Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance makes a stop in Columbiana County

Ohio U.S. Senate Republican candidate J.D. Vance stopped in the Mahoning Valley Monday on his campaign trail.

Vance was in Salineville at the Maskaluk well pads, taking part in what's called the "Ohio Energy Tour."

"I think if people know what I stand for, if people know what my opponent stands for, we'll be in fine shape come November," Vance said. 

Vance was joined by energy companies, including Utica Energy Alliance, speaking about their push for natural gas and oil energy during a town hall.

Vance, alongside Republican Congressman Bill Johnson, said there needs to be more pipelines and infrastructure to produce more energy to benefit the economy. 

"If we want to make anything in this country, you know, go to a steel mill and see how much natural gas they use because you need high-quality natural gas to produce steel," he said, "That's true of nearly everything that is made in this country, it requires low-cost energy."

This comes at a time when the Voltage Valley works to pave the way for an electric vehicle future.

21 News asked Vance what his plan is to keep these companies successful.

He said right now, Voltage Valley efforts aren't worth the risk of scrapping other automobile jobs in Ohio and was dismissive in response to the moves in Lordstown.

“Well, I think that we should let the market shift to electric vehicles. We have to remember that the entire Ohio automobile industry is going to get destroyed if the government forces us to go to electric vehicles prematurely. I'm not against electric vehicles, if people want to buy a Tesla, they want to buy, you know, whatever the electric vehicle on the market is, that's fine. What I am against is the federal government and Tim Ryan putting Ohio autoworkers out of business by forcing this transition before the country is ready for it."

Vance added, "There are plans for this to benefit Ohio, but it hasn't actually benefited Ohio yet, and if you look for every single job that's created in the electric vehicle industry, usually two, three, four Ohio auto workers jobs are destroyed in the process," Vance said, "I'm all for Ohio leading in electric vehicles, but if we force thousands of Ohio auto workers out because we create maybe a few hundred electric vehicle jobs in the future, Ohio workers do not benefit in that trade."