CLEVELAND – The Ohio seat that will soon open in the Senate spawned a race to embrace Donald Trump among the top Republicans interested in the job, in a state the former president has won twice.
Jane Timken, who recently resigned as president of the state party to prepare for a campaign, announced her candidacy on Thursday by offering herself as a “conservative disruptive” that helped sweep the moderate allies of Ohio’s former anti-Trump governor , John Kasich.
“I’m running for the United States Senate to defend you, just like when I sided with President Trump and supported his agenda for America First,” said Timken in his launch video.
Following Republican Sen. Rob Portman’s announcement that he would not seek re-election, Timken joins a Republican camp that already includes Josh Mandel, the former state treasurer who entered the race last week with the promise that he too would “fight for president Trump’s agenda in America comes first
In an interview with NBC News affiliate in Cleveland, WKYC, Mandel also echoed Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from the former president – an unfounded claim adopted by pro-Trump rioters who last month invaded the Capitol , where Mandel seeks to work.
At least six other Republicans are considering running for the seat, in contention in 2022. The list includes members of Congress and several entrepreneurs who could self-finance their campaigns or have access to wealthy donors, including JD Vance, the venture capitalist known for his book of best-selling memories, “Elegia caipira”.
Trump has given no indication that he will have any weight in the race, but has suggested that he will work as a private citizen to influence the results of certain primaries.
“At the moment, you are looking at Timken and Mandel competing for the Trump track,” said Michael Hartley, a Republican strategist in Ohio who worked on Kasich’s campaigns. “You will probably have one or two self-financiers, who could also compete for Trump supporters. This then offers a potential opportunity for a traditional conservative, in quotes, from Congress to run. One thing I know is that it will be incredibly expensive. “
One of those possibilities is speculated to be Congressman Steve Stivers, according to Republicans who spoke to NBC News this week. Stivers, a major general in the Ohio Army National Guard, represents the suburbs of Columbus and has a database of national donors, thanks to previous management by the Republican National Congress Committee.
“As a general, Steve Stivers would say that one of the biggest mistakes a general can make is to fight the last battle,” said Joe King, a Republican consultant in Ohio who is close to Stivers. “So the key here is how can we build on what we’ve done and take it forward? This is the kind of thinking that goes into your process. People should be praised for being loyal soldiers, but there is something to be said for those who know how to command an army. ”
At the moment, however, the first few days – Mandel and Timken are the first two declared candidates from either party – are full of promises of loyalty to Trump. The dynamics are instructive about a state that has drastically moved away from traditional Kasich conservatism, which now seems moderate compared to Trumpism.
Timken, 54, is part of an Ohio family with deep roots in industry and republican politics in the state. Her husband, Tim, was until 2019 the president and chief executive of TimkenSteel, which originated from a long-standing manufacturing company that also bears the family name. The couple organized a fundraiser for Trump in August 2016, at a time when many leading Ohio Republicans were doing little to help the then Republican presidential candidate out of deference to Kasich, who abandoned his candidacy for the White House in May.
At its launch on Thursday, Timken emphasized how it was Trump’s choice four years ago to overthrow the Kasich ally who presided over the Ohio Republican Party. She was called to the White House and the Republican National Committee via Bob Paduchik, who won Trump’s 2016 victory in Ohio and is now a leading candidate to succeed her as president of the state party. Her new campaign website includes a picture of her beside Trump beaming with a thumbs up, and another with her arm around Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, who was mentioned as a potential North Carolina Senate candidate.
Mandel, 43, is a veteran of the Marine Corps who served two terms as state treasurer and lost a 2012 candidacy to oust Democratic senator Sherrod Brown. He was prepared for a rematch with Brown in 2018, but gave up, claiming the health of his then wife. Since then, Mandel has received more than $ 4 million in unused campaign funds – a sum that, along with statewide recognition of his name, makes him a favorite, but also irritates other Ohio Republicans who would like to have it shared with other intermediate years campaigns.
Despite the declared closeness to the former president, Trump was not the first choice of any candidate in 2016. In his announcement, Mandel’s team emphasized that he was the first state official to support Trump in 2016 and noted that “Josh delivered and his campaign team for the Trump campaign. “
But Mandel supported Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in that year’s primaries, a move that is also tantamount to snubbing the Kasich establishment while the then governor was running for president. Timken, for its part, acknowledged supporting Kasich at the start of the 2016 campaign.
Hours after Timken’s announcement on Thursday, Mandel tweeted an old photo of her embracing Kasich, signaling how he will act aggressively to frame her as insufficiently loyal to the Trump cause.
After a pro-Trump crowd attacked the Capitol on January 6, and before Portman announced his retirement, a reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland noted that Timken had put some distance between her and Trump. And Mandel and his advisers paid special attention to how Timken handled his own congressman, Congressman Anthony Gonzalez, who was one of only 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment. Timken told The Plain Dealer earlier this month that he did not know “whether I would have voted the way he did”, while praising Gonzalez as a “very effective legislator”.
Only later, on the day that Timken resigned from the state party before announcing his candidacy for the Senate, did she tweet that she disagreed with Gonzalez’s decision.
“Josh Mandel is the only blatantly pro-Trump candidate in this race,” Scott Guthrie, Mandel’s campaign manager, said Thursday morning in an e-mailed statement. “While other candidates said they ‘didn’t know’ how they were going to vote for President Trump’s impeachment, Josh Mandel stood firm and openly against the unconstitutional farce and impeachment.”
When Trump beat Ohio by 8 points for the first time in 2016, Portman crossed over to a second term for more than 20. Corry Bliss, who managed this campaign for Portman, signed on as general counsel for Timken.
“There is only one candidate in this race that has been endorsed by President Trump before, and that is Jane Timken,” Bliss said on Thursday, referring to the 2017 party president election.
“Obviously she would be honored to have President Trump’s endorsement in this race,” he added, although he declined to say whether the two talked about the possibility.
In addition to Stivers and Vance, other Republicans believed to be evaluating a Senate run on the Republican side include MPs Bill Johnson and Mike Turner, Cleveland area businessman Bernie Moreno and Michael Gibbons, an investment banker unknown to voters outside the United States. political donor circles three years ago and was relatively strong in the 2018 Senate primaries. Gibbons reinforced his interest in the 2022 race this week, calling on the state party, which remains full of Timken allies, to remain neutral in the primaries.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Tim Ryan and Dr. Amy Acton, former Ohio Department of Health director, who stood out as an important presence on local TV during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, are among those who consider it a race.
Asked this week about the first efforts of aspiring Republicans to demonstrate unwavering loyalty to Trump, Bryan Williams, the interim president of the state party, cast doubt on Mandel’s sincerity.
“Although Mandel’s rhetoric recently took on a Trumpian tone, he was a supporter of Marco Rubio, and during the Trump administration he was not a vocal supporter of Trump,” said Williams, who added that he is not seeking the presidency permanently and is not planning to make a personal endorsement in the primary. “But that’s exactly who I think Josh is trying to woo now.”
Nick Everhart, a Republican media consultant based in Ohio, is unsure whether the Trump factor profoundly helps or harms any candidate, unless the former president himself gets directly involved in the dispute.
“Being pro-Trump is almost like being pro-weapons, pro-life,” he said. “It is just another GOP primary litmus test needed to survive. Unless Trump shows up and supports someone, the chances that the pro-Trump angle will be a differentiator for all these people will be minimal. It won’t be the thing that creates separation, unless someone has gone out of their way to speak ill of him in the past. So you have something that an opponent can use as a weapon. “