Ohio
DNC flies plane over Michigan Stadium with banner blasting Ohio State fan JD Vance
‘Let’s Go Blue’ chant breaks out during JD Vance speech at RNC
JD Vance, the Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Ohio State University alum, poked fun at Michigan during his acceptance speech.
Can college football rivalries motivate Michigan voters to oppose a GOP ticket that includes Ohio State fan JD Vance? Democrats continue to test the theory — this time with a plane flying a banner highlighting Vance’s loyalty to his alma mater above the Big House on Saturday.
The Democratic National Committee flew a plane to take its anti-Vance message to the skies over the Michigan Stadium for four hours during fans’ tailgate before the 12 p.m. kickoff at the U-M game against Texas. In addition to noting Vance’s support for Ohio State, the banner in a few words tries to attach Vance to Project 2025, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation’s playbook for the next Republican presidential administration.
“Like the Wolverines putting an end to Ohio State’s season three years in a row, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will put an end to Donald Trump and JD Vance’s election season when they beat them in November,” said Democratic National Committee Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman in a statement. “The words ‘Go Blue’ have never meant more than they do right now.”
Ever since Trump named the Republican U.S. senator from Ohio as his running mate, Democrats have seized seemingly every opportunity they can to remind voters in the battleground state that Vance roots for Ohio State on game day.
It’s a political liability Vance himself joked about during his speech accepting his party’s vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention. When the GOP delegation broke out in “O-H-I-O” chants, Vance joined the chorus before trying to quiet down Ohio fans. “You guys, we’ve got to chill with the Ohio love. We’ve got to win Michigan, too, here,” Vance said.
Democrats’ attacks against the GOP ticket have also focused on Project 2025 and its proposals to overhaul the federal government — including a plan to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and weaken civil service job protections — and restrict abortion access. The authors of the playbook include some individuals who previously served in Trump’s administration and Vance has previously championed the work of the Heritage Foundation.
“The only truth here is that Senator Vance is an Ohio State fan. Kamala would say ‘Go Green’ in East Lansing and then ‘Go Blue’ in Ann Arbor because her pollsters told her to,” Team Trump Michigan Communications Director Victoria LaCivita said in a statement Saturday. “While Michigan may not like OSU, they respect Vance and it’s why the Trump-Vance ticket will win the ultimate trophy on November 5.”
Michigan 2024 Election: 3 reasons Kamala Harris came to Detroit for Labor Day campaign stop
The Trump campaign has repeatedly tried to distance itself from the Project 2025 proposals. During a rally in Grand Rapids in July, Trump told his supporters he didn’t know what Project 2025 is but criticized it anyway, calling some of its ideas “seriously extreme.” A CBS News review published late last month found at least 270 of the more than 700 proposals outlined in Project 2025 overlap with Trump’s previous policies and campaign platform.
In 2016, Trump won Michigan by a 10,704-vote or 0.3 percentage point margin — the slimmest of any state — delivering Michigan for a GOP presidential candidate for the first time since 1988. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by over 154,000 votes or 2.78 percentage points in Michigan.
The Cook Political Report — the preeminent election rating organization — deems the presidential race in Michigan a toss-up with either party having a good chance of winning.
Contact Clara Hendrickson: chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.
Contact Liam Rappleye: LRappleye@freepress.com
Looking for more on Michigan’s elections this year? Check out our voter guide, subscribe to our elections newsletter and always feel free to share your thoughts in a letter to the editor.
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
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It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
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