J.D Vance Toledo Town Hall
GOP Senate candidate J.D Vance held a town hall Tuesday in Toledo, Ohio. Immigration, elite control of Washington, term limits, January 6th, and healthcare were among topics of conversation.
We are a little over three months out from party primary elections in Ohio's United States Senate race. There will soon be a vacancy seat representing Ohio in the United States Senate as current Senator Rob Portman will retire at the end of his term this year. Candidates in both parties are ramping up their campaigns for the respective party's primary elections set for early May. Republican candidate J.D Vance held a Town Hall with voters in Toledo, Ohio, at Tony Packos restaurant on February 22, 2022.
Vance was brought in front of the restaurant's 40-50 seat back section by his aunt, who introduced him. Vance told his background and what he believes are the most significant issues affecting this country today. Using similar, less punchy rhetoric from the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump, Vance talked about immigration at the southern border and the fact that we have a leadership problem in America. "Corrupt elites that have been in Washington for generations are selling out the working class and getting rich at the same time."
During his opening remarks, Vance told voters that the current administration should stop worrying about the border of Ukraine and worry about the drugs and crime coming into our country at our southern border. He called for the completion of the border wall, the Mexican Drug cartel to be named a terrorist organization, and suggested troops be sent to fight the cartel at our border and not the Russians in Europe.
Vance's central point throughout the night was that we have a leadership problem, corrupt Washington elites getting rich off of selling out the middle class. He showed his support for a bill working through the Senate barring congress members from trading stock. He then mentioned Nancy Pelosi by name and mentioned a social media account that tracks her stock portfolio and how "when Pelosi picks a stock, it goes up and up."
In one of the first questions from the audience, Vance was asked about term limits and if he would support having them for members of Congress. Vance answered he would support having term limits for members of Congress. He quickly transitioned to including officials of the "alphabet soup" bureaucracies like the FDA, EPA, etc... then mentioning Anthony Fouci by name. "The bureaucrats run this country," Vance added. It was evident that Vance knew what the loudest part of the party's base wanted to hear. He did a great job at pandering to the Trump wing of the party without getting into some of the rhetoric that turns more moderate voters off.
Of course, the topic of January 6 and the 2020 election came up. A voter asked if Vance believes Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and his thoughts of the riot at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. This was the most careful Vance was with his language all night. He walked the fine line of winking to the base that fishy things happened during the election. He mentioned ballot harvesting and States changing their rules for voting unconstitutionally, making sure to dance around saying if he believed Trump lost or won the race. Vance started his response to the second part of the question regarding the riot at the capital. He did not once use the words insurrection or riot. Vance referred to the event as a political demonstration. He admitted there was violence that day and that those violent should be held accountable after receiving a free and fair trial. Before another audience member could ask another question, Vance mentioned a Senate hearing where Senator Ted Cruz questioned the assistant executive director of the FBI about the attack on the capital. Cruz wondered whether any FBI agents were present, knew about, or took place in the attack in which the FBI official answered: "I can't answer that." Vance made sure to include "creepy" after bringing up the hearing. Almost as a way to get the focus off him, Trump, and the GOP and back to the "alphabet soup" bureaucracies. It was effortless to tell this was not a topic Vance likes to answer questions on.
The final question came from a man in the back of the room. The man's question was about health care, why it is so expensive and how to lower the cost of care. Like a soundbite on cable news, Vance's response was crisp and polished like he had been rehearsing for this question. His response was twofold; ending hospital monopolies and "changing the leadership" that takes large sums of money from big pharma and allows for insulin to be sold for thousands of dollars when it was invented 100 years ago and is inexpensive to make.
After the questions wrapped up, I attempted to get a moment with Vance to ask some follow-up questions about the topics of the night, money in politics being top of mind after his comments about Big Pharma.
Without looking up from his phone, he said he didn’t have time, walking past me. I pressed again, ensuring that I did not work for anyone but myself. Vance didn’t miss a step and referred me to a press email and said he needed to read a bedtime story to his son.
The J.D Vance campaign has not responded to the request via email as of writing this.
I will be going over the questions I had for J.D Vance and my overall opinion of the event on the next episode of A Midwest Conversation Podcast.
Stay tuned,
Best,
Grant
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wow, you really don't like republicans do you? tis ok. feeling i'm sure is mutual