Ohio Senate debates could help determine outcome of race
With U.S. Senate candidates Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance agreeing to two debates before the November election, could it have an impact on who wins the race for Ohio's open senate seat?
"These debates give an opportunity to take the candidates off their scripts, they can challenge each other on points and not just the script that the candidates want to talk about," Andrew Tobias, reporter for Cleveland.com said. "Both Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance have something to gain out of this and both have something to lose and so it will be really interesting to see how they conduct themselves and almost basically how it goes over in the eyes of voters."
A recent Marist poll shows the race razor thin and while Cleveland.com reporter Andrew Tobias still gives J.D. Vance the advantage, he says Ryan's campaign has made the race competitive and a strong debate performance could turn the tide.
"You have to give the advantage to J.D. Vance," Tobias said. "Ohio has gone to President Trump the last two elections, republicans did very well in 2018, so you just kind of assume Vance will have a benefit, if nothing else because of those factors plus kind of the backlash against democrats controlling the White House which is a historic dynamic that we can expect but all that being said you know, Tim Ryan has made the race competitive. I take my cues not only from polls which I kind of doubt but that is sort of part of it but also how the candidates are behaving, you know they are both saying this race could be won or lost, we're kind of seeing national republican money coming into this race that they wouldn't be spending if they didn't think that there was a chance Tim Ryan could win, so, yes I think Ryan is kind of the underdog in the race but I also think it's very possible that he might win based on what I am seeing so something like this honestly could help determine who wins the race."
Jordan Wiggins, campaign manager for J.D. Vance says, "Tim Ryan has built his candidacy on the lie that he's a moderate Democrat. Tim Ryan's 20 years in D.C. tell a different story: he votes with Joe Biden 100% of the time, voted for taxpayer-funded abortion on demand until the point of birth, voted to raise taxes over a hundred times, and voted with the defund the police movement. Tim has spent his whole campaign propping himself up with phony TV commercials, but Ohioans are smarter than Tim Ryan thinks they are - they know he's nothing more than a Washington liberal. JD will soundly defeat Tim Ryan in November because the truth is on his side."
Ryan says Vance has a lot of explaining to do.
"I've been working for working class people for 20 years and we're starting to see out in Lordstown with the battery plant, with the voltage valley with our incubators," Ryan said. "These things I've been pushing, the Intel deal in Columbus, I've been pushing this my whole career. He's parachuting in from California and wants to use Ohio to get a Senate seat, the only thing he's done here is start a fake non-profit to help people with addiction and never spent any money on them, he used it to launch his political career so, he's got a lot of explaining to do, his extreme positions on calling rape inconvenient and women should stay in violent marriages, like he's got to explain that stuff, it's pretty radical stuff, he needs to tell the people of Ohio what he means by that."
The first debate will take place October 10 in Cleveland and will be hosted by WJW-TV.
The second debate will be October 17 at Youngstown's historic Stambaugh Auditorium and hosted by WFMJ-TV.
Ryan's campaign agreed to a debate on October 4 in Cincinnati but Vance's campaign says they have a scheduling conflict that day. It remains to be seen if they will reschedule that debate for another day.
