Vance, Ryan say they'll advocate for Ohio if elected

Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan each vowed to be strong advocates for Ohio if elected to the U.S. Senate seat during a Fox News town hall meeting in which the two candidates spoke in separate appearances. The two also said Tuesday that they would work in a bipartisan way to move the country forward. "We've got to stop these stupid fights," Ryan said. "This is a problem. Some of the answer is going to be conservative, some of the answer may be a little more investment and progressive. But we're never going to know unless we talk to each other, and that's what I want to bring to the Senate for Ohio: a conversation. I'm not going to agree with everyone on everything." Vance said: "I'm going to represent the people of Ohio, and I plan to be an independent voice for the people of Ohio. Whether you're a Republican, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're independent, nobody is going to own my vote card." The town hall with Ryan, a 10-term U.S. House member from Howland, and Vance of Cincinnati, a venture capitalist and author of "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," came exactly a week before next Tuesday's election. The two senate candidates each answered questions for about 25 minutes from members of a live audience in Columbus, some posted on Twitter and the town hall's two moderators: Bret Baier, Fox News' chief political anchor and host of Special Report, and Martha MacCallum, anchor and executive editor of The Story. Both were asked about their views on abortion with Ryan saying he wants to return to the limits under Roe v. Wade, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned earlier this year. That, he said, is no abortions in the final trimester unless the life of the woman is in danger. "This is the largest governmental overreach into the private lives of individual citizens in the history of our lifetime," Ryan said. After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, Ryan said that the decision on abortions should only be between a pregnant woman and her doctor. Vance said there should be a "minimum" national standard, referring to a proposal from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, to ban most abortions after 15 weeks with rape, incest and the life of the mother being the exceptions. Any further restrictions, he said, should be up to each state. Vance said he believed the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from Republican Donald Trump and called for "universal voter ID." While he praised the job done in 2020 in Ohio, he said a year ago that "it's probably true that Trump won by a larger margin in Ohio." Vance said Tuesday: "The biggest threat to American democracy today is big technology companies in bed with the communist Chinese who are censoring information." Vance specifically mentioned Facebook and Twitter. "I don't want these companies interfering in our elections and I think that's happened," he said. Vance also said the United States needs to "declare" Mexican drug cartels as a "terrorist organization and actually bring the full force of American law against them." Vance said the border and energy issues are the two biggest crises facing the country. Vance said he expects Republicans to take control of the U.S. House and Senate and that might force Democrats to work with them on those two issues. Vance was vague when asked if he would vote for U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super political action committee connected to McConnell, has committed $28 million to get Vance elected in Ohio. Vance said if McConnell is the only Republican candidate for leader "that makes it a very easy decision. We'll see what happens when I get to Washington, D.C." Ryan finally took a position Tuesday on state Issue 1, saying he favored the proposal that would require judges to consider public safety when setting bail for those charged with crimes. Asked about his statements that "we've got to kill and confront that movement," referring to Republican political extremism, Ryan said about using kill: "Maybe that wasn't a great choice of words, but absolutely confront and absolutely stop the extremist movement." He also called for the federal legalization of marijuana and said prosecuting marijuana possessors "may be the stupidest expenditure of federal money and public taxpayers' money in the history of our country." Ryan said he has spent the past 18 months calling for a tax cut for the middle class to help slow inflation, but his fellow Democrats aren't acting on it. In a Tuesday fundraising email, Ryan's campaign described the town hall as "the most important moment in our race. It's far and away our best shot of reaching undecided voters." The two have debated twice: Oct. 17 in Cleveland and Oct. 24 in Youngstown. Most polls show the race as a statistical tie. dskolnick@vindy.com