Republicans in Ohio voted on Tuesday to choose a slate of nominees for the upcoming midterm elections. One of those races, the GOP Senate primary, has been closely watched by political observers on all sides. Among the field, J.D. Vance, the Trump-endorsed candidate, walked away with a victory last night eking out a win over former State Treasurer, Josh Mandel.
Mandel had been the early favorite and was generally backed by a broad coalition of conservatives, including Sen. Ted Cruz, and was leading the polls even just a few weeks back. Then, former President Donald Trump offered an endorsement for J.D. Vance and held a rally outside Columbus in his honor.
The results on Tuesday seem to directly credit Trump’s endorsement:
In March, and even early April, Mandel was leading. Then, on April 15, Trump offered his support for Vance and the polling seemed to flip, almost overnight:
J.D. Vance won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Ohio on Tuesday, emerging from a crowded field with the help of a late endorsement from former President Trump to win with roughly a third of the total vote.
Six other candidates split the rest of the vote, with state Sen. Matt Dolan — who broke with Trump and repudiated his lies about the 2020 election being illegitimate — jockeying for second place. And former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, an erstwhile moderate who took a sharp turn to the right in an effort to win over Trump voters, was likewise projected to finish behind Vance.
Vance, the author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” and a former venture capitalist, surged to the lead in the GOP primary over the last two weeks, fueled by a Trump endorsement in mid-April. Vance had been stuck in third place prior to receiving Trump’s backing.
Vance benefitted from a large field where gathering 32% of the vote was enough to win a deeply split primary field. Judging from the result, Trump’s endorsement may have been able to move about 12 to 15 percent of the vote toward Vance, likely taking some from Mandel, but it appears most of it coming from Gibbons and some of the other lower-tier candidates. Perhaps the “Not-Mandel” crowd decided to coalesce around Vance in the closing campaign days fueled by Trump’s endorsement.
The big question worth asking is whether Trump will be able to do the same in Pennsylvania for Dr. Oz in his race against David McCormick, another Cruz-backed candidate.
Let’s examine the polling data:
McCormick is still clinging to a small lead at the moment, and Pennsylvania is a different beast than Ohio. Trump endorsed Dr. Oz back on April 10, and there hasn’t been much recent polling past mid-April yet since those resources were probably being allocated in Ohio. There should be new numbers out by the end of this week that might offer a clearer picture of Trump’s support for Oz is moving the needle.
Trump will be holding a rally for Oz this Friday outside Pittsburgh following a similar path as he did for Vance. In a split field, with 7 candidates, can Trump pull off another endorsement victory in the Keystone State?
We’ll know on May 17, the date of the upcoming PA GOP Senate primary.
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