Senatorial candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio seems to be inching his way up in polling amid a boost of media coverage and support from within the GOP.
Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, endorsed Vance on Tuesday, saying he “isn’t afraid to stand up to the woke elites and will always put middle- and working-class Ohioans first.”
On a personal level, the support goes back to at least May 2017 for Banks when he touted Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy.
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Vance sprung up from 4% support in June to 12% in July in a poll of 800 Republican primary election voters, according to a memo from Tony Fabrizio, who also polled for former President Donald Trump. That puts him in second place, behind Josh Mandel — whose support decreased one point in the same time frame, the poll showed.
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The race is for the Senate seat held by Rob Portman, which will be vacated in the next term following his retirement.
Vance, who is a venture capitalist, previously criticized Trump during the 2016 election. He’s since shifted his stance.
“I care about this country, and I care about this state. If you think about the entire trajectory of American life over the last 30 or 40 years, you have elites in the ruling class that have plundered this country, that have made it harder for middle-class Americans to live a normal life,” Vance said July 1 on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “When those Americans dare to complain about the conditions of their own country … about the southern border or jobs being shipped overseas — they get called racists and called bigots, xenophobes, or idiots.”
