LOSING TOUCH

Don Jr. and JD’s Election Eve Blitz Backfires Spectacularly

The vice president and the president’s son tried and failed to pull off a last-minute rescue.

Donald Trump Jr. and JD Vance teamed up for a desperate election-eve blitz that backfired spectacularly.

The vice president and the president’s son spent the final day before the midterm elections stumping for Republicans across Ohio and upstate New York, and nearly every candidate they boosted went down in defeat.

The pair rallied for Republicans on Nov. 2 in Toledo, Ohio, and in Rome, New York.

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It did nothing to save the Republican candidate in Ohio, where Democrat Sherrod Brown is now headed back to the Senate after voters rejected Jon Husted, who was appointed to Vance’s old seat after he became vice president. The special election decided who would serve the final two years of the term Vance won in 2022. In the two years he spent in the Senate, Husted adhered closely to Trump’s policies while his posterior became a bizarre obsession of the president’s.

Brown’s comeback bid, after he was ousted in 2024 following 18 years in the seat, became one of the marquee contests of the midterms. “I do not work for the utility companies. I do not work for datacenters. I do not work for Wall Street. I work for you, I work for Ohio,” he said in his victory speech Tuesday.

Brown will have to decide whether to seek re-election when the term ends after 2028.

Democrat Amy Acton also beat Republican billionaire biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for governor, becoming the first woman to win the job in Ohio and the first Democrat to do so in two decades.

Ohio has gone for Trump in the last three presidential elections, including by 11 points in 2024. The race centered on voter frustration over the economy and the cost of living.

Ramaswamy’s campaign took an ugly turn after it released a deeply personal attack ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother calling her a liar.

Vance defended it, urging fellow Republicans to stop “whining” and saying he was “a little bit disgusted” by criticism from members of his own party.

In Toledo, Vance campaigned for Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th District, where Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur held onto her seat.

Kaptur, 80, has represented northwest Ohio since 1983 and is the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress. Republican mapmakers redrew her district, turning one Trump carried by 6.5 points in 2024 into one he carried by more than 10, and the National Republican Congressional Committee called her “one of the most vulnerable Democrats in America.”

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In New York, Vance and Trump Jr. also stumped for Kailee Buller, the Republican candidate in the state’s 22nd District. Buller conceded Tuesday night in Syracuse to incumbent Democratic Representative John W. Mannion after The Associated Press called the race at 9:55 p.m.

The only race still unsettled is the contest to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik in New York’s 21st District, where Vance headlined a rally alongside Trump Jr. for Republican Anthony Constantino, the CEO of Sticker Mule.

The race ended Tuesday without a clear winner. Constantino declared victory while holding a slight lead over Democrat Blake Gendebien, a dairy farmer who has not conceded.

Vance’s support at times seemed only to highlight the Trump administration’s disconnect from voters in the final stretch of campaigning. Late last month, he faced backlash after a student at a Fox News town hall at Texas Christian University asked how young Americans could afford to start families when the average home in America costs more than $415,000.

He thanked her, then quickly pivoted without providing an answer. “I want to point out that I think that I’ve been asked four or maybe five questions by my count, I’ve only been asked one question about Jon Husted’s a-- and it was by Jesse Watters,” he said of the Fox News host who moderated the event.

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