Memorandum: J.D. Vance is Flailing
From: Michael Beyer, Ohio Democratic Party Communications Advisor
Re: J.D. Vance Is Flailing
Another round of dismal fundraising numbers and a new poll showing Tim Ryan ahead are just the latest signs that Big Tech Financier (FINN-ANCE-EER as he would pronounce it) J.D. Vance's campaign is flailing. Despite a rolodex full of Silicon Valley and Yale Law contacts, he can't raise the money to get on the air and he still hasn't consolidated Republican voters after a bruising primary. Ohioans aren't buying his transparent political reinventions that have dogged his campaign from the get-go.
POLLING NUMBERS
Still reeling from a tough GOP primary (that ended more than two months ago), Vance is polling at 49 percent unfavorable with voters disliking him by an 11 point margin. And he is well-known, with 88 percent of Ohioans knowing who Vance is. More than twice as many Ohio voters view him very unfavorably than very favorably, 39 percent to 16 percent.
Vance was exposed as a fraud in the GOP primary with millions of dollars worth of attack ads that revealed him as a "fraud," "flip flop flipper," "Never Trump," "RINO," who "called for higher taxes," and "cheering for the wrong team." A Republican voter recently said he may vote for DeWine but couldn't vote for Vance because "it bothered him that Vance went from Trump critic to courting Trump when it was expedient."
Vance has an uphill battle to convince voters from his own party to back him while not turning off Independent voters who currently favor Tim Ryan by 11 points, a maneuver that will require Vance to once again reinvent himself — a major liability coming off a primary where his GOP opponents spent millions of dollars on TV ads defining him as a fraudulent shapeshifter. Vance started the race as an untrustworthy fraud then and everything he's done since has only reinforced that perception.
ABYSMAL FUNDRAISING
It is likely that after today, Vance will have one of the lowest cash-on-hand totals of any Republican U.S. Senate candidate in a competitive race. Vance's campaign has $628,611 on hand and is $882,883 in debt. Vance's campaign is broke from an expensive and bruising primary – and he's shown himself to be an abysmal fundraiser who can't dig himself out of the hole he got himself into.
Vance's campaign knew they were in a rut, which is why they hired a new finance director in June (although this reset doesn't seem to have fixed their fundraising struggles).
Two Republican consultants went after Vance today for his lackluster fundraising, saying, "It's certainly got to be a wake-up call to the J.D. Vance campaign, because Tim Ryan is running circles around him right now," and, "I think legitimately he's got to crank up his fundraising."
REPUBLICANS UPSET WITH VANCE'S "HORRIBLE CAMPAIGN"
One conservative radio host slammed Vance for his "horrible campaign" and encouraged him to "start running some ads and get moving" – which is hard to do when your campaign has no money to spend on ads. Vance has admitted he's still struggling to unite the Ohio Republican Party because there are "a lot of Republican voters with hurt feelings" from the primary (again, 2+ months ago).
Conservative radio Bill Cunningham asked Vance why he wasn't at Mike DeWine's ice cream social. Vance told him that he has "nothing against" DeWine; he just had "other things to do" – but apparently those other things did not include fundraising. Bill Cunningham today said that they would have Jack Windsor on to discuss "what many consider to be the non-campaign of J.D. Vance."
AUTHENTICITY PROBLEM HAS DOGGED VANCE'S CAMPAIGN
Since the start of his campaign, Vance has faced an authenticity problem – flip-flopping on key issues for his own political benefit. And Vance will continue to suffer for his lack of convictions that leave many Ohioans wondering, "Which J.D. Vance will we get today?"
Here are some of the many ways that Vance has changed in order to bolster his political career:
Before running for U.S. Senate:
In his memoir, Vance wrote, "We talk about the value of hard work, but tell ourselves that the reason we're not working is some perceived unfairness: (Barack) Obama shut down the coal mines or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance."
After running for U.S. Senate:
At a Trump rally in Pennsylvania in May, Vance said, "We have to stop being weak on China. We have to stop sending American jobs to people who hate us."
When he was promoting Hillbilly Elegy, Vance told NPR: "I think that the elites of both parties do care about the people I grew up around."
Now Vance decries elites, saying they are "robbing us blind" and that they "don't care about the American people."
Vance called himself a "Never Trump guy" and Trump "noxious."
Vance sought Trump's endorsement and said "this guy is doing great things."
Bonus: Vance admitted he wasn't sincerely a Trump supporter, bemoaning the fact that he would have to "suck it up and support Trump" in the GOP primary.
American Independent headline: "GOP Ohio Senate nominee J.D. Vance has supported cuts to Social Security and Medicare"
HuffPost headline: "J.D. Vance Ditches Past Support For Social Security Cuts"
Vance liked a tweet implying Trump supporters were antisemitic.
Vance has promoted Soros conspiracy theories, saying, the "result of his 'philanthropy' is death and crime across America."
Vance said, "A lot of people think Trump is just the first to appeal to the racism and xenophobia that were already there, but I think he's making the problem worse."
Vance called immigrants "dirty" at a candidate forum in 2021.
In a 2017 interview published two weeks after Trump's inauguration, Vance told Ezra Klein that there are "obviously still advantages to being white" and that "there are still disadvantages to being black."
Vance claimed people should be able to sue businesses that tell people they need to "deconstruct their privilege, or they need to sacrifice or repent of their whiteness."
Vance supported red flag laws and said, "We should make it easier to take those guns out of the hands of people who are about to use them to murder large numbers of people."
Now Vance opposes the Portman-led bipartisan gun law that includes red flag laws.
Vance said John Kerry had "more of a spine" than Mitt Romney because Romney flip-flopped on climate change.
Now Vance questions the science of climate change, saying, "I'm skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man. That's basically the argument they're making. It's been changing, as others pointed out, it's been changing for millennia."
SUPER PAC SUPPORT
Vance said (at the 41 minute mark), "My intuition is that I am not the biggest fan of multi-billion contributions or multimillion dollar contributions."
Vance bragged about having "most of the money" supporting his campaign coming from Big Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel, who has given $15 million to a super PAC supporting Vance's campaign.
Vance opposed the repeal and replace efforts of Congressional Republicans in 2017.
Vance said "We've got to" repeal the Affordable Care Act.
As a CNN contributor, Vance said, "There are legitimate concerns that a lot of Black Americans have – that they're not treated fairly by some members of the police."
When he was considering launching a U.S. Senate campaign:
On Tucker Carlson, Vance said that concern over police brutality is "ridiculous" because it's not a "real problem."
Before entering the U.S. Senate race:
Rod Dreher said: "But unless he has changed his mind, his attitude towards gay marriage is more in line with his generation's."
Vance praised Hillary Clinton for her "It Gets Better" video in the wake of a rash of suicides from LGBTQ youth, saying, "Preach it, hil-dog. Not bad for a stinkin' leftist (I kid I kid)."
After entering the U.S. Senate race:
J.D. Vance on Bill Cunningham this week said, "I am a Christian, will you know that I'm a practicing actually Catholic convert. I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman."
And knowing J.D. Vance, this is only the tip of the fraudulent iceberg.