In Ohio Senate race, non-Trump Republican pleads his case

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A candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, Dolan directly criticized former President Donald Trump for his lies about this election. He said he would have voted for the vote count on January 6. And, only among the top Republicans vying for the nomination in Ohio, he declined to say that President Joe Biden’s victory was marred by widespread electoral fraud.

In a party currently dominated by unconditional dedication to Trump, Dolan is testing the premise that no one can pass through a primary competition without kissing the former president.

Some Ohio Republicans say Dolan’s rejection of Trump naturally limits his appeal to a GOP primary electorate – especially since some of the top candidates tie as much as they can to the former president.

But people familiar with Dolan’s campaign insist there is an unmet demand among Republican primary voters for a Trump independent candidate. Dolan is counting on that part of the party to be big enough to win a plurality in a crowded field – and better positioned to take on the likely Democratic candidate, well-funded U.S. Representative Tim Ryan, in the general election.

Establishment Republicans across the country are watching Dolan’s race for signs of post-Trump life. This includes donors, the most open GOP tent group right now to pushing the party beyond the Trump era.

“Those who were Trumpers before are still with Trump, and those who were anti-Trump are looking for candidates to support,” said Fred Zeidman, a Texas-based Republican donor. “Can the (non-Trump candidates) win? We don’t know.”

But, added Zeidman, “I think the anti-Trumpers are more passionate this time than they were last time.”

The traditional republican way

A state senator in his second term, Dolan is trying to sell himself as the natural successor to US Senator Rob Portman. The retired Republican senator has found himself against Trump at times, whether by temper or on issues such as trade and certification of the 2020 election.

In 2016, Portman won more votes in his re-election bid than Trump in Ohio and represents a center-right tradition that Dolan’s team believe they can still win in the state.

“He’s in the McCain lane, the Romney lane, the Portman lane, the Voinovich lane, the DeWine lane,” said a person familiar with the Dolan campaign approach.

But the state’s shift from a perennial swing state to a Republican redoubt has many GOP agents there skeptical that a non-Trumpian position can win in Ohio. Trump, after all, increased his share of the vote in Ohio in 2020.

“You can’t win a primary just by trying to be a Portman,” said a Republican strategist familiar with Ohio politics.

Better look more like Trump, you think. The other top GOP candidates in Ohio – Josh Mandel, Jane Timken, JD Vance, Mike Gibbons and Bernie Moreno – are all eager for Trump’s nod. Several of them traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump directly earlier in the year and introduce themselves.

In contrast, Dolan makes no effort to receive Trump’s approval. Additionally, the former president made it clear he was unwilling to do so in a statement last month regarding the upcoming name change for the Cleveland Indians baseball, which Dolan co-owns with his family.

“Anyone who changes the name of the former Cleveland Indians to Cleveland Guardians should not be running for the United States Senate representing the great people of Ohio,” Trump said. “Anyway, I know at least one person in the race that I won’t be supporting. The Republican Party has too many RINOs!

Dolan is hardly a Biden supporter. The GOP state senator called himself a “conservative who will stop Biden’s agenda” and criticized the Democratic president’s Covid vaccine orders, the economic record and Afghan politics.

But Dolan fails the most important test for a Republican candidate: his willingness to speak out against Trump’s election demands in 2020. As early as January 6, Dolan publicly spoke out against Trump and other Republicans who “perpetuated lies about the outcome of the elections. November 2020 elections “.

Saying so is too far a bridge for Republican candidates, says Ramesh Ponnuru, conservative National Review editor and CNN contributor.

“You don’t have to say that the 2020 election was stolen to be a Republican in good standing in Trump’s party. But you can’t say that Trump lost the election and then tried to annul the election because that he was a sore loser, “Ponnuru said.

A race to Trump

Besides Dolan, much of the Republican ground in Ohio is tripping over themselves to appeal to Trump and his base.

Mandel, for example, has increasingly adopted a quasi-Trumpian stridence on social media that leads him to make common cause with some January 6 protesters. Vance, meanwhile, has become a staple of Fox News, espousing populism targeting the white working-class base of Trump while atoning for his past opposition to Trump.

Even Timken, the running establishment representative, pointed to his close ties to Trump, including how he supported his successful bid for the Ohio GOP president in 2017. Some members of the party establishment say that Timken’s hosting of Trump gives him credibility with Republican voters but may present itself as acceptable to a general electorate next November.

“I think there is a place in the primary for someone who supports Trump who is not in the land of the mad,” said a Republican agent from Ohio.

If Dolan is to be successful in the primary, however, he will need a divided pro-Trump electorate without the backing of the former president. His team is hoping that by differentiating himself from the rest of the pack, Dolan can convince Republican voters to consider his post-Trump pitch.

“They all say the exact same thing,” said the person familiar with Dolan’s campaign. “It created a path for a candidate who fits more into the traditional Republican mold.”

CNN’s Jamie Gangel contributed to this report.

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