Trump upset the Ohio race last month by backing author and venture capitalist Vance ahead of the Nov. 8 Congressional election, catapulting him ahead of former state treasurer Josh Mandel, also a strong supporter of Trump.
With about 68% of expected ballots counted, Vance led the Republican field with 32% of the vote, followed by Mandel with 24% and state lawmaker Matt Dolan with 22%, according to Edison Research.
While Vance’s victory is a sign of Trump’s power of approval, all of the other major candidates except Dolan had lobbied for Trump’s support while defending his policies and reiterating his false allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
“It was a big night for Trumpism in the Republican Party of Ohio. Not just in Vance’s victory, but in a field that was dominated by candidates trying to outdo each other,” David said. Niven, professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.
“It was still a tight race. He wasn’t able to put out that race with just a flick of his wand.”
Vance, author of the book “Hillbilly Elegy” and former Trump critic, will face Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who won his Senate primary as expected.
“I absolutely have to thank the 45th, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” Vance told the crowd at his Cincinnati primary party.
Trump hasn’t announced his plans for 2024, but he regularly hints at his political rallies that he intends to mount another presidential campaign.
Ryan, who briefly ran for president in 2020, has focused his campaign on working-class readers, which has led him to take a hard line on China and woo Trump supporters. He promoted an advertisement on Tuesday, calling Vance “an out-of-the-box millionaire.”
“I want us to be the manufacturing powerhouse of the world. I want us to help this country overtake China,” Ryan told a rally of supporters after sealing the nomination. “We can do it by coming together.”
Vance leads in nearly every county where most ballots have been counted, from deeply conservative rural counties to suburban areas that could be crucial to his hopes of beating Ryan. Vance’s lead was particularly large in places like Clermont County, a suburb of Cincinnati, where he led Mandel by 35% to 22% with nearly all of the expected ballots counted.
Vance also had a sizable lead in rural Athens County in southern Ohio, one of the few counties in the state won by U.S. President Joe Biden in 2020.
Nonpartisan election analysts favor the Republicans’ chances of winning the final showdown to retain incumbent Senator Rob Portman’s seat.
A rematch between two Democratic rivals for a House of Representatives seat was also on the ballot in Ohio on Tuesday, while Indiana readers also voted in the primaries.
Tuesday’s contests kicked off a series of critical nomination contests in the coming weeks, including primaries in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Trump has endorsed more than 150 candidates this year, including a dozen key candidates.
His participation will help determine whether the Republicans, as expected, overturn their slim deficit in the House of Representatives and eventually take control of the Senate, which is split 50-50, with Democrats holding the casting vote.
A loss of control of either chamber would allow Republicans to stall Mr. Biden’s legislative agenda and pepper his administration with distracting and potentially politically damaging investigations.
REPUBLICAN REPELLER
Not all Republicans blindly follow Trump’s example. As in Ohio, where Senate candidates spent an unprecedented $66 million on advertising, Trump-backed candidates in Pennsylvania and North Carolina face well-funded Republican challengers.
Some worry that Trump’s picks, like former soccer star Herschel Walker in Georgia, could prove too controversial to win against Democrats in November, jeopardizing the party’s bid for control. of the Snat.
Vance was not the choice of many party leaders in Ohio, and some publicly grumbled at Trump’s decision. The Club for Growth, a powerful Conservative advocacy group, ran ads disparaging Vance and backed his choice in the race, Mandel.
In the Republican gubernatorial primary, incumbent Mike DeWine held off three far-right Republican challengers to win the nomination, despite criticism from many conservatives for his business shutdowns and other policies during the pandemic.
DeWine will face former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who won the Democratic primary, becoming the first woman in Ohio history to win major party support for governor.
In a closely watched Democratic race, incumbent Shontel Brown defeated progressive candidate Nina Turner in the congressional district that includes Cleveland. The contest was seen as a measure of the balance of power between the establishment — represented by Brown — and the more liberal wings of the party.