Author and Ohio Republican Senate candidate JD Vance once accused former President Trump and the GOP of “actively antagonizing Black voters” and said that the former president owed part of his political support to racist and xenophobic sentiments.
Vance’s remarks, made during media appearances in 2016, were first resurfaced on Friday by CNN’s “K-File.” The report on his past comments comes as he vies against a crowded GOP primary field for Trump’s endorsement in the hotly contested Ohio Senate race.
“It’s not just that Donald Trump doesn’t speak to issues of special concern of minority voters or Black voters, it’s that he seems to like actively antagonizing a lot of the Black voters,” Vance told CNN’s Don Lemon during a 2016 panel discussion.
“Unfortunately, that’s been the Republican Party strategy for 30 years,” he continued. “I say that as a Republican who wants the party to get more Black voters. And Trump seems to be taking that strategy just to the next level. It shows in the polls, right? He’s not going to do especially well on Election Day.”
In a September 2016 interview with “PBS Newshour,” Vance also said that “racism” and “xenophobia” among a contingent of voters was the driving force behind part of Trump’s political support.
“There is definitely an element of Donald Trump’s support that has its basis in racism, xenophobia, but a lot of these folks are just really hardworking people who are struggling in really important ways,” Vance said.
Vance’s previous criticism of Trump and his political brand has been well documented, though he has since said that he was wrong in his assessment of the former president and has sought to recast himself as a staunch Trump ally.
In a statement shared with The Hill, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance’s campaign, slammed CNN for resurfacing the years-old comments, accusing the network of obsessing over an old storyline about the “Hillbilly Elegy” author.
“This is a CNN obsession over a story that has been done umpteen amount of times,” Van Kirk said.
“JD has been up front about being wrong about President Trump and strongly supported him in 2020. President Trump’s policies rose millions of Americans, of all colors, out of poverty. In fact, President Trump garnered a higher percentage of minority votes than most recent Republicans.”
Still, Vance’s previous comments could open him up to attacks from his primary opponents at a critical time in the race. NBC News reported this week that Trump is planning to endorse Vance in the primary, though The Hill has not independently confirmed those plans.
Samantha Cotten, a spokesperson for one of Vance’s Republican rivals, Mike Gibbons, accused Vance of trying to rewrite his political past in a statement to The Hill, while also taking a shot at another GOP Senate candidate, former state Treasurer Josh Mandel.
“JD Vance doesn’t care about the people of Ohio, his only life achievement is gratuitous self-promotion and degrading the very people he seeks to represent,” she said. “Not only is he shapeshifting his past, but is managing to somehow be the most inauthentic candidate in a field that includes Josh Mandel.”
Mandi Merritt, a spokesperson for another Ohio Republican Senate candidate, Jane Timken, said that Vance would have rather seen former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton win the 2016 race for the White House.
“Ohio voters want someone who has fought and delivered for the America First movement, not an elitist who insulted their intelligence and then pretended to be MAGA when it suited his political ambitions,” Merritt said, using the acronym for Trump’s political slogan, “make America great again.”
The Ohio Senate primaries are slated for May 3. While the race for the GOP nomination has grown particularly contentious, Democrats have largely coalesced around Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) as their nominee.
Recent polling in the Republican primary shows a relatively tight race. A Fox News survey conducted last month found Gibbons leading the pack with 22 percent followed by Mandel at 20 percent and Vance at 11 percent. Before that, a poll from The Hill and Emerson College fielded in February showed Gibbons with a more substantial 7-point lead.
A new poll from the Republican Trafalgar Group released on Friday, however, showed Vance trailing in second place with 22.6 percent to Mandel’s 28 percent. That same poll, however, showed that roughly 55 percent of likely Ohio GOP primary voters would be more likely to cast their ballots for a candidate endorsed by Trump.