Warren Rojas/Insider
- GOP Senate hopeful JD Vance is racing across Ohio ahead of the midterms.
- A Trump fan at a recent rally criticized Vance for moving on from the 2020 election challenges.
- Vance and Ohio's GOP leaders are pushing election deniers aside, but Trump's base won't budge.
ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Courtney Drenan, an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump, stopped by the Ohio Republican Party's midday rally in Zanesville on Thursday to give Senate hopeful JD Vance and others on the GOP ticket one last chance to plainly state their positions on the issue she's most passionate about: the 2020 election.
"I think it was stolen," Drenan told Insider about the last election.
"And I don't think these candidates are really doing much to stop it from happening again," she said of her primary concern ahead of the 2022 midterms.
After listening to Vance, incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine and others make their case for voting straight Republican next week, Drenan, a firm believer in Trump's baseless claims of electoral fraud, rendered her verdict.
"I'm definitely not voting for Vance or DeWine," Drenan said, billing the two as politicians who "glommed onto the MAGA movement" but haven't followed through when it mattered most to the embattled former president.
"They didn't convince me," the Guernsey County resident said, adding that fellow conservatives in the area "still have a lot of questions about the election. And I feel like it's just being ignored."
Drenan's willingness to reject Vance, who's race against Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan could decide control of the 50-50 Senate, illustrates the tightrope the first-time candidate has to walk in a state Trump carried by eight percentage points in 2016 and 2020.
While he has previously endorsed Trump's bogus claims of beating President Joe Biden, Vance has worked to distance himself from the hardcore election-denier camp, telling The New York Times on Tuesday that he would accept the 2022 election results even if he loses.
Guernsey County Republican Party Chair Darrel Fawcett said Vance, like most in the Buckeye State, is more interested in plotting the future than rehashing the past.
"Here in southeastern Ohio, we remember Trump. But we've moved on," Fawcett told Insider at the Zanesville rally. Dwelling on Biden's lawful victory the last time around is "not something we're talking about here," he added.
Warren Rojas/Insider
When asked what he thought about potentially alienating MAGA voters like Drenan as he seeks to expand his narrow lead over Ryan, Vance urged them to consider the bigger picture.
"Most voters that I talk to are very much worried about the future, in particular, the inflation crisis and the crime problem in the state of Ohio," Vance told Insider at the Zanesville rally. "So that's where we're focusing our messaging."
Vance added that he and other Ohio Republicans also support tightening voter ID laws. "I think we're clearly the election integrity party," he said regarding Drenan's critiques.
But Drenan, who said she's tired of establishment Republicans "who kind of genuflect that they care about election integrity," wasn't buying it.
"I want to hear them be a little more aggressive. Was the election stolen or was it not?" Drenan said, adding that she expects "a little bit more of a hardcore opinion on that."
As for next Tuesday, Drenan said she suspects many voters will fall in line behind Vance "because we've just got to get a red wave."
Instead, she'll do like Fawcett said — just on her own terms.
"I'll move on," she said.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/apxSEN4
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