Ohio Democrats

Donate

J.D. Vance

ODP Statement On J.D. Vance Campaigning With National Abortion Ban Sponsor Lindsey Graham

Columbus, OH – Today, J.D. Vance is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Senator Lindsey Graham, whose national abortion ban legislation Vance endorsed as “reasonable” – even as other Republicans scrambled to distance themselves from this dangerous attack on women’s reproductive freedom.

J.D. Vance has made his extreme feelings on abortion known – he’s compared abortion to slavery and called rape “inconvenient.” His position even puts him at odds with Senator Rob Portman, and Donald Trump, who has previously stated his support for abortion exceptions for rape and incest. 

“J.D. Vance standing arm-in-arm with the biggest cheerleader of a national abortion ban is further proof that he will stop at nothing to restrict the health and freedom of Ohio women. Today’s visit sends a clear message to Ohio women: J.D. Vance and Graham are two politicians obsessed with inserting themselves into deeply personal decisions that belong between Ohio women and their doctors,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

###

Mother Jones: J.D. Vance’s Flip-Flop On The Nazi March In Charlottesville

Columbus, OH – A new report from Mother Jones’ David Corn highlights how J.D. Vance has “traveled a great distance in a few short years,” from castigating Trump for being “too cautious” in condemning the white supremacist violence at Charlottesville to calling the Charlottesville riot a “ridiculous race hoax.” 

As Corn notes, “Race hoax in Charlottesville? A rally was put on by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and a white nationalist did kill a counter-protester. Where’s the hoax?”

“J.D. Vance is a shameless phony who is only interested in furthering his own political career. With his positions changing by the day, how can Ohioans trust anything California Vance says?” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Read more below:

Mother Jones: J.D. Vance’s Flip-Flop on the Nazi March in Charlottesville
David Corn
September 26, 2022

  • The infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, which was organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis to celebrate white nationalism and that led to the tragic killing of counter-protester Heather Heyer, became an early defining moment of Donald Trump’s presidency when he declared there had been “very fine people on both sides.” Pundits, Republican and Democratic officials, and others recoiled at Trump’s both-sidesism and his inability—or unwillingness—to sharply and definitively condemn the racists, fascists, and antisemites who had gathered. The critics included J.D. Vance, the author and venture capitalist. But in the years since, Vance, now the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, has changed his tune on Charlottesville to sync up with Trump and his denialism.
  • Days after the protest and the murder of Heyer by a white nationalist, Vance appeared on CNN to discuss what had occurred. Asked by host Wolf Blitzer for his overall reaction, Vance was straightforward:
    • Wolf, you see people marching around doing the Nazi salute. I come from a family with a large number of military veterans, and from back in the day, people who actually went and fought the Nazis. It’s really disturbing to see this display of white nationalism. And [it] became doubly terrifying and terrible because it led to somebody losing their life. Like a lot of people, I watched the TV, was horrified. And it forced me to think, what’s going on in our country and happening that this stuff is becoming seemingly more common.
  • Noting that in Trump’s initial response Trump had not specifically mentioned the Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists who had mounted this rally—Trump had criticized “hatred, bigotry, and violence” on “both sides”—Blitzer asked Vance to evaluate how Trump had handled the matter. Vance did not hold back:
    • The President really missed an opportunity to name this phenomenon and gives people a sense where it comes from and show the moral leadership people want from a president. The thing that’s important for folks from my political side, the conservative side of the aisle, have to keep in mind that a lot of the people who feel physically threatened by white supremacists, not people angry by it, the people who see it get upset by it, that’s all of us. The people who feel physically threatened by it are, by and large, not those who voted for Donald Trump. When they look to that movement, I think the President needs to show leadership saying you may not have voted for me but I’m coming out to deplore and criticize that particular movement as strongly as I would if it was on the other side of the political spectrum. Many, a lot felt the president could have spoken to that. Unfortunately, by not naming it what it was, white supremacism, he missed an opportunity.
  • Vance continued slamming Trump’s response and added,
    • If I was President Trump in this situation, I’d spike the football. This is one of the things that really unites the entire country. Racism is bad. Nazism is bad. We fought a war to defeat Nazism. And the president should not just be—there’s a sense in which he’s ambivalent or too cautious about coming out and criticizing this stuff.
  • Vance was not shy in castigating Trump for his reluctance to condemn racists and neo-Nazis. Yet as a Republican seeking a Senate seat, Vance has brazenly flip-flopped on this point. 
  • Last year, during a podcast with Breitbart, Vance expressed quite a different opinion on the Charlottesville march. Railing about identity politics, he accused Democrats of cynically and crassly playing the race card: “Basically, racism [for Democrats] is anything that doesn’t give the Democrats more power. And of course, the reason they use that accusation, it’s not because they care about minorities or not, because they care about racists or whatever the whatever the topic of the day is, it’s because they recognize it as a useful strategy to give them more power.” His No. 1 example of this: “the ridiculous race hoax in Charlottesville.”
  • Race hoax in Charlottesville? A rally was put on by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and a white nationalist did kill a counter-protester. Where’s the hoax?
  • This is not the only race-related matter on which Vance has pulled a 180, as he has journeyed from Trump-basher to Trump toady. In a 2017 interview, he raised the issue of “white privilege” and said, “It’s always important to note that there are obviously still advantages to being white, there are still disadvantages to being black.” Yet in a conversation last year with right-wing talk show host Bill Cunningham, Vance referred to “white privilege” as “ridiculous terminology” and claimed the left uses it “as a power play” to “shut up” conservatives so “they get to run things without any control, without any pushback from the real people.” In an interview with Breitbart, Vance said, the leftist narrative of “white privilege” is “disgusting.” 
  • Vance has traveled a great distance in a few short years. In 2016, he told a former roommate that he viewed Trump as either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.” Now he’s a full Trump acolyte and eagerly appeared with Trump at a recent QAnonish rally in Ohio. It’s not surprising that during this transformation, Vance jettisoned his criticism of Trump’s response to Charlottesville. 
  • I asked the Vance campaign if he had any explanation for his change of heart regarding Charlottesville. The campaign did not reply. 

###

Ohio Democratic Party Statement on Republicans Refusing to Participate in Ohio Debate Commission Debates

Columbus, OH — Today, the Ohio Democratic Party released the following statement after the Ohio Debate Commission announced today that J.D. Vance and Mike DeWine are refusing to participate in any of their scheduled debates. 

“J.D. Vance and Mike DeWine are both cowards and know Ohio voters view them as frauds and their agendas as out-of-touch. If Vance and DeWine can’t muster the courage to stand on a debate stage and face the voters, they certainly won’t be brave enough to take on special interests or their own party and do what’s right for our state. Neither J.D. nor Mike belongs anywhere near elected office,” said Chair Elizabeth Walters. 

“Separately, for the Ohio Debate Commission to blame ‘both parties’ for a lack of debates and refuse to hold Republicans accountable in any way for not participating is disingenuous and cowardly. They should be ashamed of themselves. Attempting to ‘both sides’ this issue and letting Republican candidates off the hook only reinforces Republican behavior that has brought us to this point,” continued Walters. 

###

Third Time’s The Charm: J.D. Refuses To Answer Three Times Whether He Supports National Republicans’ Abortion Ban

Columbus, OH – Within the past week, J.D. Vance refused three times to answer whether he supports Lindsey Graham’s plan for a national ban – despite saying last year that he would “like abortion to be illegal nationally.” 

When asked by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Vance’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. This weekend, Vance was asked by the Daily Beast about his position and “would not say whether he’d support a national ban on abortion” and a Vance campaign spokesperson “declined to offer a position.” CNN also asked Vance about his position but he “did not respond to CNN’s questions.”   

J.D. Vance’s real feelings on abortion are extreme and out-of-touch – he’s compared abortion to slavery and called rape “inconvenient” – which is likely why he is trying to hide his views from Ohioans. Vance’s support of a national abortion ban is even at odds with Senator Rob Portman, who he is vying to replace. And Vance is out-of-step with Trump who supports abortion exceptions for rape and incest. 

Vance is also set to campaign with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham next month – standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the biggest cheerleader for a national abortion ban. 

“J.D. Vance’s dangerous position of wanting to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth is so toxic that he’s trying to hide it at all costs. No matter how California fraud J.D. Vance contorts himself next, Ohioans know they can’t trust a single thing he says,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

###

Vance And His Campaign To Counterprogram This Saturday’s OSU-Toledo Game

Columbus, OH – J.D. Vance and his campaign continue to promote their counterprogramming of the Ohio State-University of Toledo game, showing how out-of-touch their campaign really is with Ohioans. Having a campaign event on a fall Saturday night is already a cardinal sin in Ohio – something out-of-state fraud J.D. Vance has forgotten after spending most of his adult life on the coasts. 

As the Toledo Blade’s David Briggs put it, “In Ohio, it’s one thing to talk religion and politics at the dinner table. It’s quite another to mix church and (Ohio) State after dinnertime.” Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said Vance counterprogramming the OSU game “goes against all the rules and conventions.”

It’s no secret Vance really hates spending time in Ohio. He’s already said himself that he feels “out of place” here. His ideal San Franciscan Saturday consists of “tasty brunches, day trips to wine country, art-gallery tours.” And the word is out that Vance prefers to keep a light schedule on the weekends. 

When J.D. Vance hits the rally stage 173 miles northeast of Ohio Stadium this weekend for his  largest Ohio campaign event since his narrow primary win, it’ll be the worst of both worlds: ruining a light weekend for a lazy campaigner while shining a bright spotlight on the authenticity problem that has dogged his campaign from the very start.

Even Alabama U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville – and former Auburn coach – panned Vance’s counterprogramming, saying, “I need to call him and tell him he needs to watch what he’s doing.” 

“After moving from Ohio to California and admitting he feels ‘out of place’ in the Buckeye State, J.D. Vance must have forgotten how we spend fall Saturdays here. We encourage all Ohioans to watch the Ohio State-Toledo game with your family and friends and pay out-of-state fraud J.D. Vance’s counterprogramming no mind,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters.

###