CLEVELAND, Ohio — The midterm election is less than a month away and one of the closest races, between Democratic U.S Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance, is for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat.
It's an important seat because whoever wins could determine which party has control of the Senate.
Ryan and Vance went head-to-head for the first time in an hour-long debate in Cleveland Monday night.
One of the first topics was abortion. Ryan said Roe v. Wade needs to be reinstated.
"This is the largest governmental overreach in the history of our lifetime," Ryan said. "It's a complete violation of personal freedom and liberty and women in the state and I think we should maintain that right."
Vance said he has always been pro-life and believes each state will have a different view about abortion.
"Ohio is going to want to have different laws than California and Texas and I think Ohio should have that right," Vance said. "But some minimum national standard is totally fine with me."
Vance also believes there are reasonable exceptions for terminating an abortion, but declined to elaborate on what specific exceptions he would consider.
The candidates also discussed LGTBQ rights.
There are concerns the opinion on this could change after Justice Clarence Thomas alluded to the U.S. Supreme Court reconsidering the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Vance said gay marriage is the law of the land, but he does not support a bill that would codify same-sex marriage.
"If you look at the bill that's being proposed it wouldn't just codify something that's already enacted into law, it would make it easier and a lot of private parties to sue religious organizations," Vance said.
Ryan does support the bill and said that it would have an impact on thousands of Ohioans.
"We have 15,000 marriages in Ohio and when you read Justice Thomas' opinion on abortion, which JD Vance wants to celebrate, it also included in there nullifying these marriages," Ryan said.
Police were also discussed at the debate.
This comes after the shooting deaths of Jayland Walker in Akron and Donovan Lewis in Columbus.
Both agreed more police officers are needed with higher pay. Vance stressed the importance of staffing police departments.
"They want to do more community policing, they want to do more engagement, whether it's black, white or brown with people in the community that they're trying to keep safe," Vance said. "The problem is it's hard to do that when you're 25-30% understaffed."
Ryan also said there is a need for more police.
"We need more cops, we need better-paid cops, and we've got to get rid of bad cops. We need more technology and equipment," Ryan said. "I've brought back almost 500 million dollars for law enforcement here in Ohio."
Other topics for the night were immigration, the state of the economy and the war in Ukraine.
After the debate, a campaign strategist for Vance claimed "it was kind of a murder out there," of Vance's performance. Once the debate was over, Vance did not take questions from the media.
Ryan said he was proud of his debate performance and his campaign claimed he won the debate.