Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
“Campaigning for the Senate in Ohio in recent weeks, J.D. Vance (R) has ridiculed claims that advocates of a border-wall were ‘racist,'” CNN reports.
“But in multiple appearances in 2016, he made a similar argument to the one he is currently ridiculing — including saying that Republican electoral strategy had been to antagonize Black voters and minorities for three decades.”
A new Trafalgar Group poll in Ohio finds Josh Mandel (R) leading the Republican U.S. Senate primary with 28%, followed by J.D. Vance (R) at 23%, Mike Gibbons (R) at 14%, Matt Dolan (R) at 12% and Jane Timkin (R) at 8%.
However, an endorsement by Donald Trump would make 55% of Republican voters either “more likely” or “much more likely” to vote for that candidate.
“Republican rivals to J.D. Vance have embarked on a last-ditch effort to stave off an endorsement from Donald Trump in Ohio’s Senate primary, a response prompted by swirling speculation that the former president is close to backing Vance in the contentious race,” Politico reports.
“Trump has so far stayed out of the primary, even as early voting has already begun ahead of the May 3 election. But his endorsement could dramatically shift the margins in the crowded field of candidates, where no one in the five-way race has taken a commanding lead.”
Sources tell NBC News that former President Trump is planning to endorse J.D. Vance (R) in Ohio’s crowded Republican U.S. Senate primary.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) endorsed Josh Mandel (R) in the highly competitive Ohio Senate Republican primary, the Washington Examiner reports.
“The leading Republican candidate in the Ohio Senate primary employed offensive stereotypes about Asian people in a 2013 podcast, citing a widely discredited book, The Bell Curve, that has drawn allegations of racism and sloppy research,” the New York Times reports.
“The Senate candidate, Mike Gibbons, a financier who has poured millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign, made the comments during a discussion of how to do business in China. The remarks, published here for the first time, come as Republican candidates grapple with how to address a topic that has inflamed their voters, many of whom blame Beijing for a coronavirus pandemic that Donald Trump has referred to as the “Chinese virus.””
Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Jane Timken (R) received three Senate endorsements for her bid to replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), The Hill reports.
Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Deb Fischer (R-NE) all backed Timken, citing what they said were her conservative credentials.
Politico: “According to interviews with more than 75 people — who have worked for him or against him or both, who like him or don’t like him or used to — Mandel has been nothing if not an eager reader and rider of political currents. And that, they say, has made Mandel a singularly vivid lens through which to chart the deep, rattling changes in politics, in Ohio, on the right and overall, over the course of this last quarter-century.
“He doesn’t act the way he used to act, and he doesn’t talk the way he used to talk, say so many Democrats and Republicans alike. And they’re right. He used to present as more moderate, used to preach bipartisanship and diversity and civility, and no longer does. Perhaps most importantly, he once was conspicuously unsupportive of Trump, and now he has publicly pivoted to full-fledged MAGA.”
“Donald Trump has a new fixation: a Major League Baseball scion who hails from one of the country’s richest families — and who, unlike most other Republican Senate candidates, isn’t bowing to the former president,” Politico reports.
“During meetings, phone calls and impromptu chats, Trump has been peppering top aides and allies with questions about Matt Dolan, a wealthy Ohio Republican who accused the former president of ‘perpetuating lies about the outcome’ of the 2020 election and called the pro-Trump Jan. 6 Capitol riot ‘a failure of leadership.’”
A new ad in support of Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R) frames the candidate’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson as an endorsement of sorts.
Says Carlson: “You really, I think, understand what’s gone wrong with the country.”
Punchbowl News: “In the absence of a Donald Trump endorsement in the race, it’s instructive to view how Carlson is seen as a GOP kingmaker.”
GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio, who has been polling for a super PAC that supports Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R), said that Vance “needs a course correction ASAP,” Politico reports.
A 98-page PowerPoint presentation shows that Vance has seen a “precipitous decline” in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary since last fall, when a pair of outside groups backing a rival began a multimillion-dollar TV advertising blitz using five-year-old footage of Vance attacking former President Donald Trump.
From the presentation: “Driving his negatives is the perception that he is anti-Trump. This has only grown since November.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) endorsed J.D. Vance’s Senate bid in Ohio on Tuesday, giving the Hillbilly Elegy author and venture capitalist the backing of one of the far-right’s most prominent elected officials, The Hill reports.
Vance on Twitter: “Honored to have Marjorie’s endorsement. We’re going to win this thing and take the country back from the scumbags.“
Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R) gave a surprising answer to a local Ohio reporter last week when asked how he justifies some of his more bombastic rhetoric, saying that “our country is kind of a joke,” Mediaite reports.
The Atlantic has an excellent profile of Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel (R):
“Don’t blame Mandel for the lack of attention. He’s desperately sought the spotlight with outlandish stunts and a willingness to say anything that he thinks might resonate with voters—in fact, that’s been the sole constant throughout his political career. Mandel once ran on bipartisan appeal, but he’s since cycled through other identities—Tea Partier, proto-Trumpist, and now Big Lie true believer—as they serve him. You can accuse Josh Mandel of many things, and I will, but you cannot accuse him of insufficient hustle.”
Just as Josh Mandel (R) and J.D. Vance (R) fight over who is the “most conservative” in Ohio’s Republican U.S. Senate race, along comes Mike Gibbons (R) with this new ad.
“I’m the only one in this race for U.S. Senate saying we should abolish the Jan. 6 commission and replace it with a Nov. 3 commission to really investigate what happened when the Democrats stole the election.”
— Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel (R), speaking to a reporter.
Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R) called for mass civil disobedience in response to President Biden’s vaccine mandate.
Said Vance: “Do not comply with the mandates. Do not pay the government fines. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied and controlled. Only mass civil disobedience will save us from Joe Biden’s naked authoritarianism.”
He also tweeted: “Remember as our geriatric tyrant goes off on his fellow citizens that there are thousands of untested, unvaxxed aliens walking across our southern border each day.”
“While Republicans are running a hotly competitive primary race for Ohio’s open Senate seat next year, the Democratic side had been owned by a single candidate: Rep. Tim Ryan from the Youngstown area,” the New York Times reports.
“But that equation changed on Wednesday with the entry into the race of a second viable Democrat, Morgan Harper, who ran a high-profile primary challenge last year for a congressional seat with the backing of national progressive groups.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
More about Taegan Goddard →