I’m not sure there’s anything more pathetic in national politics than a partisan pretending they aren’t partisan in a pathetic attempt to appear moderate. That description fits Democrat Tim Ryan to the letter as he’s tried to present himself as an independent thinker in his senate race against Republican J.D. Vance.

Numerous scam PAC polls have shown Ryan with a lead recently despite Donald Trump taking Ohio by eight points in 2020. That has been used to manufacture a narrative that the Democrat has the momentum and can defeat Vance. For his part, Ryan is desperately attempting to differentiate himself from his own party, and he really jumped the shark in his latest ad.

In it, Ryan proclaims that he “voted with Trump on trade,” attempting to connect himself to the former president’s economic policies. There are some problems with that pronouncement, which I’ll cover in a second. First, here’s the ad.

In his new ad, Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan touts that he “voted with Trump on trade.” pic.twitter.com/FE2erioMTv

— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) September 27, 2022

Let’s talk about the merits of this. Did Ryan actually vote “with Trump on trade?” To be fair, he did when it came to the US-Canada-Mexico Agreement. But do you know who else did as well? 89 members of the Senate, including dozens of Democrats.

In the House, the vote was 385 to 41. In other words, what Ryan is proclaiming is very misleading and largely meaningless. Yeah, he voted Trump on trade in one instance, but so did nearly every other Democrat in Washington because it was such a no-brainer. That’s not proof of his independence. It’s proof he’s not a drooling idiot, which isn’t exactly a high standard to meet.

But the real test of partisanship is how someone votes when their party holds the levers of power. It’s easy to be bi-partisan when there are no stakes. Given that, how has Ryan voted under the current administration with all three branches under Democrat control? You’ll be less than shocked to learn that the self-proclaimed maverick has voted with Joe Biden 100% of the time. He has not gone against the president in a single vote.

So while Ryan pretends to be a football-throwing moderate who supported Donald Trump on major issues, the truth is much more boring. Namely, Ryan is a typical Democrat partisan who says one thing and votes another way. No one in Ohio should be fooled by his two-faced routine. Get out there and vote for J.D. Vance.