Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) looks to have a curious approach to beating his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance. During his Tuesday interview with CBS News' Robert Costa on "Red & Blue," he used his lack of support from Democrats to his advantage. The interview took place after Ryan had just debated Vance on Monday.
Upon Costa asking if after the debate Ryan had "heard from the Biden White House or Senate Democratic leaders at all" and if they had "made a commitment of more resources in your race," Ryan shook his head, explaining "we haven't heard from anybody."
Despite being pretty much abandoned by his party, Ryan tried to frame it as an opportunity, as he spoke of polls where he's ahead and how the campaign has "a bunch of grassroots supporters that are helping us." That he's "prepared to go it alone," Ryan argued, will help him once he's gotten to Washington, D.C., should he win his race to replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), so that he can be "an independent voice for Ohio."
Costa didn't mince words, pointing out it was "a striking thing to hear," referring to "on your own" when it comes to Ryan moving ahead with the campaign without support from Democratic leadership. He wondered if "at this point, is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee doing enough and spending enough in Ohio."
On Monday afternoon, hours before the debate took place, NBC News had published Henry J. Gomez's piece about how "Tim Ryan 'all by his lonesome' as national Democrats ignore close Ohio Senate race."
Ryan touted the polls where he is leading, and referred to himself as "blue collar" and a native to Youngstown, Ohio among other "working class people" as well as how he's supposedly doing well with Ohio voters of all political affiliations to argue "you would think that they'd want to be actively engaged in this race, that it would be good for us to win this seat, but also good for the party."
He then went on to offer, "but, you know, we'll have to see, they've got a lot of different, uh, you know, calculations that they've got to make," doubling down on how "we're prepared to go with this on our own," during which the congressman made a claim without evidence when it comes to Vance's support.
One "advantage" that Ryan spoke about is how Vance is supposedly "losing support, losing Republican support and after the debate last night our phones have been ringing off the hook with Republicans, Republican donors, Republican voters that want to come help."
Rep. Ryan has claimed before that he has support from Republicans. As the Washington Free Beacon's Joseph Simonson reported in August, one such Republican is John Bridgeland. As Simonson wrote though:
The founder of "Republicans for Tim Ryan," Bridgeland has worked on left-wing policy initiatives for years. Former president Barack Obama in 2010 appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council for Community Solutions. Bridgeland also cofounded a firm, COVID Collaborative, that works with the Biden administration on vaccine messaging. In December 2020, Bridgeland wrote an op-ed for the website of Maria Shriver, a Democratic activist and member of the Kennedy family, about how he was "so encouraged" by Biden's win.
Later in the interview, when asked about the January 6 select committee, Ryan again tried to appeal to Republicans and Independent-minded voters, specifically those "who are also concerned about the Dobbs decision, who are also concerned about what happened with the Supreme Court and the overreach of choice, and then nullifying same-sex marriages and wanting to go down the road of birth control." He later referred to it as "big government in our bedroom and in our doctor's offices."
Such comments, especially about same-sex marriage and contraception, were more of the fear-mongering that viewers of Monday night's debate saw. Ryan was referring to a solo concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas in the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which had overturned Roe v. Wade. It's worth emphasizing that the opinion of the Court, as well as a concurrence from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, highlighted how this decision only applied to abortion.
He also spoke out against a "group of extremists that will defend the indefensible," and claimed, as he tied Vance to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that his opponent "is in with the looney tune group of the Republican Party," which will supposedly give moderates reason to support Ryan over Vance.
In response to being asked by Costa if such issues were galvanizing voters, Ryan claimed that they were. Polling shows, however, that while abortion comes in second on issues of importance to Ohioans, it's a distant second to the economy.
Another takeaway from the interview, as our friends at Twitchy also highlighted, is that Rep. Ryan is snubbing Biden, as he similarly did when the president came to visit in July, though Ryan's campaign claimed there were "unavoidable scheduling conflicts."
When it comes to "choices to make" that Costa pointed out Ryan has, he asked the congressman "do you want President Biden to come to Ohio and publicly campaign with you in this final lap?"
Ryan was clearly against it. "No, no, I won't be asking the president to come in--or very, very few, if any, national people to you know come in and actually campaign with us, because I want to be the main face, the main messenger of that of this campaign," he offered. He then continued to tout his Ohio roots and how he is part of "an Ohio family that wants to connect with other Ohioans."
The CBS News write-up also had an interesting note about candidates snubbing Biden. "And he plans to continue distancing himself from Democrats, including President Joe Biden, as the country continues to be squeezed by high inflation and rising prices. He said he'll go it alone, without their help on the campaign trail in the coming weeks before Election Day," the write-up indicated about Ryan.
Ryan again took the opportunity to slam his opponent, although in a laughably false way, by claiming that the endorsement and further support from former President Donald Trump has hurt Vance's campaign, in that it "was an absolute net negative" for Vance.
In reality, after Trump endorsed Vance in April, Vance's support in the crowded Republican primary shot up in the polls, and he ultimately won that May primary by 32.2 percentage points, almost 9 points higher than the second place finisher, Josh Mandel.
Trump won Ohio in 2016 and again in 2020, by 51.7 percent and 53.3 percent, respectively. An Emerson College poll from last month also found that the 1,000 likely voters surveyed would support Trump over Biden by 50 percent to 40 percent.
That same poll found that 56 percent disapprove of Biden, while 41 percent approve. A Civiqs poll last updated on Tuesday found that 35 percent while 58 percent disapproved.
The polls Ryan mentioned where he is ahead are from last month and include the Spectrum News/Siena poll where he's up +3 and the Cincinnati Enquirer/Suffolk poll where he is up +1. Both leads were within the margin of error.
Overall, forecasters and polls are in Vance's favor. RealClearPolitics overall has a +1.4 lead for Vance. The race is also considered "Lean Republican."
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