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Ohio's junior U.S. senator rises fast to join the Trump ticket as his running mate.

As Republicans convene in Milwaukee.

Democrats rally in Columbus, and demand continues to grow at Ohio's food banks.

That's this weekend.

The state of Ohio Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

The Republican National Convention came and went this week, and an Ohioan is on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate for the first time since 1944, 80 years ago, U.S.

Senator JD Vance, who's a year and a half into the only elected office he's ever held, was announced by former President Donald Trump as his running mate on Trump's social media platform.

That night, he was introduced to the convention crowd by Ohio's lieutenant governor, John Houston.

Ohio is the heart of it all.

And that is certainly the case once again here today.

The vice presidency is an office of sacred trust.

The man who accepts this nomination accepts with it the awesome responsibility to give wise counsel to the president to represent America abroad.

To preside over the Senate and to be ready to lead our nation at a moment's notice.

Such a man must have an America first attitude in his heart.

He must.

Amen.

He must embrace his obligation to the American family.

The American worker and the American soldier.

He must believe that America is exceptional.

True.

And be prepared in the tradition of our founders, to pledge his life, his fortune, his sacred honor, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

He must share the values and principles of our presidential nominee, and be trusted to faithfully implement the will of the people.

J.D.

Vance is such a man.

Vance spoke to the RNC on Wednesday and promised to never forget where he came from, referencing growing up in Middletown near Dayton.

Now, I pledge to every American, no matter your party.

I will give you everything I have to serve you.

And to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family and your country will be possible once again.

reactions from Ohio Republicans to Vance as Trump's VP was predictably positive.

Governor Mike DeWine was on the convention floor after Vance spoke.

Look, I think he he is consistent with Trump's appeal to working on women.

I think what the president has done, president President Trump has done great is to pick someone who is younger, which I think is good, you know, but also someone who really shares his desire to expand the base of the Republican Party.

And so that's that's always something that we have a governor.

Bernie Marino, who is running to unseat incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown and join Vance in the U.S. Senate, said in a statement that Vance was a, quote, brilliant selection and that, again, quoting J.D.

is a dynamic, visionary leader who is the perfect messenger for the America First agenda alongside President Trump.

He will fight with President Trump for our middle class, secure our border, and unleash American energy.

I am proud to call JD a friend, and I look forward to working with him to fire Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown.

Ohio Chamber of Commerce President Steve Stivers, a Republican former congressman, said Vance is a rising star.

Well, we're very excited that there is an Ohioan in the conversation.

You know, the road to the white House has gone through Ohio for, you know, about 100 years.

And it looks like it's going through Ohio again this year, which is, really exciting.

Vance becoming Trump's running mate would have seemed incredible in 2016, when Vance called himself a Never Trumper, said he thought Trump was noxious and worried in a text message to a friend that Trump would be, quote, America's Hitler.

But by 2021, the former marine and venture capitalist had fully changed his mind.

Vance scrubbed his social media of Trump criticism and apologized to him, eventually earning Trump's endorsement in the seven way Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2022.

And Vance has championed the Trump stance on a variety of issues, including the lie.

The 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

They have supports Trump's plan to impose tariffs on U.S. trading partners, including a dramatic increase in tariffs on Chinese products.

He wants a tax cut, but it's also call for increased taxes on corporations.

Vance supports Israel and Gaza and is opposed aid to Ukraine.

Vance wants a finished southern border wall and backs mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

He opposes gun restrictions and has supported a national abortion ban, as he did in a debate in October 2022.

I think it's totally reasonable to say you cannot afford a baby, especially for elective reasons after 15 weeks of gestation.

if Trump is elected president, Vance will be 40 next month, will be the third youngest vice president in U.S. history, and DeWine would appoint the person who would serve out the rest of his term until 2026, two days before the Vance pick was announced and a few hours before the assassination attempt at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

Ohio Democrats got together for an executive committee meeting, a state convention, and then what was called a family reunion.

But that event was marked by the crisis of concerns about what's happening with the head of the family, Several hundred attendees in the concert venue in downtown Columbus heard from new Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown locked in what he's called his toughest reelection campaign ever.

It was like a pep rally, though.

A group of protesters greeted party faithful as they were arriving.

Well, Petric is on the party's state central committee and says this group shows people who want President Biden to leave the race, that they aren't alone.

there are so many Democrats who can, you know, tell a compelling message about the future of our country and what we're fighting for and what we want, but also, tell a compelling message about the choice.

Right?

But the the alternative, like in that debate, president, but President Biden never mentioned project 2025. you know, there wasn't like, a clear narrative about what a Maga future could look like for our freedoms, for our democracy, for just people's lives.

And While most of those at the event were decked out in Biden-Harris gear.

There were subtle references to the uncertainty about the top of the ticket.

we have a choice in this moment.

We can worry and we can wring our hands, or we can have some real talk as a family and then get to work to defeat a 34 time convicted felon so we can.

We will be an abortion.

Trade unions destroy public education as we know it.

And who will protect billionaires and his fellow criminals at all costs while leaving working people behind?

But Brown has been cagey about Biden when questioned by reporters, including at this event.

In the back of the very noisy room, he was asked if he planned to campaign with Biden and whether the presidential race has him concerned about his own close contest with Republican Bernie Marino.

I don't really think about that.

I'm I'm focused on my focus on doing my job and focused on my race.

I know you're doing your job right.

I do my job.

He's not a senator right now.

Farmer Chris Gibbs is the former chair of the Shelby County Republican Party and now heads the Democratic Party.

There.

This is what the Democratic Party does, as opposed to the Republicans where there's only one voice, okay, you're there in line or you're out of the party, you're vaporized.

But in the report, you're in the Democratic Party.

It's like a tapestry.

It makes people stronger that everybody gets a voice.

Not everybody gets their way, but everybody gets a voice.

Ohio is no longer considered a swing state or a bellwether in presidential races.

Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters acknowledges the party is focused on state based candidates.

With Brown's reelection as the top priority.

Hunger in Ohio has been above the national average for much of this year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey on food Scarcity.

A year after the end of Emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Snap benefits, some food banks in Ohio are overwhelmed.

And with food prices still high and gas averaging over $3 a gallon.

Traffic at food banks is steady and increasing.

This week I talk about that with the executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks.

So let's start with demand.

We have emergency snap benefits ended in March.

Inflation is slowing.

Prices are still pretty high.

They haven't been going down.

Unemployment is down.

But a living wage in Ohio is not what the minimum wage is.

And that minimum wage proposal to raise it won't be on this fall's ballot.

Housing costs are up.

So what's been demand like that you've seen in the food banks?

You're absolutely right.

Pressure is mounting.

And those Snap emergency allotments ended March of 2023.

So we've had a little over a year without those snap emergency allotments that were helping put a really significant and helpful Band-Aid on what is now our everyday experience in our food pantry lines.

Before Covid 19 happened, we were serving about 2 million food pantry visitors a quarter, and that was after a very prolonged recovery coming out of the Great Recession.

So we had finally gotten to a sort of new normal.

And now we're serving 3.6 to 3.8 million food pantry visitors every quarter we had before, a year ago never hit more than 3 million food pantry visits in a quarter.

And now we're approaching 4 million in a quarter.

And there are some food banks and food pantries that are having to expand and get bigger to reach all the demand.

Right?

That's right.

We've really become a safety net to the safety net.

The benefits that are available to families with low and moderate incomes aren't keeping up with the cost of basic needs.

As you said, household expenses like housing, rent and mortgage, utilities, child care, of course, as we all know, is a crisis facing many families.

Ohio is also an aging state, so we have a lot of older adults who were already going to find themselves with inadequate retirement incomes to support their basic needs, and now, with the pressure they're facing on their expenses, where else did they have to turn?

So they're coming to us really much more frequently.

That brings me to a question about people in need who would be accessing food banks.

Can they access them?

I mean, our food banks in the areas where they need to be so people can get to them easy.

there's a stigma surrounding food bank usage in some areas, I imagine.

Are food banks really reaching the people who really need them?

Oh, it's a big good, meaty question that I love to talk about because, you know, really, before the pandemic struck, we were on the cusp of coming out of recovery, where we were getting to think big about how we could not only prevent hunger today, but prevent it upstream.

Right address, really root causes of hunger and poverty and income and economic insecurity and then here we were with a major crisis.

And so we're trying to keep our eyes on both feeding the need today and thinking about the future.

How do we stay resilient as an accessible?

I think one of the really positive things that did come out of the pandemic is that people became much more aware of our services, and it did release some of that stigma that might have previously existed for a lot of families.

I mean, we're still serving many new families that have not had to come for us before or have not in many years.

And, just to give you a sense of the scope of our network, we've got 12 regional food banks that are large multi-county warehouses that not only provide access to millions of pounds of food every year, but also an extensive array of other services.

And they're doing so in partnership with about 3600 different local hunger relief agencies across all 88 counties.

So, of course, we're not perfect.

We would always like to be there for every person.

but we're really committed to trying to drive equitable access to food across our communities, and it's going to get tougher and tougher here because we've had a lot of one time help, both with our partners at the state of Ohio, as well as from our partners at the USDA.

And right now, without some urgent, you know, some urgent change and some urgent policy decisions, especially with our federal partners right now as they continue to debate a farm bill.

we're left without enough food.

And you've made some changes to food banks and food pantries, for instance, a lot of or some food pantries look more like markets where people can walk through and select what they want.

You've also, enabled the use of online ordering and curbside pickup for some families.

have you gotten any while that's tried to bring in people who may not be able to access food banks otherwise?

Has that also brought in criticism from people saying, hey, what?

Why, why are they allowed to do this?

Why is this happening?

you know, I think that everyone recognize that largely we are all a paycheck or two away from being in the same position.

And I think that still, in our very recent memory coming out of the pandemic that impacted so many of us and our loved ones and, that's, that's true for every one of us.

almost a majority of Americans can't, pull enough out of their savings to respond to a $400 emergency.

so I think there's a lot of, if by grace.

There you go.

I, attitude amongst our consumers, and our neighbors and, no, I think that largely Ohioans are really generous and caring, and they believe that everyone deserves access to food to meet their basic needs.

We can't think about the future and how we thrive as communities and as a state.

If we don't make sure that people are nourished and fed.

Speaking of access to food in the summertime, which is when kids who normally would have school breakfast, free school breakfast, free school lunch, or reduced price don't get that option.

This the summer food program.

It's in operation now and there's been some changes to it.

Yeah, we're really excited.

Honestly, the state of Ohio and some of our elected officials have really set the precedent for this and been working for some exciting federal changes for a long time.

This goes back a couple of farm bills ago.

There were marker bills, that Senator Brown and then Senator Portman advanced in several farm bills that would have encouraged modernization of our summer food service programs and the programs that are designed to provide out of school time meals to kids in need.

So finally, now we have new, federal policy, permanent in statute.

And one of those exciting changes is a permanent summer program.

So you might be familiar with the pandemic EBT program that was in place as kids were at home and unable to learn in traditional school buildings.

So this mirrors the success of that program.

It gives families an extra $120 per child for the summer to help them go and buy more groceries while their kids are out of school.

And in addition to that, there's also expanded permanent access to non congregate feeding.

So our issue with the traditional summer food service program has always been that it only reaches about 1 in 10 eligible children, and often children in rural communities aren't, as easily able to get access to those meals.

So this program is designed to help rural providers in those areas, say, let families come and pick up a week's worth of meals or deliver a week's worth of meals.

So they only have to make one touch with that family each week during the summer, instead of that child needing to somehow get 20 miles each way in a really rural area to get a meal.

You referenced this earlier, the farm bill.

The 2024 Federal Farm bill seems to be stalled in Congress right now.

You have concerns about it, both for families and for the food banks that you run.

Absolutely.

We need really strong bipartisan farm bill priorities included in this legislation.

We've been waiting on a farm bill for, well, it feels like a few years now.

we have a continuing resolution in place right now, which is holding us in a status quo position.

and, you know, we really lack a lot of certainty about what we'll be able to do to continue to respond.

I just want to reiterate that this is this is going to be a prolonged recovery.

We've only begun and we know that, from our experience coming out of the Great Recession, I think that there's years ahead of us to make sure that people have their basic needs met and can think about kids going to school and actually focusing and learning and achieving, workers being productive out in our local economies, and older adults being able to age in place.

So that means we need a strong Snap program.

The food banks are not built to respond to giant gaps in our federal nutrition safety net, and unfortunately, those gaps are growing rapidly.

So we need strong Snap benefits.

We need people to be able to spend those benefits in their local grocery stores.

We would always prefer that than them needing to come to our lines, because that means that they're spending in their local economies and generating revenue, creating jobs, maintaining jobs, and, you know, being part of their communities, food access system.

The bill that passed, that is now currently stalled, it passed, I believe the House Committee, did not did not include funding for the local Food Purchase assistance program, which would directly affect food banks ability to access food to make available.

Yes, we have had many.

So there's a couple of federal programs that provide access to foods for food banks to help respond to need.

One is the Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TIF app that's essentially a market clearing program.

So when we see products that are, available beyond what the traditional market can consume, then the USDA is able to secure those products so they don't go to waste and direct them to the food banks that can get them to people in need.

And in addition to that program, which again, is funded, either at current levels or the current proposal in the appropriations debates would actually reduce funding for the food bank.

storage and distribution, the the funds that go into putting fuel in the trucks, making sure the coolers stay on.

and so that's functionally a cut for us because all of the food costs more right now, all of the inputs, all of the labor costs, etc., cost more.

And yes, the local food purchase assistance program, we call it Ohio can here in Ohio.

We couldn't tell you.

We couldn't begin to tell you how proud we are of this program.

the USDA launched the program a couple of years ago, and in just a couple of years, we launched a network of over 170 local growers, farmers and producers and suppliers who have their new and emerging.

They might be Bipoc, women owned, family farms, veteran owned, and their excited about being able to stay in farming.

It's a really difficult job to be in, and we need our local farmers to have resilient food supply chains so that we have a food secure state and country.

And right now it doesn't have permanent funding, funding authorization.

So we definitely have our eyes on we need a permanent solution, a permanent fix, or else will be coming up on a growing season just in six months or so.

And farmers start planning for their crops and what those, outlooks look like in those forecasts.

They need certainty.

And that's a big priority for us.

There is a September 30th deadline for the farm bill to pass.

There are certain programs that would end and other things that go into because the farm bill is a huge, sweeping document.

What if there is no resolution by September 30th?

It's an election year.

That's a possibility.

That's right.

Likely what's most likely to happen is that they'll come together and pass a status quo continuing resolution.

as we've seen in many of the at the same time, we'll have government shutdown threats that might be approaching because we have appropriations debates that had to kick off for fiscal year 25.

As soon as we finally got through fiscal year 24 debates.

So there's going to be a lot of tenuous, discussions across the aisle and across the chambers, in Congress around how to advance, whatever, short term temporary funding model looks like for our, our farm and nutrition programs, as well as our other federal budget priorities.

I want to ask you about a couple of other things, because you're part of the, Ohio Benefits Bank that helps people in need access all sorts of different programs.

for instance, Medicaid.

the there was a new process.

People who were getting Medicaid benefits during the pandemic had to requalify for those benefits, and that has resulted in 459,000 fewer people on the Medicaid rolls now than compared to a year ago.

what's been the effect of that on the populations that you serve?

Great question.

Well, we don't have, population specific data yet to really know with certainty what's going on in the Medicaid caseload.

I have to say that we are encouraged in some ways, because we know we've seen that about 183,000 new Ohioans enrolled in, affordable health care plans through the federal marketplace in 2024 compared to 2023.

So that's encouraging.

It may be that that at least that portion of the Medicaid caseload was, in fact, no longer eligible for Medicaid because they had attained, increased employment, increased wages, and now they've been connected with affordable coverage from the federal marketplace.

but with that said, of course, we're we're most concerned about vulnerable people with low incomes that, maybe in a transient situation may not have known how to push the right paperwork and might have fallen through the cracks.

And really, we never want to see anyone go uninsured because we all pay the price of that.

whether you're insured through employer provided coverage, marketplace coverage, Medicaid coverage, Medicare, you name it, we're all ultimately paying for the same costs together.

shopping for and utilizing health care.

So we really need to make sure that people have access to coverage so they can get their health needs treated when when they need them.

It's been acknowledged by elected officials, business leaders and advocates in Ohio that there is a crisis in both affordable childcare and affordable housing.

Is there any hope that there's going to be relief in either of those areas from the legislature, from the federal government, anywhere?

I can't pretend to be an expert, but we are in coalition with a broad based health and human services coalition called advocates for Ohio's Future.

So I'm in regular conversation with partners working in those areas.

And of course, we know that every Ohioan is a whole person who cares about putting food on the table, but also about going to work and having their child cared for in a safe environment, about affording the roof over their head and the utility bills.

So we're always in conversation and every kind of policy solution that needs to be advanced ultimately impacts food security as well.

I'm encouraged, of course, that there's a recognition that this is a broad and deeply embedded issue that we need to address.

And I also think we have to have our eyes open about there's always going to be unintended consequences of any good or bad policy decision.

You know, when we talk about tax policy, if we're going to cut income taxes for some folks and then local governments need to fund those services instead with increased property taxes.

Now we're looking at greater pressure on older adults that can't afford those property taxes.

If we provide relief, which they deserve, then how do we fund those local services that people need access to?

So, you know, I don't pretend that it's not complex and challenging.

I think if we, together, along with partners in the General Assembly Center, people and their needs and their needs to stay in their homes and be able to thrive in their communities, that we can figure this out And that is it for this week.

My colleagues at the statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State news.org or find us online by searching.

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And please join us again next time for the State of Ohio.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from Medical Mutual, dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans, offering health insurance plans, as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med mutual.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in Ohio Education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.