Trump and Ohio's GOP establishment clash ahead of a rowdy Senate primary
Trump-endorsed Bernie Moreno campaigned with Sen. JD Vance and Kari Lake ahead of the Ohio Republican Senate primary. Matt Dolan rallied with Gov. Mike DeWine.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — On the eve of an Ohio Republican Senate primary awash in resentment and rage, two leading candidates stuck close to their tribes Monday, reinforcing battle lines in a race that has become a referendum on former President Donald Trump.
Allies of Trump and his preferred candidate, Bernie Moreno, barnstormed the state, warning that a vote Tuesday for state Sen. Matt Dolan would deal a blow to their MAGA movement. Dolan, meanwhile, campaigned here with Gov. Mike DeWine, who despite feuding with the right-wing base has remained popular among moderates and independents key to Dolan’s coalition.
The last-minute rush, which followed a weekend rally that Trump headlined for Moreno, reflected a contest for the GOP nomination to face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November that many see as a toss-up. Polls have shown a two-way race between Moreno and Dolan, with state Secretary of State Frank LaRose falling back in the pack and large numbers of voters undecided.
“The person we nominate has to win in November,” DeWine, a mainstay of Ohio GOP politics who lost his Senate seat to Brown in 2006, told a crowd crammed into the back room of a bar in Columbus’ German Village neighborhood. “This is not going to be an easy race, folks.”
“I’ve run against this man, so I can speak that it will not be easy, but it’s doable,” DeWine added. “Very, very doable. And of the three candidates, look, they all could win. But the person clearly has the best shot at winning in the fall is Matt Dolan. I think our common sense tells us that.”
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