OH-Sen: Haw Haw! J.D. Vance's (R) Campaign Is Broke... AGAIN!

by poopdogcomedy

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday, Jul. 15, 2022 Friday, Jul. 15, 2022 at 2:56:56pm PDT

LOL:

The J.D. Vance campaign is broke.

That’s the key takeaway from Federal Election Commission filings this week, which show that between mid-April and the end of June, the Vance team raised a million dollars, spent more than that, and is a quarter of a million dollars in the hole with just four months until election day.

It’s something of a head-scratcher for a candidate with national name recognition, who won the GOP primary for a critical Senate seat smack in the middle of the fundraising period.

But the Vance campaign has never been a major money draw.

Over the first three months of the year, the campaign directly raised $38,000 in total and got so close to bottoming out its cash reserves that in late March Vance personally floated himself a $600,000 bridge loan.

Fortunes turned with Trump’s endorsement in April, and Vance caught a windfall heading into the May 3 primary, but he hasn’t seemed able to translate the win into financial support. Eight weeks later, the campaign was in the red, reporting about $628,000 in the bank and $883,000 in debt—a deficit of more than $250,000.

The Vance campaign declined to comment.

His Democratic opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan, raised $9.1 million over the same period. The Ryan campaign told NBC News that in that time it added nearly 90,000 new donors and that most of the donations were in amounts of $100 or less.

It’s not the full picture for Vance, whose fundraising operation includes a leadership PAC and joint fundraising committees. But even that isn’t much better.

This isn’t the first time this year Vance was cash strapped:

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel had already donated a record-breaking amount of money to support J.D. Vance in the Ohio Republican Senate primary — but last week, the Silicon Valley tycoon decided he wanted to give even more.

“Peter would like to make another contribution to the PAC, this time for $1.5 million,” a top Thiel lieutenant wrote to strategists running a pro-Vance super PAC in an April 26 email, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “We are planning to send the wire today, but before doing so I just wanted to confirm you have everything you need from us.”

With that previously unreported donation, Thiel had given $15 million in total to bolster Vance — the largest amount ever given to boost a single Senate candidate. Thiel is a contrarian who became famous for making risky investments that paid off — and with Vance’s win in Tuesday’s primary, the PayPal co-founder and early Facebook financier struck it big again.

Vance was hardly a sure thing. His campaign was outspent by his better-funded rivals, and he had a long history of making anti-Trump statements that could have gone over poorly with GOP primary voters. In February, his campaign suffered a damaging leak of confidential polling data that painted a grim picture of his prospects, chilled his fundraising and set off a forensic hunt for a potential mole.

And unbeknownst to his political advisers, a rival campaign had gained access to some of the Vance operation’s most sensitive documents, giving them a bird’s-eye view into their plans.

But Vance — like many of Thiel’s venture capital investments — took an unusual path to the top, one aimed specifically at helping him win former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and then, in turn, the nomination.

And of course Vance is going to try and spin this:

Ohio Senate Republican nominee J.D. Vance reported more than $2.3 million in second quarter fundraising for this year, far less than the $9.1 million his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan, announced last week.

A press release from Vance’s campaign on Thursday noted that the $2.3 million figure is the total contributions he received from JD Vance for Senate Inc., Ohioans for JD and Vance Victory.

“A major part of Vance’s campaign includes speaking directly with voters and local groups across the state and building an unmatched coalition of supporters at the grassroots level. Vance’s strong numbers indicate his solutions-focused message continues to resonate with Ohioans,” the press release said.

Here’s some more context:

But Ryan’s early money edge – and Vance’s ongoing efforts to retire a cumulative $1 million in campaign debt, with $700,000 of that covering a personal loan he made to seed his run – was a cause of concern for several Ohio Republicans who were interviewed for this story.

Ryan also built that cash lead while running $6 million in campaign ads and maintaining a busy slate of public appearances, compared to almost no advertising from Vance, who’s largely kept a low public profile.

“I think legitimately he’s got to crank up his fundraising, and a lot of that’s got to be national,” said Terry Casey, a Columbus-based Republican strategist. “But clearly, they’re still digging out and recovering from the primary, because it was so nasty, twisted and dirty.”

“It’s certainly got to be a wake-up call to the J.D. Vance campaign, because Tim Ryan is running circles around him right now,” said an Ohio Republican strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s early enough that Vance can be fine, but he’s got to be moving, and he’s got to start working. That’s all there is to it.”

None of the Republicans who spoke with cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer thought Vance was in serious danger of losing the race. Ohio increasingly has become a GOP-leaning state, and the national political climate this year, given high inflation and gas prices, is widely expected to favor Republicans.

But some feared Vance’s relatively weak fundraising, plus a variety of preliminary polls that suggest a tight race, could give an opening to Ryan to entice outside Democratic donors that so far have remained on the sidelines. Nationally, while trying to preserve their 50-50 split in the Senate – with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote – Democrats have focused on other states, either prioritizing protecting incumbents or reaching to win seats in states deemed to be more competitive.

“I think the contrast might have people who are saying, ‘We’ll just focus on Pennsylvania and Nevada’ and all of a sudden have them maybe taking a closer look at Ohio,” said David Pepper, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

In the past, Ohio’s Senate elections have been flush with outside money. For instance, outside groups spent $47.5 million in the 2016 campaign for Portman’s successful re-election bid, while they spent $5 million in 2018, when Sen. Sherrod Brown won re-election, according to OpenSecrets.org.

I’ve also been liking Ryan’s mode of attacks:

🚨 Introducing Fraud Fridays 🚨

In 2017, JD Vance recognized that “racism is a problem across the country." Now, he says racism isn't real.

He’s a fraud and can’t be trusted. pic.twitter.com/rwcR2iS6s1
— Tim Ryan (@TimRyan) July 15, 2022

Reaching out to every voter:

x
YouTube Video

Rep. Tim Ryan — a Democrat angling to flip what many believed would be a safe Republican Senate seat in increasingly red Ohio — is unsubtly ratcheting up his efforts to woo GOP voters.

Ryan's latest TV ad, shared first with NBC News, will begin airing this week exclusively on Fox News, although its reach could eventually expand beyond the cable network known for its conservative audience and prime-time programming.

Titled "Fox News Friends," the 30-second spot is stuffed with clips of Fox personalities heralding Ryan's "moderate ideas," including during his brief run for president in 2020. Even Tucker Carlson — a commentator reviled on the left who has frequently hosted Ryan's Republican general election rival, J.D. Vance — makes an appearance via a 2019 segment in which he encouraged his viewers to take note of how Ryan positioned himself to the right of other Democrats on border security. Carlson's on-screen headline: "Not Everyone in the Dem 2020 Field Is a Lunatic."

"Even the most conservative voices on TV agree: Tim Ryan is a voice for commonsense policies who stays focused on the issues that matter most to Ohioans," Ryan spokesperson Izzi Levy said in a statement announcing the commercial, which is part of the campaign's ongoing, eight-figure advertising blitz.

There’s more:

x
You don’t have to take it from me: even Fox News will tell you I’ll always put Ohio first. pic.twitter.com/mKiTswfBZO
— Tim Ryan (@TimRyan) July 11, 2022

In his latest TV ad, which is titled “Fox News Friends” and, according to NBC News, is set to initially air exclusively on Fox News, the Ryan campaign touts compliments that he has received from the likes of Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, and Bret Baier. “Watch what happened when Congressman Tim Ryan tried to remind his fellow Democrats that most Americans don’t actually support open borders,” says Carlson, a supporter of white nationalist conspiracy theories, in a clip shown alongside a graphic that reads “Tim Ryan ‘Against Open Borders.’”

In another segment chosen for the spot, Bartiromo can be seen calling Ryan “a jobs creator” who is “tough on China.” The ad closes with an interview between Bartiromo and Ryan, in which the Fox Business host tells her guest, “You’re very moderate. You’re hanging out in the middle like most of us are.” (Of course, Bartiromo’s definition of the “middle” may differ from most, as her remarks on the Capitol riot include calling it a “peaceful protest” and theorizing that the violence was instigated by Democrats disguised as Donald Trump supporters.)

Whether Democrats should appear on Fox News has been an ongoing debate, with some candidates previously shunning the conservative network and others seeing an opportunity to make their case to the largest cable news audience. Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, a progressive media watchdog group, said that while he understands why Ryan is attempting to reach “a constituency that may be a little bit uneasy about you,” choosing to air the ad on Fox News is “self-destructive,” as Ryan’s Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, is the 11th-most-frequent guest on Tucker Carlson Tonight since launching his Senate campaign last year, according to Media Matters. “You’re giving ad money to a network whose top host has endorsed J.D. Vance and given him an enormous amount of airtime,” Carusone told Vanity Fair. He went on to say that cozying up to Fox News and its hosts “actually perpetuates the idea that Democrats are weak compared to Republicans, who would never run an ad saying, ‘Hey, look! A couple of writers at The New York Times like me!’”

In a statement to Vanity Fair, Ryan’s campaign spokesperson Izzi Levy said, “Tim is running to represent all Ohioans, and he’s working to earn the support of all Ohioans, and that means going everywhere and talking to everyone—a clear contrast with J.D. Vance, who says he feels ‘out of place’ in Ohio and has spent the 10 weeks since his primary hiding from Ohio voters.”

Health and Democracy are on the ballot this year and we need to get ready to flip Ohio Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Ryan and his fellow Ohio Democrats campaigns: