J.D. Vance, the billionaire-backed U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio, has routinely positioned himself as an anti-opioid China-hawk, promising to rein in Big Pharma and bring jobs back to the U.S. But in recent weeks it has been revealed that Vance, a Trump-backed author, worked for a white shoe law firm that represented multiple Chinese companies and lobbied for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. Vance then hired an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) resident who cited Purdue-funded studies to downplay the role overprescribing painkillers plays in the opioid crisis as the addiction specialist to Ohio's Appalachian region for his nonprofit, "Our Ohio Renewal."
The apparent contradiction, first reported by Politico, stems from a "vulnerability analysis" posted online by Protect Ohio Values (POV), the Super PAC through which Vance has raised millions of dollars for his Senate campaign. Because campaign finance law bars any candidates from communicating with their associated Super PACs, POV appears to have posted a trove of polling data, strategic documents, and opposition research on a low-profile Medium account for Vance to reference, detailing potential weak spots in his competitors' campaigns as well as his own.
