Christie Says Trump VP Won’t Be Forgiven For What?

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says Vice President JD Vance could face lasting political fallout for defending one of the most controversial ads in Ohio’s race for governor. Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy ran the spot, which featured the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, questioning her daughter’s honesty.

Acton won the race, but Christie argued after the election that the controversy could outlast Ramaswamy’s campaign. In his view, Vance made the ad his own political problem when he publicly defended it and took on Republicans who had questioned whether it belonged on the air.

Vance and DeWine took different sides

Vance, who represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president, defended Ramaswamy during an October visit to the state. He criticized Republicans who were speaking out against the ad and argued that the party should spend more time making its case against Democrats and winning Ohio’s elections.

President Donald Trump also backed the ad. Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, urged Ramaswamy to take it down. The disagreement put the state’s sitting Republican governor at odds with the president and vice president over how their party’s nominee was campaigning. The spot came off the air before Election Day.

Christie says the issue will follow Vance

For Christie, the question was what Vance’s defense of the ad said about his judgment. He pointed to Vance’s public writing about his Catholic faith and argued that standing behind the spot was at odds with the values the vice president had written about.

The dispute came down to a choice Republican leaders made in the closing weeks of a governor’s race. Vance saw the criticism as a distraction from the stakes of the election. DeWine thought the campaign should pull the ad. With the votes counted and Acton headed to the governor’s office, Christie is betting that Republicans will remember which side Vance took.