Rotunda Rumblings
VP JD: Former President Donald Trump put months of speculation to rest on Monday with a social media post announcing that he had chosen U.S. Sen. JD Vance to be his vice presidential running mate. Reporting from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Andrew Tobias has more about the selection of Vance, a former Trump critic turned fierce defender who is in his first term in an elected office. Shortly after Trump’s post, the GOP formally nominated Vance as its candidate for vice president.
Blasts from the past: While Vance is now one of Trump’s staunchest allies in the U.S. Senate, back in 2016 he was a vocal opponent of his now running mate. Jeremy Pelzer lists some of Vance’s most anti-Trump quotes, including statements calling him “cultural heroin,” “noxious,” “reprehensible,” and “unfit for the nation’s highest office.”
Home security: Even before Trump announced Vance as his running mate, federal, state and local law-enforcement officials beefed up security around his Cincinnati house after a shooter tried to assassinate Trump during a campaign rally on Saturday, Pelzer reports.
Second bananas: If Trump and Vance are elected, Vance will be the nation’s first vice-president who built a political career in Ohio before getting the job, Sabrina Eaton reports. While Ohio has been called “the Mother of Presidents” because it launched the political careers of eight of the nation’s 45 presidents, it hasn’t been that sort of stepping stone for the vice presidency.
Culture wars and coalitions: During his first months in the U.S. Senate, Vance kicked off his career by reaching across the aisle to work with Democrats on several bills, Eaton wrote in a 2023 profile of Vance. At the same time, he embraced divisive culture war issues and was a vocal backer of Trump’s bid to return to office.
Dems react: Representatives of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign warned Monday that Vance would threaten abortion rights and enable Trump’s “extreme MAGA agenda” if elected. Eaton writes that campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said Trump picked Vance because he said he would have rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election, as former Vice President Mike Pence refused to do on January 6, 2021, his support for abortion restrictions, and his past advocacy for reforming Social Security and Medicare to restore “fiscal sanity” to the United States.
Undeterred: Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, and other Ohio RNC delegates said that they were shocked by the attempt on Trump’s life and they weren’t worried about security at the Milwaukee convention. As Tobias writes, DeWine paused when he was asked about Vance’s social-media post accusing Biden of inspiring the shooting. “Until we get some better indication of what’s going through (the shooter’s) mind, you don’t know what his motivations were.”
He’s here all week folks: Despite the assassination attempt, Attorney General/likely 2026 GOP gubernatorial candidate Dave Yost provided some early levity for the Ohio RNC delegation, hosting a Euchre card game event Sunday night, regaling Monday’s delegation breakfast with an anti-Biden parody song on the piano, and posting a photo of a pint glass advertising Husted, a likely primary rival. Tobias has more on Yost, as well as his co-headliners on Monday: the three GOP nominees for Ohio Supreme Court.
Old news: Tobias also takes a look back at The Plain Dealer’s coverage of the 1924 Republican National Convention, held in Cleveland. The coverage includes Will Rogers quips, a 1920s-era road closure map, political cartoons, and complaints from local businesses.
College cash: Gov. Mike DeWine in his 2023 State of the State address, shortly after Ohio landed the Intel chip manufacturing facility, announced a new scholarship for high school graduates in the top 5% of their class: Up to $5,000 a year for each year of college, if they stay in the state, as a workforce generation tool. The state anticipated it would cost around $20 million, thinking only around 60% of the eligible students would stay in Ohio. But about 75% of the eligible students are taking the money this fall, the first year of the scholarship, Laura Hancock reports, which required a state panel to shift around funds to ensure there was enough for the Governor’s Merit Scholarship Program.
Know when to hold ‘em: Some state lawmakers want to green light lottery sales plus betting on table games like blackjack and poker on your phones. As Jake Zuckerman reports, other proposals from members of a recent study committee on gambling include reinstating player-specific NCAA prop-bets and cutting taxes for brick-and-mortar sportsbooks.
What we’re watching this week
1. All things JD Vance
2. Who is the heir apparent to Vance’s Senate seat, if the Trump-Vance ticket wins?
3. Ohioans’ speeches at the Republican National Convention this week, including from Vance, U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, and East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway,
4. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments this week on a pre-trial issue in a civil lawsuit against FirstEnergy related to the House Bill 6 scandal
Birthdays
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan
Thomas Worthington, 6th Ohio governor (1773-1827)
Straight From The Source
“This guy is turning out to be f---ing incredible.”
-Donald Trump, as quoted by Politico, in 2023 after watching Sen. JD Vance on a live Fox News interview after the East Palestine train derailment.
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