Trump Jr. to campaign with Vance in Ohio

Donald Trump Jr. will hit the campaign trail with Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio next week, according to details first shared with The Hill on Wednesday.

The eldest son of former President Trump will make three campaign stops with Vance on Oct. 5, in Perrysburg, East Caledonia and Columbus.

The campaign stops will mark the first time Trump Jr. has campaigned with Vance in the general election, but the two appeared together in West Chester, Ohio, before the state’s primary.

Trump Jr. said in a statement to The Hill that he was “excited” to campaign with Vance next week, and called Democratic Ohio Senate nominee Rep. Tim Ryan a “lying leftist.”

“I’ve gotten to know JD really well over the past two years and strongly believe he’s the type of political outsider we desperately need in the U.S. Senate,” Trump Jr. said.

“Tim Ryan likes to fraudulently claim that he stood with my father on issues like trade, but my father and I both know that’s a lie and remember how he repeatedly attacked the tariffs my father instituted to protect American manufacturing jobs,” he continued.

Ryan’s campaign hit back in a statement on Wednesday, calling Trump Jr.’s visit a distraction.

“Six weeks out from Election Day, JD Vance is bringing another one of his out-of-state buddies to Ohio in a last-ditch effort to distract voters from how his non-profit brought a Purdue Pharma shill to Ohio at the height of the opioid epidemic and how he believes victims of rape and incest should be forced to give birth to their rapist’s baby,” said Jordan Fuja, a spokesperson for Ryan.

Polls show a tight race between Vance and Ryan. A  Spectrum News-Siena College poll released on Wednesday showed Ryan leading Vance 46 to 43 percent. However, other polls have shown Vance ahead of Ryan. A Marist survey, which polled registered voters and was released Sept. 21, put Vance up by 1 percentage point. A poll conducted by Emerson College and The Hill earlier this month, meanwhile, found Vance with a 4-point lead over Ryan.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as “lean Republican.”

Updated at 2:30 p.m.