'Hillbilly Elegy' Author J.D. Vance Risks Losing Republicans a Senate Seat in Ohio This Year
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Drew Angerer/Getty JD Vance and Donald Trump shake hands at a rally
J.D. Vance, Ohio's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, continues to spark controversy as some point to contradictory stances on major issues.
Vance, 38, has been very public about his mother's opioid addiction and founded Our Ohio Renewal, a nonprofit aimed at solving opioid problems. But as Politico first reported, his resume also includes working for a law firm that lobbied for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.
Media scrutiny uncovered another questionable move — hiring someone who challenged the belief that prescription painkillers were to blame for the opioid crisis as an addiction specialist for the organization. Vance closed the charity last year, and its foundation right after he won the Republican nomination for Senate.
Blaming addicts for the opioid crisis "is awfully wrong," says Herb Asher, professor emeritus of political science at The Ohio State University, who notes that manufacturers, doctors and pharmacies pushed opioid painkillers on the public.
In Vance's 2016 memoir, the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy, he recounts the dysfunction, poverty and addiction in the rural Ohio of his childhood. "He's saying the problem with all these people, it's their culture, it's their upbringing, it's their weaknesses," Asher says. "And then he's saying, 'I pulled myself up by the bootstraps, I made it, everybody else should be able to make it.' Well, it doesn't work that simply."
Asher notes that southern Ohio lost factories and jobs, which devastated local families, and became an area full of pollutants. In addition to becoming an unhealthy environment, Asher says, the region has suffered from a lack of educational resources. "When schools went to remote learning during the pandemic, they didn't have the computers, they didn't have the connectivity," he adds. "That's not a character flaw, that's an economic flaw."
Then come Vance's head-scratching remarks about reproductive rights. He's raised ire for saying that the Texas state law banning abortion didn't need exceptions for rape and incest because "two wrongs don't make a right," and calling those circumstances of conception "inconvenient."
Last October, in an interview with the Catholic Current, he said abortion and slavery have something in common: "While the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society," Vance said, calling himself 100 percent pro-life. He said many people "see children as inconveniences to be discarded," though he was talking about the unborn.
Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images JD Vance
More recently, a video clip from 2021 spread on social media of Vance saying parents should stay in unhappy marriages, even if they are violent, for the sake of their children. He said we shouldn't make it "easier for them to shift spouses like they change their underwear." His own grandparents had a rocky marriage and stuck together, he said.
His Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, pounced on him. "That's outrageous in 2022. If he wants to run for Senate in 1800, that may be a different story — but this is a modern society where people have rights and liberties and freedom to get out of those kinds of relationships and circumstances," Ryan said in an interview.
"I think it's absolutely dangerous and irresponsible. Trying to, you know, judge people or pressure people who are already in a very difficult circumstance. I think shows how out of touch, quite frankly, J.D. Vance is from the average family and how complicated situations can be," Ryan continued.
Asked about his comments, Vance said his words were taken out of context, and he doesn't think a young woman in a violent marriage should stay. He merely opposes policies that weaken marriages and families.
Vance clinching the Republican nomination was unexpected. Coming from behind, he worked hard to get former President Donald Trump's endorsement, which finally came 18 days before the primary, after early voting had already begun. Vance won the May primary handily, and is completely tying himself to the former president, with online ads blaring, "Help Trump: Donate To JD Vance."
But Vance actually has a long history of denouncing Trump, calling him an "idiot" and "noxious."
"I think it's actually refreshing for a person who's running for political office to not try to hide or pretend they didn't say something, and say, 'Yeah, I didn't like him in 2016. I liked him now because he was a great president.' It's really that simple," Vance said earlier this month.
But political science experts in Ohio are surprised he pandered to the far right during the primary, and that he ultimately was bestowed Trump's endorsement after publicly denouncing him. (Trump said he liked Vance's looks and his golf swing.)
Republican primary opponents reminded voters Vance had formerly bashed Trump. "It's hard to look at video clips of him in the past and not think this is someone who was being real back then but wanted to get into politics wanted political power, and realize that there wasn't a path for a never-Trump Republican, or, for that matter, a moderate," says Christopher Devine, associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton. "Those videos are out there and the way that he's aligned himself, a more extreme figure, it's difficult to run away from that."
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Now he's a firmly far-right candidate. He has tweeted support for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and strict border controls ("finish Trump's border wall"). He stood up for Kyle Rittenhouse during his trial, saying the prosecutor was trying to destroy the teenage shooter's life after Rittenhouse killed two men during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Vance spouts a disdain for green energy, subsidizing electric cars, and red flag laws for gun purchases. He has been outspoken about China, espousing the view that the U.S. should sever economic ties and bring manufacturing back home. And yet, he has worked for a law firm that represented Chinese interests. He says he wants to break up the largest technology companies, even though he's been a Silicon Valley insider.
Lacey Terrell/NETFLIX J.D. Vance and his grandmother, Mamaw, as depicted in "Hillbilly Elegy"
It's been a surprising reveal for a man the country thought they knew well from his memoir, which was made into a movie in 2020. He seemed to be a suffering character with an addict mother, surrounded by poverty and dread, but he managed to pull himself up, however uncomfortable he was outside of his small town. He desperately pondered solutions that might make life better for the rest of his community. It was hard not to root for him.
When many in the U.S. were newly puzzling on Donald Trump's surprising election win in 2016, Vance's memoir became the nation's explainer. He gave the country a front row seat on the rural white perspective. No reader can forget the fight he had with his mother when he was about 12 years old. She sped down the highway threatening to kill them both, and he jumped in the backseat hoping for survival. When she stopped the car to beat him, he managed to get out. "I ran for my life," he wrote.
Skipping school, bad grades, early alcohol and marijuana use, and his mother's revolving door of men color his story. Luckily his grandparents stepped up for him. Nevertheless, he had recurring nightmares about his mother coming after him. Vance's beloved grandmother "Mamaw" was liberal at heart, but had her opinions on government programs that she believed made people lazy.
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Vance escaped his inauspicious start by enlisting in the Marine Corps, then attending the Ohio State University, and later Yale Law School. He became a Silicon Valley venture capitalist.
Now the nominee's success or failure could help determine the balance in the U.S. Senate. The Ohio Senate race was once considered a shoo-in for Republicans. Now, "it's a very close race, and that surprises Republicans," says Asher.
If he loses, the candidate has only himself to blame. "J.D. Vance has made a number of unforced errors," Asher says, including statements criticizing all the attention and support the U.S. has given to Ukraine amid Russia's invasion.
"That was appalling — Ukrainians are being slaughtered by Russian artillery — but also, it's not savvy in Ohio. We have a lot of Eastern European white ethnic groups, many whose heritage goes back to countries that were once dominated by the Soviet Union," Asher says. "That was a clumsy comment. Insensitive."
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Vance's campaign is attempting to soften his image now. His first campaign ad for the general election features his wife, Usha Chilukuri, talking to Ohioans about his virtues as a husband and father of three. "His wife is person of color, speaking up on his behalf," Devine says. "Maybe that's meant to present him as something different than what people might have heard about him. We'll see if that's enough."
Meanwhile, Ryan, his Democratic opponent, continues to present himself as a moderate, seemingly hoping to pick up undecided voters. He spoke out against President Joe Biden's college loan forgiveness — a position Vance took as well — and tells voters he has long supported Trump's trade policies.
The race is neck and neck. Devine says before Ohio became reliably Republican in recent years, it was a swing state that swayed national elections, which taught voters to look beyond party affiliations.
"Ohio voters have been challenged in the past to really compare the candidates and make an informed decision because they came to believe that their vote really could make the difference," Devine says. "So maybe that does give us an advantage in looking into the candidates and figuring out who they really are."
