Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance has won the Ohio primary election and will head to the general election toface off against Democrat Tim Ryan for Rob Portman's Senate seat in November.
The bestselling author won the contentious and hyper-competitive GOP Senate primary, buoyed by Donald Trump’s endorsement in a race widely seen as an early test of the former president’s hold on his party. Vance’s win ends an exceptionally bitter and expensive primary contest that, at one point, saw two candidates nearly come to blows on a debate stage. And it marks a major victory for Trump, who has staked his reputation as a GOP kingmaker on his ability to pull his chosen candidates across the finish line.
Democrat Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton, will take on incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in the general election after both secured their parties' nominations.
Vance has billed himself as a "conservative outsider," and nabbed former President Donald Trump's endorsement less than three weeks before the primary on Tuesday. He was seen going into the election as the GOP frontrunner.
Vance is a Marine Corps veteran and came to prominence to a wider audience after he released his book, Hillbilly Elegy, which Netflix turned into a movie in 2020.
Vance ran on a platform that promised to restore America's manufacturing base, raise taxes on companies that send jobs overseas, breaking up big tech monopolies and addressing inflation.
This story was originally published by Felicia Jordan of WCPO in Cincinnati, Ohio, with additional reporting from the Associated Press and Scripps National.
