Ohio GOP Senate showdown: Super PAC spotlights for J.D. Vance, ‘border security is personal’

FIRST ON FOX - A super PAC supporting Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio says it’s spending in the high six-figures to run a new ad that spotlights the best-selling author and venture capitalist’s "personal mission" to secure the nation’s southern border with Mexico.

"For J.D. Vance, border security is personal. A childhood torn apart by addiction," the narrator in the new commercial by the "Protect Ohio Values" super PAC says, as he references the severe drug and alcohol addictions Vance’s mother struggled with during the candidate’s youth.

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"Now J.D.’s on a mission to stop death from streaming across the border," the narrator emphasizes. "J.D. Vance will finish the wall, end welfare for illegals, and eliminate all federal tax dollars for sanctuary cities. J.D. Vance, a personal mission to secure the border."

The super PAC, which shared their ad first with Fox News, says they’ll spend $800,000 to run the commercial on broadcast and cable television and on digital starting Monday for a week. Border security is top of mind with Republican voters in Ohio and across the country, and the new ad is the latest in the GOP primary race to spotlight the issue.

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The Republican field in the fight to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman also includes former Ohio treasurer and former two-time Senate candidate Josh Mandel; former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken; 2018 Ohio Republican Senate candidate Mike Gibbons, a Cleveland entrepreneur, real estate developer and investment banker; and state Sen. Mike Dolan, a former county chief assistant prosecutor and state assistant attorney general whose family owns Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians.

And new spot takes aim at two of Vance’s rivals. "Elites and establishment politicians have failed us," the narrator says over a picture of Gibbons over a picture of Mandel with the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Responding to the new ad, the Gibbons campaign fired back.

"Silicon Valley Vance’s entire campaign is funded by Big Tech billionaires and coastal establishment elites," Gibbons campaign senior adviser Samantha Cotten told Fox News. 

And pointing to past Vance comments critical of former President Donald Trump, Cotten charged that "Vance's inauthenticity is crystal clear, as he continues to morph his views to match what he thinks Ohio voters want to hear."

"Protect Ohio Values" said last month that it was spending seven-figures to run a new ad that spotlighted the populist themes the author of the "Hillbilly Elegy" memoir" is emphasizing in his Senate campaign. And the super PAC says that it’s overall spent $7 million to date on behalf of Vance, ahead of Ohio’s scheduled May 3 primary.

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The group was fueled last summer by massive a $10 million contribution from Vance’s old boss, billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. 

The Senate race in Ohio has become the second most expensive contest in the country so far this cycle – behind the Senate race in neighboring Pennsylvania - with roughly $20 million spent to run ads.