'Hillbilly Elegy' Author's Campaign Suffering Over His Anti-Trump Views BY DANIEL VILLARREAL ON 2/7/22
Vance is one of eight Republican candidates competing in a crowded primary for the seat. His opponents are reportedly using his past anti-Trump statements against him to paint him as someone lacking conservative credentials.
In response, Vance has seemed to increasingly adopt rhetoric in favor of Trump and pro-Trump political stances. The shift represents part of a larger shift among Republicans, embracing the former president to curry favor with right-wing voters.
The political action committees (PAC) Club for Growth and USA Freedom Fund have spent nearly $2 million in ads highlighting Vance's anti-Trump comments from 2016. At the time, Vance called himself a "Never Trump guy" and also called Trump an "idiot," "noxious" and "offensive," among other comments.
The ads may have affected Vance's standing in the state among Republican voters. Roughy 29 percent see him as liberal and 50 percent see him as anti-Trump, perceptions that make those voters less likely to support Vance, according to polling conducted in January by Tony Fabrizio, a pollster for the Protect Ohio Values super PAC.
"I can't vote for Trump, I think that he is noxious," Vance states in the Club for Growth's ad. In the ad, Vance also says that he didn't vote for Trump, calls him "outrageous and offensive" and says he would have to "hold his nose and vote for Hilary Clinton."
One of Vance's old October 2016 tweets mentioned in the ad states, "Trump makes people I care about afraid, Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this, I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us." In another October 2016 tweet mentioned in the ad, he wrote of Trump, "My god what an idiot."
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