Jon Husted

LIMA, Ohio — Vice President JD Vance returned to his home state of Ohio on Friday to cast his own ballot and lead a rally in Lima aimed at energizing turnout for Ohio GOP candidates in tight races.

“This election is the most important election of our lifetimes,” Vance told several hundred GOP faithful gathered in a hangar at the Allen County Regional Airport. “We need to run up the score, and we need to do it big.”

Facing polling deficits for their marquee candidates in Ohio - U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy - Republicans have been trying to boost turnout as early voting begins in the state with rallies featuring Vance and President Donald Trump.

Trump led an Oct. 3 rally in Vandalia, near Dayton, and returns Monday to the Covelli Centre in Youngstown.

Vance spent much of his speech talking up Husted and Ramaswamy, as well as the Trump administration’s record.

He called Husted, who occupies the seat Vance vacated to become vice president, “one of the hardest workers in the United States Senate,” and credited him with pushing to repeal “the Biden administration’s insane Green New Deal rules for American manufacturers.”

He praised Ramaswamy’s brief role at the Department of Government Efficiency and said the billionaire entrepreneur from suburban Columbus would bring the same cost-cutting approach to the governor’s mansion.

Vance blamed former Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running against Husted, for failing to prevent job losses that sapped the economic vitality of Ohio communities like his native Middletown.

“When I was a young man, when I was a kid driving around in Middletown, Ohio, I would drive around and actually see them put up the signs of factories closing,” Vance said. “We know who the senator was back then — Sherrod Brown.”

He blamed Amy Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director who is the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee, for closing schools and restricting public gatherings while she was state health director during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Acton signed the orders, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced them and has defended Acton by saying the decision to close the state was his.

“I did promise Amy that I would meet her at a bar later,” Vance said. “I understand that she’s into that sort of thing.”

The remark references Republican attack ads that portray Acton as a drunk, sensationalizing a 2019 police report detailing a dispute between Acton and her husband at their Columbus-area home that mentions the couple “stated that they had been drinking.”

Acton has called the attacks “lies” and cited the negative ads as her reason for refusing to debating Ramaswamy.

“We need to send a message that America belongs to those who love it, not those who hate it, and so long as the Democrats hate this country, they don’t get our vote and they can stay the hell out of Washington,” Vance said toward the end of his remarks.

He spent about 10 minutes working the rope line as country music blared. A woman in a black “Vance 2028” hat was among those who greeted him.

He then talked with what appeared to be local officials on the tarmac for another 10 minutes before boarding Air Force Two.

Democrats say the visits will not save Republicans.

Lauren French of Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer that is helping Brown, said the repeated trips are meant to coax occasional voters who support Republicans to the polls. She predicted the strategy will backfire because of Trump’s unpopularity in Ohio.

Before heading to Lima, Vance stopped at his family home on Cincinnati’s leafy outskirts, where staff rolled bikes up the driveway and the family dog was led inside. The house across the street had yard signs for Brown, Acton and U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman, a Cincinnati Democrat.

Vance voted early at the Hamilton County Board of Elections office in Norwood.

Vance showed what appeared to be voter ID at the front desk. An election worker asked his name. He said “James David Vance.” He asked her, “Busy?” and chatted for a couple of minutes while she handed him his ballot.

He spent about five minutes at the booth and fed his ballot into the machine. Staff applauded.

At the booth, he asked a local reporter whether they could see who he was voting for. The reporter said, “We kinda know.”

“Yeah but I don’t want you to know which judges I’m voting for,” Vance said.