Vice President Tim Ryan has already been running a Senate campaign tailored to Ohio’s increasingly conservative electorate, which made it less than surprising that he stepped onto a Fox News set on Tuesday, territory where most fellow Democrats fear to tread. . In an hour-long town hall, Ryan and his Republican challenger, author and investor JD Vance, took questions from the audience, with anchors Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier moderating. “We need a tax cut,” Ryan said in response to the first question, which was about energy prices. It was the kind of answer a Republican might have given, but with inflation remaining a top concern for voters, centrist Democrats like Ryan are increasingly turning away from progressive proposals and ideas. Baier asked the audience for a show of hands from those who saw the economy as their main concern. A majority of those in attendance raised their hands — including Ryan, who has described himself as a middle-class moderate, fending off Vance’s culture war attacks aimed at tying the 10-term congressman to House progressives and the President Nancy Pelosi. President Biden has urged Democrats to champion his economic record, but Ryan’s performance on Tuesday was a demonstration of how difficult it is to pass policies that could take years to mature. Ryan admitted, for example, that the renewable energy provisions in the inflation-reduction law he supported weren’t going to do much for Americans worried about gas prices. The measure includes $369 billion for climate-related provisions, but critics say it will do little to reduce inflation in the short term. Not agreeing with these criticisms, Ryan took a conciliatory stance. “It won’t help you today,” he admitted. Like many moderate Democrats, Ryan now finds himself caught between a progressive base seeking more radical change from Washington and a disillusioned middle who seem to believe Biden has moved too fast and too far to the left. The story continues Asked about his position on criminal justice reform — another contentious issue — Ryan once again distanced himself from the progressive wing of his party. “Crime is an issue,” he said. “I don’t care what anyone says about it.” But he also struggled to justify his own support for ending cash bail, a position he espoused during his brief 2019 presidential run. He made a similar change on immigration, another area that has irked Democrats who have struggled to negotiate between conservatives and progressives who see many immigration restrictions as fundamentally inhumane. “I think we need more border patrol, not less,” Ryan said, once again projecting a more centrist position than some of his Democratic colleagues. Senate candidate JD Vance. (Gaelen Morse/Getty Images) Whether these confirmations will be enough remains to be seen. Polls show Vance with a slight lead. The election will be held next Tuesday, with Ohio one of several states — along with Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania — expected to decide the makeup of Congress for the next two years of a Biden presidency, which could see even more intense party battles than the previous two. Ryan and Vance have met in two debates in the past month, clashing over immigration, free trade, abortion and the opioid crisis. They have done little to hide their disdain for each other. Tuesday’s format allowed everyone to explain their positions without exchanging insults or accusations. Vance, for his part, has used his part of the town hall to distance himself from controversial positions other Republicans have taken while portraying himself as a staunch opponent of the Biden administration. He accused the president of wasteful spending, describing the trillions Biden has devoted to coronavirus relief, infrastructure and climate change as “adding fuel to the fire, which has caused the price of everything to go up.” Vance also drew applause when he defended his support of former President Donald Trump’s baseless accusation that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Vance said he was not advocating conspiracy theories, but was taking on “big tech companies in bed with the Communist Chinese, who censor information about American politics.” If the charge remained inaccurate, blaming Silicon Valley and Beijing was a relatively safe proposition in a state whose economy has been engulfed by globalization and the digital economy. More applause came from Vance in response to a question about Friday’s attack on Paul Pelosi, who was attacked in his San Francisco home by an intruder looking for his wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was Washington time. Vance noted that the suspect, David DePap, is a Canadian citizen who had overstayed his visa. “My view, quite simply, is that we need to deport violent illegal aliens,” he said, denying that increasingly heated rhetoric from Republican politicians and conservative media contributed to the attack. Judging purely by the responses in the room, Vance seemed to connect more easily with the audience, while his attempts at moderation seemed more convincing than Ryan’s. During a discussion on education, Vance touched on the culture wars that have plagued public school since the start of the coronavirus pandemic — but then moved past them just as quickly. “We have to accept that we made a lot of mistakes,” he said, without elaborating.
