'Hillbilly Elegy' Author J.D. Vance Shakes Up Crowded Ohio Senate Race (Decepticon alert)

PJ Media ^ | Jul 02, 2021 2:13 AM | Paula Bolyard

[Chad C. Mulligan]

J.D. Vance, the author of the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy, announced that he is entering the race to replace Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who said that he would not run for reelection.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

They're going to find a way to keep Josh Mandel out of the Senate no matter what. So here comes media darling J.D.Vance, who has never met a microphone he couldn't love. Has studied up on the right buttons to push to get the Trump base excited, but will he deliver? Doubtful. Very, very doubtful. He's in it for the money. Always has been. And yes I read his book when it came out. Believed less than half of it. As the old saw goes: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."

[SMARTY]

Portman is ca ca!

[DIRTYSECRET]

Does this mean he’ll be exposed just before the election. Experiences the order of the day for those 6 year seats. Can’t gamble with rookies but don’t tell me Mandel is the answer. Timken? Anti-Trumpet right? If we blow it I’d blame Jim Jordan.

[Reily]

What’s Jim Jordan who’s in the House have to do with the Ohio Senate races?

[dangus]

What’s wrong with Josh Mandel?

[DIRTYSECRET]

Jordan would win. Mandel? I’ll let the others handle it.

[ScubaDiver]

Nothing really, except he doesn’t have a lot of voter appeal. He seems to be a good kid and a reliable conservative. But, for whatever reason(s), he has difficulty connecting with voters. He got beat like a rented mule when he ran against Sherrod Brown.

I think he would be better off finding a House seat to run for and win and make some noise there.

[stoneyhll]

His campaign manager worked on Kasich’s campaigns. Enough said.

[dangus]

>> He got beat like a rented mule when he ran against Sherrod Brown. <<

He got beat by under 6% in an outrageously blue wave, the worst GOP showing in generations.

[dangus]

Incumbent Sherrod Brown won with 50% even, after raising $24 million. Hardly beating anyone like a rented mule. Thanks to Mitt Romney and his GOP-voter-suppression tool (”Operation Barracuda”), the GOP had their worst turnout since 1964. Given normal turnout, Mandel would’ve won.

[ScubaDiver]

You're remembering an alternate reality. On the same ballot, he did 225K votes WORSE than Romney. You get that, right? Romney lost Ohio by three points. Mandel lost by 6-points.

Rather than vote for Mandel, roughly 200K people who voted for Romney voted for the Independent Senate Candidate. That Indie Senate candidate did better - a lot better - than all of the Independent presidential candidates combined in the Presidential ballot.

[dangus]

Your alternate reality includes the notion I said he outperformed Romney. I blamed Romney for Operation Barracuda, which prevented traditional GOTV efforts and which failed ultimately, costing the Republicans millions of voters in turnout. Without Operation Barracuda’s fiasco, Romney and Mandel would both have won. You correctly identify the presence of an independent candidate siphoning votes off as a reason Mandel underperformed Romney; national spending focused on attacking Brown ($16 M) rather than supporting Mandel ($3 M).

[Lowell1775]

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‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Author J.D. Vance Shakes Up Crowded Ohio Senate Race (Decepticon alert)
PJ Media ^ | Jul 02, 2021 2:13 AM | Paula Bolyard
Posted on 7/2/2021, 1:34:50 PM by Chad C. Mulligan