MIDWEST — Two candidates for U.S. Senate in the Great Lakes region had rough debate performances over the past week. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) were seen to have lost their debates against their opponents, Wisconsin Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan.
J.D. Vance had no answer for Tim Ryan’s accusation that Vance had set up a fake charity to help victims of opium addiction and failed to help a single Ohioan. “The same drug company Big Pharma, the big drug company that had all the pill mills going, got everybody addicted, 1 million people died, JD,” Ryan stated in the debte. “And you started a nonprofit that tried to take advantage of people in Ohio. And you know what, all you did with it was launch your political career,” Ryan continued.
The attack on Vance at the debate came after Ryan ran an ad called, “Mother” that told the story of a mother who lost her son to opioid addiction.
In Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson had two debate moments that drew reactions from the audience. First, Johnson claimed that the FBI had set him up and was smearing him without any evidence which elicited laughter from the audience.
Later in the debate, the moderators asked each candidate to say something nice about the other. While Lt. Governor Barnes praised Johnson for being a “family man” and that he respected that, Johnson used his time to attack Barnes which drew a sharp rebuke and boos from the audience and then a reminder from the moderator that Johnson had failed to live up the challenge.
