Some people on the right are trying to put a happy face on J. D Vance’s pitiful win over Tim Ryan last night. These cynical prevaricators claim that Vance’s brand of protectionism, isolationism, and illiberalism resonates with voters and must be the lodestar of the GOP henceforth. But their triumphalist narrative is belied by the numbers.
Vance underperformed Trump’s margin of victory and didn’t come close to matching incumbent Governor Mike DeWine or any other statewide Republican in this red state. So let’s call it like it is: a [insert your inanimate object of choice] with an R next to its name could have won Rob Portman’s vacant Senate seat. A more generic Republican would have fared far better than Vance. Remember this the next time you’re told that the former venture capitalist turned closeted Caesarist is the future of conservatism.