U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), Senate candidate in November’s general election, speaks to supporters at the UAW 1219 hall in Lima on Saturday.
Jacob Espinosa | The Lima News
LIMA kn— Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH) made his second stop in Lima in the past week on Saturday.
This time, Ryan, who is running for senate against J.D. Vance, took his time at UAW 1219 off of Bible Road to tout his working class bona fides and urge supporters to continue fighting as election day nears.
“There are a lot of people in this state that are flat-out exhausted,” said Ryan in his speech to about 35 supporters. “We call them the ‘exhausted majority.’ They are exhausted with the extremism of both sides and are ready to move out of the age of stupidity and into the age of possibility, into a time where we can rebuild the great American middle class.”
“Representative Ryan has been working for working class families for two decades,” said Lima Mayor Sharetta Smith, who helped introduce Ryan and was on hand to lend her support. “And with Lima having such a strong blue collar manufacturing base, we need a representative in Ohio that cares about the things that we care about, and Tim Ryan is that person.”
Ryan told stories about meeting Republican steelworkers earlier in the day who privately told him they had his vote, as well as how his grandfather was able to have an active civic life thanks his secure job and even was able to help build his family’s Catholic grade school.
“He had the time to participate in the civic life of his community because he had a good job,” said Ryan. “My grandfather built the grade school that I and my brothers and the whole community went to. He was literally building my future. So that’s what we need to ask ourselves. Are we building a future for our kids and grand kids?”
“I think it went great,” said Mike Knisley, the Executive Secretary Treasurer of the Ohio State Building Trades and a supporter of Ryan. “Tim, his message, I think it resonates with Republicans, Democrats and independents. When you look at his signs, it’s ‘Tim Ryan Workers First.’ He breathes it. He speaks the truth. He talks about kitchen table issues. But I think that anybody could get behind eliminating the stupidity. There’s just so much vitriol out there. There’s just so much people at each other’s throats. He wants to cut through that. He wants to get back to an America that he grew up in as a young man. And he wants to get us back to some common sense, just having some discussions and treating people with respect, and it is really about workers. You know, the upper middle class, they’ll always be fine. But people down on the ground that are working in restaurants or they’re working in a factory, those are the ones that he really cares about. Because he knows that they need the most break out of all of us.”
Although Ryan has pledged to take on competition for jobs from China and bad trade deals, Vance has criticized him and Democrats for not doing more to stop those bad trade deals. Vance has also tied Ryan to the business connections that President Biden and other Democrats allegedly have in China.
While Ryan took shots at Republicans and Vance for issues like the overturn of Roe v. Wade and Vance’s donors, the second most important theme of the event was rallying support and inspiring optimism for the election.
“I like the fact that it’s you and me,” he said, making note of the fact that the Democratic Party has paled in fundraising compared to Republicans running for office in Ohio. “The energy on the ground is unbelievable.”
“It’s going to be really dicey,” said Knisley. “Ohio is a red state. We know Trump won by eight points. I believe that Tim though, has a better message. I think he’s just a better candidate than what we’ve seen before. Because he’s for all of Ohio. He’s running as a Democrat, but he’s there for independents and he’s there for Republicans. And so I think it’s going to be really close, maybe by a point one way or the other.”
An average of polls gathered by fivethirtyeight.com shows JD Vance, a businessman from Middletown who recollected his story of rising from an impoverished family to the top as a venture capitalist in his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” ahead by 45.2% to 44.4% for Ryan.
Although the national Democratic Party may not be sending money to the Ryan campaign, The Hill reported earlier this month that Ryan raised $17 million over the previous three months. Vance, not counting funding he has received from the Republican Party, shows that he has raised less than $630,000.
Vance and Ryan are running to replace Senator Rob Portman (R), who is retiring at the conclusion of his term in office.
Election Day is on Tuesday, November 8.
Reach Jacob at 567-242-0399
