J.D. Vance delivers victory speech after win in Ohio Senate race Transcript

Thank you. Thank you all so much. Oh man, what a night. I love you guys too. Wow. Thank you guys. I love you. I love you. Wow. Well, what can you even say after a night like tonight? We’ve had a good night in the Ohio Republican Party all the way round.

(00:23)
So look, I believe I’m the last thing standing between you all and a very, very fun night of celebration. So I’ll try to keep my remarks pretty brief here. The first thing I got to say is just I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Really, I cannot say thank you enough. I cannot express possibly in words how grateful I am first to the people on this stage with me. And I just want to say, you can’t do this without your family’s support and especially my beautiful wife, Usha, thank you so much for what you do.

(01:10)
And the great thing about having three young children, we have a five year old, a two year old, and a 10 month old. They’re upstairs asleep. They have no idea what the hell is going on.

(01:20)
I want to thank my family. It’s so great to have everybody here, Mom, Aunt We, everybody. Lindsay, I won’t go through the entire list here, but Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Donna, it’s funny, My family helps keep me grounded. As we were walking down here, my aunt said to my uncle, “Aren’t you glad that he won? That would’ve been a terrible ride home, right?” That’s what we’re thinking here in the Vance family. We’re staying on top of the important stuff.

(01:46)
I could not have done this, could not have won this race, could not have had what we have here tonight. I mean, look, the governor and the lieutenant governor crushed it. Every other statewide office crushed it. I’m so grateful to Mike DeWine and John Houston. I’m so grateful to Bob [inaudible 00:02:09] for helping us cobble together a unified Republican team. And we won and we won big, ladies and gentlemen. What an incredible thing. Oh, my Lord. And I got to say, of course, I had so much fun going around campaigning with all the statewide officials. I had so much incredible experiences getting to meet people all across the state of Ohio. But thank you to the Ohio Republican Party. We just got a chance to govern.

(02:39)
We just got a great chance to govern and we need to use it. And I promise to all of my friends who are going to be the State House, so all of my friends who are going to be the state capital, we need better leadership in Washington DC and that’s exactly what I promise to fight for every single day. Now, the last thing I want to say, the last couple of words of gratitude here. I have been blessed with an incredible campaign team, and I can’t thank these guys enough, but I just want to name a few people by name, first of all. First the guy probably spent the most time on the campaign trail the last year and a half. And when we won the primary, I forgot him. Patrick McAllister, thank you for getting us safe to where we need to go.

(03:32)
To Jordan, our great campaign manager, Brian, who’s the first hire in our campaign. Our incredible comms team, Taylor and Luke. And you guys may have noticed that the national media was very interested in our race. So Taylor and Luke had their hands full. God bless you guys. Thank you. Will Martin and Matt Williams who did everything that we asked them to do and did it very well. Thank you guys. Couldn’t have done it without you. To Noah Baker, Nick Morgan, and Matt Middle State, who kept us on time, made sure we got where we needed to go, and made sure we did everything we needed to do.

(04:28)
And then I would take thanks so many the people helping us build coalitions all across the state of Ohio. It’s such an important job because of course, now that I’m the senator elect for the great state of Ohio, we’re… Thank you. We’ve got a solid foundation, not just to win races, but to actually get to Washington and serve the great people of Ohio. So I got to thank Graham, Jack Mahoney, Caleb Daniel, Joe Thomas, and Seth, our incredible field directors. And of course, Addie doing great things for us.

(05:14)
And I want to say a few words about our incredible financial team, Powers, Angie Strader, Chris Applegate, and Hannah. Thank you for everything you guys did. And finally, let me just say a few things about the three guys who I think constantly were in my ear about what we needed to do, about how we needed to execute this campaign. My dear friend, Jay Shegrea, thank you for everything that you did. Andrew Sarabian, a great guy, a Massachusetts guy, but still a good guy. Welcome him to Ohio. Ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Sarabian, and already of course thanked Jordan Wiggins. I also want to thank Luke Thompson for everything that you’ve did helping us on the outside. So there’s the thank yous. All right, there’s the thank yous.

(06:10)
Look, I think that we get a chance to govern, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to see what happens across the country. If I’m being totally honest with you, I think that we’re going to continue to have some good victories all across the country. We got to see the returns come in, of course. But here’s the thing, we’ve been given an opportunity to do something, and that’s to govern and to make the lives of the people of Ohio better. That’s exactly what I aim to do. And because of you, I get a chance to do it. I got a call from Tim Ryan, of course, about a half an hour ago, conceding the election. It was very gracious, and I appreciate Tim making the effort there.

(06:51)
Look, I know Tim Ryan, we obviously disagree on a lot of issues. The guy loves the state of Ohio, and I appreciate the gracious phone call. I appreciate the effort that his campaign put in. Thank you.

(07:09)
But look, spending time with these guys just a few minutes ago and talking about what an incredible honor it is to get to serve the people of Ohio and the United States Senate. What an incredible honor it is to have gotten to run this campaign. Win or lose, I said it was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life, but now the people of Ohio have given us a job and what we need to do over the next couple of years, over the next six years, for the full length of this Senate term, whoever’s in the majority, whatever the President looks like, we have to a very simple job to do. It’s to go to work every single day and fight for the people of Ohio, fight for our workers.

(07:54)
Fight for our families, fight for the people struggling with the opioid addiction problem, fight for the people. The single moms struggling to raise babies just like my mom raised me. We have got a great state and we have got a great country. To the people of Ohio, I want to say something. I know, of course we won a very good victory and I’m very proud of it. Because of all of you, we won a great victory. But I want to say everyone to whether you voted for me or not. If you’re watching on TV, whether you voted for me or not, the thing that I promise to do is go to the United States Senate and fight every single day for the people of Ohio. Thanks to you, we get an opportunity to do just that.

JD, JD, JD.

Thank you guys. Thank you.

(08:55)
I can’t help but to offer some reflections. I mean, every single person on this stage knew my beloved mama, the woman who raised me, and she died right before I left for Iraq in the United States Marine Corps. And you guys have heard me talk about her. What an incredible woman she was. What an unusual woman she was. We joked that if we could wheel her up here today, she would drop probably about five F-bombs on national TV with all these cameras looking at us. But she was a proud product of working people. She believed in the American dream. She believed in the promise of this country.

(09:30)
And I guess my simple promise to you, to everybody here, you’re not always going to agree with every vote that I take. You’re not going to agree with every single amendment that I offer in the United States Senate, but I will never forget the woman who raised me. I will never forget where I came from, and I will never forget the great people of Ohio. Thank you for this honor to serve you. I’ll fight for you every day. God bless you guys, and thank you. Thank you.

JD, JD, JD.

Thank you.