JD Vance Risks Al Gore’s Fate in Ohio - Newsweek

President Donald Trump will campaign in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday as Republicans face the possibility of losing both the state’s Senate election and its race for governor.

The outcome of both midterm election contests could carry consequences beyond Ohio.

Vice President JD Vance is not on the ballot, but Ohioans could hand the Senate seat he vacated to a Democrat while denying his party the governor’s mansion in the state that launched him into national office.

That would give Vance an unwelcome historical comparison as speculation continues about whether he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2028: Al Gore, the last vice president whose former Senate seat was swept up in a dramatic midterm rejection in his home state.

In 1994, Republicans won the special election for the Tennessee Senate seat Gore had left to become vice president.

They also defeated the state’s other Democratic senator and captured the governorship, in a result contemporary reporting described as a Republican sweep, two years after Tennessee had supported the Democratic presidential ticket.

Ohio in 2026 would not be an exact repeat. Only one Senate seat is being contested there in November.

But a Democratic victory in both of the state’s marquee races would produce a similar political image: the governing party losing the highest-profile contests in its vice president’s home state.

The Ohio Senate and gubernatorial campaigns are emphasizing economic growth, inflation and taxes, healthcare access and costs, education, abortion policy, energy, and public safety. Candidates differ over how government should address these issues, including taxation, healthcare affordability, reproductive rights, school funding, energy development, and crime, making policy differences central to campaign messaging.

Newsweek reached out to Vance through his White House office by email on Wednesday morning for comment and is awaiting a response.

Ohio backed Trump by 11 percentage points in 2024, making the state’s sudden competitiveness an unusually stark test of Republican strength.

For Vance, the results could also shape perceptions of his political influence before the next presidential election.

A Republican defeat in either race could be explained by candidate quality, the national environment or voters’ views of the administration.

Losing both would be harder to separate from the standing of the party’s most prominent Ohio politician.

Polling does not show either race decided. However, the latest RealClearPolitics averages put Democrats ahead in both contests.

Former Democratic senator Sherrod Brown leads Republican incumbent Jon Husted by 47.3 percent to 43.6 percent in the Senate average, while Democrat Amy Acton leads Republican Vivek Ramaswamy by 48.6 percent to 45.6 percent in the governor’s race.

The sharpest warning for Vance comes from Tennessee’s experience during the first Bill Clinton administration.

Gore had represented Tennessee in the Senate before resigning after becoming vice president in January 1993.

Democrat Harlan Mathews was appointed to hold the seat temporarily but did not run in the 1994 special election.

Republican Fred Thompson then defeated Democratic Representative Jim Cooper to take the remainder of Gore’s term.

The result was decisive: Thompson received roughly 60 percent of the vote, compared with about 39 percent for Cooper.

At the same election, political newcomer Bill Frist defeated three-term Democratic Senator Jim Sasser by approximately 56 percent to 42 percent.

Sasser, then chair of the Senate Budget Committee, had previously won reelection comfortably and had been viewed as a possible future Senate Democratic leader.

Republican Don Sundquist completed the statewide sweep by winning the governorship.

The three results became part of the wider Republican wave that handed the party control of Congress.

The Tennessee outcome was particularly striking because the Clinton-Gore ticket had carried the state in 1992.

Two years later, Republicans took both Senate seats being contested and the governor’s mansion.

That history offers a caution rather than a prediction for Vance.

Tennessee’s result came during a national Republican wave, involved two Senate elections, and emerged from political conditions different from those facing Ohio today.

Still, the basic political resemblance is clear. Husted occupies the seat Vance left on becoming vice president.

If Brown wins it while Acton takes the governorship, Democrats will have captured the two most prominent statewide offices available in Vance’s home state.

Such an outcome would not establish that Ohio had permanently "turned blue."

Midterm elections can reflect a temporary backlash against the party controlling the White House, and Ohio’s recent presidential results still show a pronounced Republican advantage.

But it would show that Democrats can remain competitive statewide even after the state moved sharply toward the GOP in presidential politics.

The RealClearPolitics average covering July 9 through September 20 puts Vance’s favorable rating at 40.8 percent and his unfavorable rating at 48.9 percent, a net rating of minus 8.1 points.

Those are national ratings, not Ohio measurements, and favorability is different from either job approval or voting intention.

Still, the figures provide context for why the state results could matter beyond November.

Despite the potential midterm setback, Vance remains the early favorite among Ohio Republicans for 2028, taking 40.7 percent among likely voters in a new Big Data Poll, nearly three times Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 14.4 percent.

The statewide survey interviewed 680 likely voters from September 26 to 27 and reported a plus or minus 4-point overall margin of error.

Brown leads Husted by 51 percent to 43 percent in a new Marist survey among 1,298 registered Ohio voters polled from September 24 to 27. The poll’s margin of error was 3.8 percentage points.

Other September surveys show a closer race.