Ex-congressman Tim Ryan sees an ‘opportunity’ for Joe Biden in Ohio against Trump in 2024

Democrats have an opening to defend a key Senate seat and even make gains at the presidential level in Ohio, the Buckeye State’s former congressman Tim Ryan said this week.

Mr Ryan spoke to The Independent ahead of an event Tuesday evening hosted by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, and described the state of politics across Ohio’s suburban and rural areas. Mr Ryan said Ohioans were experiencing just the latest example of Washington’s disinterest in the American heartland with the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying dangerous chemicals in East Palestine. Politicians in Washington have traded blows over years-old deregulation of the freight rail industry while residents in Ohio are worried about long-term health effects.

The former congressman left Capitol Hill after coming up short in his bid for US Senate last November; he came a few points behind Republican JD Vance, a nationally prominent author whose campaign was heavily propped up through the GOP primary and general election by Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president who won Ohio twice in his two past bids for the White House.

Mr Ryan slightly overperformed President Joe Biden in his race, capturing 46.9 per cent of the vote to Mr Biden’s 45.3 per cent two years earlier. And in a conversation with The Independent, he predicted that gains made by Democrats — with some Republican help — would create an avenue for Mr Biden to potentially pick up the formerly purple state or for Ohio’s incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, to defend his seat.

“Here's the opportunity for a guy like [Senator] Sherrod Brown, and to some extent, you know, Biden if he runs,” Mr Ryan explained: “Foxconn has now, I think, six or seven vehicles they’re producing out of Lordstown. Across the street’s an Altima-GM-LG-Cam partnership battery plant [producing] Altima cells.”

Mr Ryan continued: “It's gonna have about 2,000 workers. They just voted to unionise. You know, we worked to save a HomeGoods distribution facility. That's going to be a couple thousand workers. They voted to unionise.”

“All of this stuff is coming online where I couldn't quite take credit for it because it wasn't kind of real enough,” he concluded. “But in a year, year and a half, you know, Sherrod Brown’s fingerprints are all over all that stuff, too. And so he's going to be able to take credit for a lot of that stuff. And I think, you know, to some extent, Biden will be able to take credit for some of that stuff. So this has got to be a moment where hopefully ... if Democrats can get their act together, the worm can turn.”

The former congressman has been adamant, however, that he does not believe Mr Biden should run for a second term. He applauded House Democrats for handing over the mantle of leadership to younger members like now-Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and reitierated his belief that the country by and large was weary of aging leaders like Joe Biden and Donald Trump duking it out for the presidency while Washington grows increasingly polarised and dysfunctional.

“With all due respect to Joe Biden, who I love and have enormous amount of respect for ... I just think the country is dying, dying for new leadership on both sides,” Mr Ryan said.

Mr Biden “has a lot of accomplishments that he's got and would be able to run on,” Mr Ryan said, but added that Democrats and Republicans were “unified” behind the idea that America’s leaders need to step aside and let younger generations take over.

Despite concerns about his age — Mr Biden was the oldest president ever elected when he took office in 2021 — the president has remained firm that he will run again in 2024.

Aides to Mr Biden have hinted to news outlets that the president will formally announce his reelection bid as soon as April; Mr Trump, meanwhile, launched his third bid for the presidency in November.