What The GOP #OHSen Candidates Said: J.D. Vance Is A “Phony,” “Fraud,” “Handpicked By Mitch McConnell,” An “Aspiring Cable TV Star” And “A Condescending Elitist”
May 6, 2022
Columbus, OH — It’s going to be hard to unite the Republican Party behind California Vance after eight months of relentless, nasty attacks from his former primary opponents. As Cleveland.com’s Brent Larkin wrote, “With few exceptions, the only time the four leading candidates tell the truth is when they talk about each other.” And the GOP U.S. Senate candidates sure told the truth about California Vance – exposing the baggage he is carrying into the general election.
“Ohio Republicans were right about one thing: J.D. Vance is a phony, fraud, and a condescending elitist,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Here are the highlights of the attacks leveled against Vance over the past eight months:
May:
- Gibbons told The Vindicator that Vance is “backed by a big-tech guy from the West Coast and he put $13.5 million into his campaign.” He also said “If somebody can move in from out of state and with outside of the state money come into this state with really abandoning it until it was time to run for the U.S. Senate and the state elects that individual then I feel sorry for the voters in this state. I don’t think the voters of this state are going to be duped into that.”
- Gibbons told the New York Times Trump’s endorsement of Vance shocked him and said he was someone who “flew in from the West Coast.” He said, “Ohioans should be insulted.”
April:
- Jane Timken told Dayton 24/7 News, “I’m not going to Washington DC to try to get myself canceled on social media or make a name for myself.”
- Mike Gibbons told NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard that he thought Trump made a mistake and that “I don’t think JD is qualified as a conservative.”
- At the WLWT debate, Matt Dolan took a shot at Vance for calling the atrocities in Ukraine a “distraction,” saying, “I know who doesn’t think this is a distraction: The good people in northeastern Ohio, where we have thousands of Ukrainian folks.”
March:
- On the Bruce Hooley Show, Gibbons said: “J.D. Vance is a newcomer. He moved in from San Francisco, handpicked by Mitch McConnell.”
February:
- Josh Mandel in a Newsmax interview said, “ [Vance is] a Never Trumper, he bragged about being a Never Trumper, they see him as a total fake and a phony here in Ohio.”
- In Mansfield, Gibbons slammed Vance, saying, “I’m the candidate that didn’t have to delete my tweets. I supported Donald Trump from the beginning.”
January:
- Timken went after J.D. Vance in an interview with the Washington Examiner, saying that he was a Johnny-come-lately on Trump and that “Ohio voters want authenticity.”
December:
- On the Mark Levin Show, Mandel went after J.D. Vance for his political transformation on Trump, saying, “The fact that my opponent J.D. Vance did that and refused to vote for President Trump, it’s just unforgivable.”
- At an event in Lorain County, Mandel went after Vance, saying, “I got people running against me who are smooth. I got one guy running against me who wrote a book, made a movie. He’s on Fox News all the time. When Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, this guy refused to vote for President Trump. Think about that for a second. When Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, he wouldn’t vote for Trump. That’s one of my opponents.”
November:
- Dolan tweeted that Ohio didn’t need a “bomb thrower or aspiring cable TV star with empty rhetoric” – a clear shot at Vance’s past as a CNN contributor.
October:
- Dolan decided to take a shot at Vance, who has famously deleted his anti-Trump tweets to cover up his record, saying that he doesn’t delete his tweets during the CCV forum Sunday. Dolan tweeted (forever, will not be deleted), “Unlike others, I don’t delete my tweets. I’m a transparent public official.”
- In a Newsmax interview, Mandel said Vance “gets a lot of love from Never Trumpers.”
- After J.D. Vance made disgusting comments about rape, Bernie Moreno made the understatement of the year when he told Breitbart that it was “sloppy” of Vance to use that word. Moreno also said that Vance could have clarified by saying that “rape is vile,” but Vance refused to do so.
- Following Evan McMullin’s announcement he is challenging Mike Lee for Senate in Utah, Mandel went after J.D. Vance for his prior support of McMullin in 2016. He tweeted, “JD Vance’s 2016 presidential candidate is now running for senate to join him in the Never-Trump caucus.” He went on to share a clip of Vance trashing Trump and called Vance a “condescending elitist.”
September:
- Reacting to a Business Insider investigation that Vance founded a sham non-profit to boost his political career, Mandel attacked Vance, saying, “Step 1: Abandon hometown Step 2: Profit off of crapping on hometown and calling people from there racists Step 3: Return from silicon valley to start nonprofit to ‘save’ hometown from opioids Step 4: Take the money from the nonprofit and instead use it for political campaign.”
- Mandel bashed Vance’s Big Tech and Hollywood connections in an interview with Ben Shapiro, saying, “I think if the election were held today in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street or DC, I think JD Vance would run away with it. But if the election was held today in Ohio, he’d get destroyed, because Ohioans are not buying what he’s selling…They see him as a total phony and a total fraud.”
- And finally, Mandel tweeted that it was an “eternal truth” that “J.D. Vance is a Never Trumper.”
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