “threats to democracy” and gun policy.
• Women also were much more likely to say they support Democratic candidates.
• For example, 48% of women said they approve of President Joe Biden, compared to 46% who said they disapprove, good for a +2 net approval rating, according to the Siena poll. Among men, Biden’s net approval rating was -31.
• However, DeWine has shown signs of outperforming with women, holding a lead among women voters in four of five public polls this month, while Vance has not led with women in any of those polls.
• Although abortion consistently has ranked as a higher priority recently for women than men, the Siena poll shows a wider gender gap than what’s typical when it comes to views on abortion itself.
• Roughly two-thirds of women said they opposed Ohio’s “heartbeat” abortion law, which bans abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. A slight plurality of men, 49% support versus 47% opposed, said they support the law, although a similar percentage of men also said they opposed striking down Roe. v. Wade.

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Watch Ohio Democrats’ Not-So-Strong Ohio Preview Video HERE

Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democrats brought their “Not-So-Strong Ohio” tour to Columbus as they travel across the state to lay out how Mike DeWine’s weakness is taking our state backward. 

For four years, DeWine has been too weak to stand up to extremists in his own party and the special interests fueling his campaign, instead serving as a rubber stamp for policies that hurt working families while failing to provide the leadership Ohioans expect from their governor. 

“On issues ranging from abortion rights to gun violence to redistricting to the the largest public corruption scandal in state history, Mike DeWine’s weakness is costing Ohioans big time and taking our state backward,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters.

Key examples of DeWine’s weakness include:

• Abortion Rights – Mike DeWine told an anti-abortion special interest group that he wants ‘to go as far as he can’ to rip away reproductive rights in Ohio. 
• Gun Violence – Despite promising to ‘do something’ to combat gun violence, DeWine caved to the gun lobby and signed gun bills that are opposed by Ohio law enforcement because they make Ohioans less safe.
• FirstEnergy Bribery Scandal – ‘State Official 1’ has been dodging questions since October about what he knew and when about the largest public corruption scandal in state history, a scandal that continues to cost Ohioans $287,000 every single day. 
• Redistricting – Even as he acknowledged the maps he was passing were likely unconstitutional, DeWine ignored voters, caved to his own party and rubber stamped seven illegal, GOP-gerrymandered maps. 

With this kind of record, it’s no wonder Mike DeWine is scared to debate Nan Whaley. He’s spent his whole time as governor selling out to the wealthy and well-connected and leaving Ohio workers to pay the price. 

“Under Mike DeWine, we’ll have extremists in the legislature running the show, pushing radical agendas that keep businesses away from our state and taking our economy backward,” said Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein. 

“If Mike DeWine is going to cower to the likes of Matt Huffman on every issue, he should step aside and let someone who wants the job actually lead our state,” said Ohio Auditor candidate Taylor Sappington. 

Ohio Democrats, like former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, are offering a better way forward: moving our state forward by investing in working families and putting kitchen-table, economic issues front and center. 

“Ohio deserves better. We need a governor who will stand up to the bad guys, not do their bidding. We need Nan Whaley,” said Columbus City Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla. 

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