It's Trump vs. the establishment, Round Two, in the Ohio Senate primary. In 2022, Trump endorsed J.D. Vance in a crowded Senate field, resulting in Vance's victory in the primary and, eventually, the general election.
This weekend, Trump is back in Ohio touting his choice for Senate candidate in the Tuesday GOP primary. Businessman Bernie Moreno is in a tight three-way race with state Senator Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
Dolan is the establishment's preferred candidate, having been endorsed by Governor Mike DeWine and former Senator Rob Portman.
"Matt Dolan has a vision for the future. He listens. He fights. And he knows how to get results for Ohio," DeWine said in endorsing Dolan.
Whether that's true or not is hardly the issue. Trump has his own take on Dolan. The candidate's family owns the Cleveland Indians...er, sorry, Guardians. And there is a lot of outrage against the name change that many Ohioans saw as unnecessary.
“He’s easily pushed around by the woke left lunatics who renamed his family’s baseball team,” Trump said at the rally hosted by the pro-Moreno super PAC Buckeye Values.
Trump said that Dolan was "trying to become the next Mitt Romney. I think Mitt Romney is his hero.”
Senator J.D. Vance is not pleased with Dolan's attacks on Moreno.
“What the establishment RINOs are doing to Bernie Moreno is disgraceful,” Vance said Saturday. “I’m sure you’ve seen the TV ads. I’m sure you’ve seen the money pouring into this state.”
That's very true. A lot of it is Democratic Party money, as incumbent Senator Senator Sherrod Brown is swimming in cash. Brown has a 3-1 advantage in money raised and a 7-1 advantage in cash on hand.
This is to be expected since Brown isn't involved in a bitter primary with three well-financed opponents.
Brown may have more cash, but his lead over Dolan and Moreno is slipping. And Dolan appears to be surging. The latest Emerson poll has Dolan up 26% to 23% over Moreno, with a shocking 32% still undecided.
The stakes for the GOP are extremely high. Ohio is one of two top states Republicans are looking to flip to retake the Senate. The state has gotten redder, and Trump won twice by wide margins, making Sen. Sherrod Brown among the most vulnerable of the Democratic incumbents. (Brown, the former president said, pretends like he’s Trump’s best friend — but is actually part of the “radical left.”)
But Moreno first has to get through a primary that’s turned into a barroom brawl, with a growing number of nasty attacks on the trail and in ads.
Moreno is embracing Trump as tightly as possible.
“I want to clear something up for everybody here: I am so sick and tired of Republicans that will say, ‘I support President Trump’s policies, but I don’t like the man,’” Moreno said, turning to point at Trump: “This is a good man. This is a great American.”
For his part, Dolan is touting the fact that Democrats who see Moreno as the weaker candidate have given $3 million in the form of pro-Moreno ads to his campaign. It's a tactic that worked well for them in 2022 in Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania governor races as the Democratic Governors Association spent north of $43 million on MAGA candidates. All three were soundly defeated by Democrats.
Those three candidates weren't given much of a chance against Democratic incumbents. Moreno is a different story.
Vance, who will campaign with Moreno across Ohio on Monday, last year backed him, which was seen as a prelude to the eventual Trump endorsement. Moreno also enjoys the support of two other Trump allies — Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a Buckeye State native. Vance, Jordan, and two other Trump allies - Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and 2024 Arizona Senate candidate and 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake - will attend Saturday's rally.
Senator Brown's lead over Moreno and Dolan is within the margin of error. Whichever candidate emerges from the scrum on Tuesday will give Sherrod Brown all he can handle.
