‘Hillbilly’ to Capitol Hill? J.D. Vance Eyes Senate Bid in Ohio | RealClearPolitics
I think he can talk in a way that the average person can understand, said the retired police chief, who, like Vance, has eastern Kentucky roots. I m a hillbilly, and I understand him 100%.
Muterspaw s view is at the heart of the fiercest political debate in Ohio. With his 2016 book, Vance helped explain to the nation Donald Trump s popularity among the white Appalachian working class of his upbringing. Now at 36, the bestselling author is considering whether he can win the votes of the people he claims to know so well.
Vance says he s thinking seriously about running for the Senate seat that Republican Rob Portman is vacating in 2022. Now a venture capitalist, he already has a billionaire backer supporting him and, despite previous criticism of Trump, has met with the former president. But other Republicans are hardly clearing the field, and Vance s success is likely to hinge on whether the state s white working-class voters embrace him as a home-state hero or an opportunist.