Vance returned to his roots in Middletown, Ohio, to campaign for Republican candidates, reports Associated Press. Visiting a steel plant where his grandfather used to work, Vance said that the Democrat Party today is not the same one his grandfather once supported way back when.
With the midterm elections just two and half months away, the vice president made a wide-ranging speech, urging those in attendance to tell "far-left radicals" that "this is not your country, it's our country" at the ballot box.
Currently, both Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) are facing stiff Democrat challenges. Amy Action is the Democrat candidate running against Ramaswamy, and Husted is facing off in the Senate race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
Tom Zawistowski is president of the Ohio-based Tea Party-affiliated We the People Convention.
“Clearly, they needed help, and that's why he was here, because the polling shows that Vivek is in a dead heat and Husted might be behind. So that was the purpose of it, and it was effective,” Zawistowski states.
He points out that it’s also a double things.
“I think that every time he opens his mouth now, you have to expect that this is really him running for the nomination in 2028. That's kind of some of the things that were being picked up in the media — that he's trying to position himself as kind of like the warrior for the common man,” Zawistowski says.
According to him, the optics were good.
“He spoke at the mill that his grandfather used to work at. He came across as the common Ohioan worker-type person, and so he altered his own credentials, as far as making those endorsements,” Zawistowski states.
He believes Vance and President Donald Trump will both make more stops in Ohio during the fall campaign to support Republican candidates.
