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Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan has no plans to bring President Joe Biden on the campaign trail for the final stretch leading up to the midterms, even though his GOP opponent J.D. Vance has clung to top Republicans as a key strategy in the state.
Asked whether he was eager to have Biden join him in the battleground state, Ryan told Fox News on Monday, "No, I'm not, and I'm really not inviting anybody."
Ryan and Vance are facing off in one of this year's hottest Senate races for the open seat in Ohio, a state that former President Donald Trump carried with more than 53 percent of the vote in 2020. As of Wednesday morning, FiveThirtyEight has Ryan with a very narrow lead of 0.6 percentage points.
While Ryan has avoided campaigning with other top Democrats, Vance, who has been endorsed by Trump, is preparing to rally with Donald Trump Jr. at three events in Ohio on Wednesday.
Vance's victory in the May primaries had been viewed as proof that the eldest Trump son himself wields political power over Republican voters, as it was the first campaign he embarked on without heavy involvement from his father.
But while Vance sticks close to Trump Jr., Ryan has tried to break away from the president. In recent months, Ryan has also taken a notable stance against some of Biden's key policy ideas.
"I've disagreed with Biden on the student loan. I've disagreed with Biden on a lot of other issues, Title 42 and these other issues, [I've] been very clear," Ryan said, adding that he'd like to see Biden "go down" to the souther border to address the "huge issue" related to the influx of migrants—a main Republican talking point.
It's not just Republicans generally that Ryan has agreed with, the Democrat also highlighted that he's supported Trump's policies, on issues like trade, in the past.
"When Trump renegotiated NAFTA, I was on the whip team in the House of Representatives to whip votes in support of the President's renegotiation....I supported his defense budgets because we do need a strong military to combat China and Russia," Ryan said.
But while Ryan has tried to appeal to voters in Ohio by sticking to the middle, Trump has criticized the Democrat for "pretending to be a moderate so he can get elected."
"He is not a moderate. He's radical left," the former president said at a rally in Youngstown last month.
In a statement sent to Newsweek, a spokesman for the Vance campaign accused Ryan of being "in the pocket of liberal elites from New York and California."
"Ryan spent months of his time, and millions of his donors' dollars, building his campaign on the lie that he was a moderate," Luke Schroeder, spokesman for the Vance campaign, said. "Ohioans are smarter than Tim Ryan thinks they are - they know the truth about Ryan's record, and they'll soundly reject him in November."
Ryan has disputed Trump and Vance's attacks, saying that while they want him to "be Bernie Sanders" or a member of the progressive so-called Squad in the House, "I'm not and the record is very, very clear on that. "
Newsweek reached out to the White House and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for comment.
Update 10/05/22 1:13 p.m. ET: This story was updated with Schroeder's comments.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more