Vance steps into debate spotlight unpopular and unproven but with a knack for seizing the moment
CNN
In the closing months of a crowded Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Ohio, JD Vance found himself stuck in the middle of the pack.
In the closing months of a crowded Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Ohio, JD Vance found himself stuck in the middle of the pack. He appeared badly damaged by a barrage of ads painting the venture capitalist and former Donald Trump critic as an anti-MAGA San Francisco liberal. The pollster for a supportive super PAC warned that Vance’s campaign was in “precipitous decline,” arguing that he had failed to convince Republican voters of his conservative bona fides and loyalty to the former president. “Vance needs a course correction ASAP,” the pollster wrote in a February 2022 memo. It arrived a month later. With the five main primary contenders meeting onstage for the umpteenth time, the two perceived front-runners nearly came to blows. As they stood nose to nose, one readied to fight while the other uttered a sexist expletive. Vance, seated at the edge of the stage, pounced. “Think about what you just saw. This guy wants to be a US senator and he’s up here, ‘Hold me back. Hold me back,’” Vance said to loud applause. “What a joke. Answer the question. Stop playing around.” It was a breakthrough moment for Vance, one that led to a second look from GOP voters in his state and from Trump, who was closely watching the race but hadn’t acquiesced to the voices in his party urging him to get involved. Clips of the exchange and other debate moments impressed Trump, sources told CNN, and played a role in Vance securing a race-defining endorsement from the former president.
Approximately 1,000 US soldiers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are expecting to deploy in coming days to the Middle East, according to two sources familiar with the matter, adding to the growing military firepower in the region as the Trump administration says it is in talks with Iran to end the conflict.
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