Senator-elect from Ohio, J.D. Vance said that criticizing the former president for the party’s lackluster showing in the midterm elections does more harm than good. He explained that the Republican Party should use, not abuse, Donald Trump. Vance, who defeated Democrat Tim Ryan for a vacant Senate seat in Ohio, said Trump played a significant role in his rise from writer and entrepreneur to Senator, despite having previously referred to himself as a “Never Trumper.”

In an op-ed for the American Conservative, Vance stated, “Of course, no man is above criticism. The quick turn from gobbling up credit to vomiting blame suggests there is very little analysis at work.” He went on to blame Republican losses on lack of funding. He explained, “Any effort to blame Trump — or McConnell for that matter — ignores a major structural advantage for Democrats: money. Money is how candidates fund the all-important advertising that reaches swing voters, and it’s how candidates fund turnout operations. And in every marquee national race, Republicans got crushed financially.”

He highlighted ActBlue, a Democrat online fundraising powerhouse that accepts and distributes money from individual donors. He wrote, “Republican small-dollar fundraising efforts are paltry by comparison, and Republican fundraising efforts suffer from high consulting and ‘list building’ fees — where Republicans pay a lot to acquire small-dollar donors. However, Democrats raise “more money from more donors, with lower overhead.” He also noted that the GOP should “build a turnout machine, not gripe at the former president.”

He concluded by saying, “any effort to pin blame on Trump, and not on money and turnout, isn’t just wrong. It distracts from the actual issues we need to solve as a party over the long term.”