Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance has recorded a new television advertisment that features him cooking breakfast for his family in someone else’s kitchen.
The campaign manager for Mr Vance’s Democratic opponent Rep Tim Ryan, Dave Chase, tweeted a screenshot from the new advertisement next to a picture of what he claims is actually Mr Vance’s kitchen.
A spokesperson for Mr Vance’s campaign said that the advertisement, titled “Breakfast,” was filmed at Mr Vance’s aunt’s house — a location of significance for the family.
“It’s a longstanding Vance family tradition to gather for meals at his Aunt Wee’s house,” the Vance campaign spokesperson wrote in a message to The Independent. “JD’s proud to highlight such an important place to his family. While the Ryan campaign wastes their day on Twitter, JD is laser focused on what truly matters to Ohioans: skyrocketing costs for the everyday goods we need.”
The ad features Mr Vance hitting Mr Ryan over the issue of inflation, and attacking him for recent votes for social spending bills signed into law by President Joe Biden.
Candidates often film advertisements in houses that are not their own for a variety of reasons. But Mr Chase’s decision to highlight the location of this ad comes in the final days of a race in which Mr Ryan has consistently attacked Mr Vance’s personal authenticity, wealth, and relationship with the state he’s running in.
Mr Vance, who shot to national prominence in 2016 with the publication of his best-selling memior Hillbilly Elegy about growing up in an Appalachian family in Middletown, Ohio, has spent most of his professional career as a corporate lawyer and venture capitalist.
Mr Vance moved to California after obtaining his law degree from Yale University and returned to Ohio after the publication of his book.
During the 2016 presidential election, Mr Vance was highly critical of the candidacy of Donald Trump. But as he began moving towards launching a campaign of his own in a state that Mr Trump carried twice, Mr Vance changed his tune — praising the former president and ultimately receiving his endorsement during an intense Republican primary campaign.
Mr Ryan, a native of Niles, Ohio who has long represented the Youngstown area in Congress, has claimed that Mr Vance is using the state to further his political ambitions. He has focused his campaign in part on his opposition to trade deals that he says have hurt Ohio workers.
Polls have consistently shown a close contest between Mr Vance and Mr Ryan, despite Ohio’s Republican leaning electorate.
