WASHINGTON – At different points during Monday night’s debate, the two candidates to represent Ohio in the US Senate spoke favorably Robert Portmanwhose imminent retirement leaves open the vacancy now furiously contested by the deputy. Tim Ryanthe Democratic candidate, and his Republican opponent, JD Vance.
At a time of intense polarization, Senator Portman recalls a slightly more moderate climate in Washington. Never a big critic of the Trump administration, Portman it was fundamental in brokering a deal on President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill. He was also one of only two Republicans in the Senate vote in favor of confirming Biden’s nomination to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Although he is an unabashed conservative, Portman does not engage in conspiracy theories or Twitter feuds.
Ryan and Vance have tried to present themselves as equally moderate, focused on restoring Ohio’s position as an industrial epicenter while curbing crime and the fentanyl epidemic. With only one debate scheduled between them, and polls showing the two virtually tiedMonday was an opportunity for the kind of moment that can propel a candidate across the finish line.
Ultimately, neither Ryan nor Vance achieved the goal. Each took sharp but predictable jabs at the other’s professional record, with Ryan portraying Vance as a Silicon Valley elitist and Vance criticizing Ryan for two decades he spent in the Chamber of Deputies.
“I wish you were the reasonable moderate you said you were,” Vance said of Ryan, whom he has sharply attacked Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, exaggerating the congressman’s positions on abortion, immigration, racial justice and people’s rights. transgender.
“The extremist here, Tim, is you,” Vance said during a heated exchange.
Ryan seemed to waver at times. Overall, Vance showed a little more vehemence, but it’s unclear whether his performance will be enough to convince undecided voters, some of whom may be unsure whether he’s the independent populist who wrote “Hillbilly Elegy” and criticized then-President . Donald Trump or – once his political ambitions came into focus – the ardent Trump supporter who echoed the conspiracies of the defeated president about the 2020 elections.
“You’re from Silicon Valley,” Ryan said at one point, referring to Vance’s work for venture capital firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. “You don’t understand what’s going on here in Ohio.”
During a recent Vance rally, even Trump joked about Vance’s about-face, mocking Yale Law School graduate for “kissing my ass”. Ryan eagerly repeated the phrase on Monday, telling Vance that “Ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kisser,” in what appeared to be the most popular phrase of the social media debate.
As midterm elections now less than a month away, Ohio has emerged — along with neighboring Pennsylvania and neighboring Wisconsin — as a key battleground that will help determine control of the Senate. Ryan distanced himself from Democratic leadership in Washington, agreeing that Biden should not seek re-election in 2024.
“I would like to see a generational change,” Ryan said, although he did not clearly answer a question later in the debate about whether Schumer should remain as Senate Democratic leader. He also said Vice President Kamala Harris was “absolutely wrong” when she declared last month that the border with Mexico was “secure.”
Throughout the summer, Democrats relied on anger over the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Board of Education. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. But There are signs that abortion is disappearing as an election issue at precisely the wrong time for Democrats.
Reproductive choice came up, as expected, during Monday’s debate, and both candidates seemed prepared with familiar arguments that were unlikely to convince the unconvinced. About Senator Lindsey Graham’s Controversial National Abortion Ban ProposalVance said that “some minimum national standard is completely acceptable to me.”
During a discussion about the case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped and was forced to travel to Indiana to obtain a legal abortion, Vance turned the discussion into illegal immigration, as the alleged rapist was an undocumented immigrant.
“Do your job at border security,” Vance flatly told Ryan.
Vance also put his opponent on the defensive on crime, an issue on which Republicans believe he has the most compelling message. Using racially charged rhetoric popular among other conservatives, he cast Ryan as an ally of the “BLM riots,” a reference to the Black Lives Matter racial justice protests that shook the nation in the summer of 2020.
“I tried to be part of the solution here,” Ryan responded, somewhat defensive on the issue of public safety. Like many other Democrats, he has had to refute false accusations that he is in favor of defunding the police. The charge appears to have been especially strong in Wisconsin, where the perennially unpopular current Senator Ron Johnson is using attacks on crime and policing to open a narrow but consistent lead against Democratic candidate Mandela Barnes.
Ultimately, it was difficult to see how either candidate would benefit from the debate, given that each gave his opponent plenty of fodder for the types of partisan attacks that will dominate Ohio’s airwaves in the coming weeks. Perhaps a series of debates would have allowed the candidates to more clearly articulate their positions, but Vance would have agreed to just a single debate, according to an emerging trend among Republicans.
