GOP’s Vance wins Senate seat

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Associated Press
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J.D Vance, right, defeated Tim Ryan, left, in the race for one of Ohio’s two seats in the Senate.

AP photos

COLUMBUS — Republican J.D. Vance defeated Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, becoming the first Ohioan to be elected to the U.S. Senate without prior political experience in decades.

Ryan conceded shortly after 11 p.m., according to both campaigns. As of 12:15 a.m., Vance, a writer and venture capitalist led Ryan, a longtime congressman from the Youngstown area, by 276,803 votes, or 53% to 47%. With control of the U.S. Senate up for grabs, the win ensures the seat currently held by retiring Sen. Rob Portman will remain in Republican hands.

“We just got a great chance to govern, and I promise to try to use it,” Vance told an audience of supporters Tuesday night at an Ohio Republican Party event at a hotel in Downtown Columbus. “To all my friends who are going to be at the Statehouse and in the state capitol, we need better leadership in Washington, and that’s what I promise to fight for every day.”

Vance won 53.3% of Ohio’s votes, compared to Ryan’s 46.7%.

Voters from the Lima region said they were focused on change as they voted. As Shawn Mowery, of Cridersville, said, “Something’s gotta be better than what we’ve got now.”

That could mean more unity.

“I hope for better unity among both Democrats and Republicans and to focus on improvement for the masses,” said Kim Allison, of Cridersville.

For Mike Dunlap, of Wapakoneta, he’s anxious for a return of his rights.

“I hope I get all my rights back that have been taken and to listen to us people when we speak,” he said.

Striking a conciliatory tone, Vance also called Ryan’s concession call “very gracious.”

“I know Tim Ryan, we disagree on a lot of issues. But the guy obviously loves the state of Ohio. I appreciate the effort he put in,” Vance said.

Well past 11 p.m., Ryan took the stage at an election watch party outside Youngstown. He thanked his wife and children for their support and told a forlorn crowd that he called Vance to concede the race. He said there’s too much hate, anger, fear and division in American politics.

He called it a “privilege” to concede the election, characterizing the practice as a cornerstone of a peaceful transfer of power – a thinly veiled reference to the former U.S. president’s ongoing denial of the results of the 2020 election. He warned that the vitriol and antidemocratic tendencies on the rise in American politics may get worse before they get better.

“We can’t have a system where if you win, it’s a legitimate election, and if you lose, someone stole it,” he said.

Vance will succeed Portman, who shocked the Ohio political world in January 2021 when he decided not to run for reelection. Following a bruising Republican primary, which Vance won with a late endorsement from ex-President Donald Trump, the race emerged as an unexpected battleground race. It drew national attention as Democrats try to figure out whether they have a recipe to regain the ground they’ve lost in Ohio and other similar states.

Vance is the first Ohioan elected to the Senate without prior political experience since John Glenn, a Democrat and former astronaut, won a seat in 1974. But even Glenn, a national hero as the first American to orbit the Earth, ran for the office twice before eventually winning.

Vance launched what turned out to be a political career in 2016, when he published his best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” that later was adapted into a Netflix movie. He leveraged fame from his book, and his repeated criticisms of then-candidate Trump, into a job as a political commentator and in-demand public speaker.

Vance since has converted on Trump, saying the former president won him over with his policies. In the process, he’s taken up political views that, in contrast to the mild-mannered politics associated with Portman, pledges to do battle with progressive cultural forces that Republicans view as having taken over big business, higher education and the media.

Vance won a crowded and nasty Republican primary in May, defeating five other major candidates. He did so with a major boost from Trump, who gave him a late endorsement, and with $15 million he got from Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor for whom Vance used to work.

Ryan, meanwhile, fell short in his first statewide run after flirting with doing so for nearly 20 years. During this campaign he’s tacked toward the political center, de-emphasizing hot-button social issues while trying to paint Vance as an extremist. In the process, Ryan downplayed or pivoted from more liberal positions he staked out earlier in his career, including a short-lived run for president in 2019.

Ryan was hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sen. Sherrod Brown, who in 2018 was reelected in a year Republicans won every other non-judicial statewide office.

But even in defeat, Ryan could get credit for forcing national Republicans to spend tens of millions of dollars defending a Republican-held seat that wasn’t expected to be competitive. While votes are still being counted, he looks likely to outrun Nan Whaley, the Democratic candidate for governor, by around 10 percentage points.

Ryan also got national praise for running an energetic campaign, and he managed to use a massive fundraising advantage to make the race surprisingly competitive.

After his speech, Ryan hugged a swath of teary-eyed supporters. When a reporter asked about the future of the Democratic Party in Ohio given the Republicans’ dominance up and down the ballot, Ryan appeared bleak in his response.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Bad year.”

Ryan raised a record-setting $48 million for his Senate campaign, quadruple what Vance directly raised and shattering the record Brown set in 2018. Vance, meanwhile largely has relied on outside donors, getting more than $30 million from a Super PAC with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Ryan used his fundraising advantage to flood TV airwaves over the summer, attempting to brand himself as a political independent and define Vance as a phony.

But Republicans evened out the money advantage in August, when the McConnell-aligned PAC, the Senate Majority Fund, decided to get involved and aired attack ads tying Ryan to his support of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The increased spending coincided with Vance establishing a narrow edge in the polls, with Vance’s advantage solidifying into a comfortable lead in the race’s final days. Ryan and other Ohio Democrats pleaded with national Democrats to match the outside Republican spending, but were unsuccessful.

On the Republican side, the race likely is going to get caught up in the party’s internal power struggle between McConnell and Trump.

McConnell’s allies privately have taken credit for financially rescuing Vance, putting the two candidates’ on even footing in television advertising. But Trump also held a last-minute rally for Vance near Dayton, and a pro-Trump Super PAC spent another $2 million on advertising boosting Vance.

With this year’s U.S. Senate race in the rear view mirror, Ohio’s political scene likely is soon to switch its attention to 2024, when Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown will be up for reelection.

Brown has said he’s going to run, although he hasn’t yet officially announced it. He’ll be one of three Senate Democrats from Trump states who will be defending their seats, making it a near-certainty the race will be under a national microscope.

Brown issued a statement Tuesday night congratulating Vance and thanking Ryan for running.

“I look forward to working with J.D. when it’s in the best interests of all Ohioans and continue the work Senator Portman and I have done to move our state forward,” Brown said. “Congratulations also to Tim Ryan for running a strong race that was centered in the Dignity of Work. Tim and his team should be proud of their campaign, and I know Tim has a bright future ahead of him, serving Ohio and fighting for working families.”

Dean Brown, of The Lima News, contributed to this story.

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