J. D. Vance Projected to Win Ohio GOP Senate Primary

Former venture capitalist J. D. Vance is projected to win the Republican Senate primary in Ohio, according to the Associated Press.

Vance emerged as the frontrunner in a field of seven Republicans hoping to fill the seat left open by Senator Rob Portman’s upcoming retirement, including investment banker Mike Gibbons, former state treasurer Josh Mandel, former Ohio GOP chair Jane Timken, and state senator Matt Dolan.

Vance took the lead on Tuesday evening, having received 32.3 percent of the vote with 90 percent of the expected vote counted, according to the AP. Mandel followed with 24.2 percent, Dolan with 22.7 percent, Gibbons with 11.6 percent, and Timken with 6.1 percent. Early and absentee votes are tallied first.

Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman has also called the race for Vance.

Vance, who is the author of Hillbilly Elegy, was falling behind in the polls until he received a coveted endorsement from Trump on April 15, just three weeks before Election Day. Early voting began before Trump’s endorsement came, on April 5. All voters were permitted to vote by mail and early in-person. About 162,000 ballots had been cast through mail or early voting as of Friday, the AP reported.

“A lot of people want to know whether or not Donald Trump’s endorsement means something,” longtime state GOP strategist Mark R. Weaver told the AP ahead of Election Day.

The race led to a falling out between Trump and Club for Growth, after the group endorsed Mandel and refused to end its ad campaign against Vance at Trump’s request. The ads targeted Vance for his previous criticism of Trump.

Trump won Ohio twice, including in the 2020 presidential election when he received more than 3.1 million votes — more votes than any candidate in Ohio history.

The outcome of the election was expected to help determine what role the former president may have in other GOP primary contests around the country as the 2022 midterms approach and the GOP looks to take back the House and the Senate.

Vance said he “absolutely” had to thank Trump during his victory speech on Tuesday evening.

“The people who are caught between the corrupt political class of the left and the right need a voice – they need a representative. And that’s going to be me,” Vance said in the speech.

He also issued a rebuke of the Club for Growth.

“Do we want a Republican Party that stands for the donors who write checks to the Club for Growth or do we want a Republican Party for the people right here in Ohio?” Vance said.

The Republican candidates faced off in what proved to be the most expensive race in state history, with more than $66 million in TV and radio spending alone, according to data from Medium Buying cited by the Associated Press.

The race has also perhaps been one of the most dramatic, with Mandel and Gibbons arguing in each other’s faces during a heated debate in March until a moderator pulled them apart.

Polling conducted by Trafalgar between April 29 through May 1 showed Vance leading the pack with 26 percent of the vote, followed by Dolan at 22 percent and Mandel with 21 percent. Meanwhile, Gibbons received 13 percent of the vote and Timken garnered 6 percent. Two Columbus-area business owners, Mark Pukita and Neil Patel, trailed far behind with just 2 percent each.

Meanwhile, 8.6 percent of likely voters said they were still undecided.

“I was the last person into this race, so the undecideds have had multiple times to go with any other candidate. So as they’re becoming aware of me, that’s where I’m rising in the polls,” Dolan told Fox News on Sunday.  

Ahead of Vance’s endorsement, Mandel and Gibbons were the frontrunners in several polls, according to NBC 4. However, the most recent Trafalgar poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, meaning the race could be even tighter between Vance, Dolan, and Mandel. 

Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, was the only candidate in the race who did not seek out a Trump endorsement. He was also the only candidate to suggest at the debates that the former president should move on from his 2020 election defeat and stop making false claims that the election was plagued by widespread voter fraud, according to NBC 4.

For his part, Trump has twice denounced Dolan, suggesting that the Dolan family should not have changed its baseball team’s name from the Indians to the Guardians and going so far as to say the decision means Dolan “is not fit to serve.“

Vance will take on ten-term Representative Tim Ryan, who won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, according to an AP projection. Ryan bested progressive Morgan Harper and activist and tech executive Traci Johnson, the AP projected just before 8 p.m.

Despite Ohio having shifted from a swing state to a red state in recent years, Democrats hoped ahead of the election that the GOP would boost candidates who are so far-right they are unelectable.

“By all rights, history tells us that the Democrats are going to lose control of the House,” Dale Butland, a Democratic strategist in Ohio, told the AP. “By all rights, we should lose control of the Senate, too. However, the only thing that could save us is if the Republicans nominate a bunch of far-right crazies that are unacceptable in a general election.”

Meanwhile, the AP projected on Tuesday evening that incumbent Republican Governor Mike DeWine had successfully fended off challenges by former U.S. representative Jim Renacci, former state representative Ron Hood, and farmer Joe Blystone. The three challengers had attacked DeWine over his Covid-19 restrictions.

The AP projects Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton, has won the Democratic primary for Ohio governor against John Cranely, the former mayor of Cincinnati.

The outlet has also projected that a former Trump campaign and White House aide has won the GOP nomination for Congress in the state’s new seventh district. The nominee, Max Miller, has been accused of violent behavior by his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, according to the AP.