CLEVELAND – Ohio’s 2024 Senate beer contest is becoming a real-time illustration of the different ways ambitious Republicans are navigating Donald Trump’s latest legal woes.
And given how acrimonious and expensive (and Trumpy) Ohio’s last GOP Senate primary was, now-Sen. JD Vance eventually won Trump’s endorsement in the early primaries this foreshadowed how other Republican contests were going — The dynamics are worth seeing.
A candidate vying to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, Republican businessman Bernie Moreno, was in the audience Tuesday night at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where the former president addressed the his followers after his appearance in Miami on federal charges related to his management of classified documents.
Once a Trump skeptic, Moreno is now between his most loyal supporters and had already planned to be in Bedminster for a previously scheduled Trump fundraiser. Trump has encouraged, but not officially endorsed, Moreno’s offer.
Brown’s is one of three Senate seats in states Trump has previously won by healthy margins (Montana and West Virginia are the others), and Republicans are aggressively targeting those seats to regain control of the Senate, which Democrats they currently control for a minute 51-49. majority
The other declared Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, state Sen. Matt Dolan, is known for his eagerness to move the GOP. beyond the cultural grievances and the electoral denialism synonymous with Trumpism. Dolan completely ignored Tuesday’s show, instead airing one tweet that flexed his role as chairman of the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, which is wrapping up work on the state budget.
“Wandering in anticipation of another night at the Statehouse,” he said he tweeted.
Then there’s Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who has told donors he plans to enter the GOP primary early. LaRose’s political roots — and many of his longtime allies in the state party — link to the previous one Governor John Kasichwho carved out a vociferously anti-Trump reputation after losing to him in the 2016 presidential primary. Kasich even endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020. (Kasich is now an NBC contributor).
LaRose has not followed the same path. he has approached his potential Senate campaign as someone who can unite the pro-Trump and anti-Trump wings of the GOP. How he has behaved as a candidate-in-waiting reflects the tension between the two.
For example: LaRose accepted an endorsement from Trump last year as he sought re-election as secretary of state, but more recently has downplayed Trump’s influence about Republican voters. And while he’s said he doesn’t believe the 2020 election was stolen, he’s also taken a dig at Republican activists who made false or exaggerated claims about voter fraud.
LaRose has not gone out of her way to comment on Trump’s latest legal woes. When reached by NBC News for comment Wednesday, LaRose spokesman Rob Nichols offered a statement that mildly rebuked Trump, though not by name, but also included a common GOP criticism of how the Justice Department manage the case.
“Secretary LaRose is a former Special Forces Green Beret and a current U.S. Army Reservist with a secret clearance, so he takes national security issues very seriously,” Nichols said. “He is disappointed that political leaders of both parties have been accused of mishandling classified information, and he is equally concerned about the people who risk their lives to gather that information. The secretary believes there is a troubling double standard in how federal agencies address these matters, and supports better policies and procedures to ensure that classified information remains secure.”
Like Dolan, LaRose has a day job that has prevented him from doing as much politics as Moreno in recent weeks.
As secretary of state, LaRose has advocated for a special election in August for a ballot measure that would make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution. If passed, 60 percent of voters, as opposed to a simple majority, would have to enact future amendments, including an abortion rights initiative, on the November ballot.
