DNC flies plane over Michigan Stadium with banner blasting Ohio State fan JD Vance

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.”

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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

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