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Columbus, OH –It’s a brand new week, but this primary is getting more chaotic by the day as Republicans “duke it out” in what has already been called one of the “messiest, “most expensive” and “bruising” primary battles in the country. Here are the three things you need to know this week:
 
Bernie Moreno announced fundraising numbers – slamming Matt Dolan in the same breath – but doesn’t say where donations came from.  Moreno, during his launch event, said he would not self-fund – saying it is “fundamentally bad for democracy — for wealthy people, they’ve got their checkbook, to buy a Senate seat. That’s not right. I won’t do that.”
 
Frank LaRose was on the warpath last week, hitting his opponents for trying to buy the election, boasting he would be the “strongest candidate” in the race, and jabbing back at Moreno’s criticism that LaRose should do his job. As this primary continues heating up, it’s clear LaRose’s “shadow campaign” is not going to sit quietly on the sidelines.
 
Matt Dolan still can’t catch a break, feels the heat from Ohio’s conservative base.
 

In case you missed it, the Republican Senate primary got even messier this week as Frank LaRose went on the attack, hitting his potential opponents in what has already been called “one of the messiest,” “most expensive,” and “bruising” Senate primaries in the country. 
 
From attacking his opponents for trying to buy the election, boasting he would be the “strongest candidate” in the race, and jabbing back at Moreno’s criticism that LaRose should do his job, it’s clear LaRose’s “shadow campaign” is not going to sit quietly on the sidelines. As this primary continues to heat up, it’s only going to get messier, nastier, and more chaotic from here.

Read more:
 
The Vindicator: Money is key to LaRose’s Senate bid
David Skolnick
April 28, 2023

• “The one thing I lack is what those two candidates have in abundance and that is personal wealth,” LaRose said. “I don’t have that, and I also don’t think that only wealthy people should be able to run for the U.S. Senate.”
• “…if I run I would be the strongest candidate.”
• “What I have are things that can’t be bought. They have to be earned, such as deep relationships with people all over the state, such as a good conservative voting record.”
• During a podcast last week, Moreno took a swipe at LaRose, saying: “When you have others that enter the race, especially those who just won a very consequential role and have a four-year term ahead of them to do some important work, those people jumping in the race make the race very messy and very expensive.”
• In response, LaRose told me: “I think it’s a hollow excuse. He’s looking at the same polling numbers and he realizes that if I run, I’d be the strongest candidate for this office. So he’s going to come up with any reason” to criticize me. 

Yesterday, Steve Daines – chair of the NRSC, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm – officially endorsed Donald Trump’s bid for President. With another high-profile Republican backing Trump, Republicans in the already messy and divisive Ohio Senate primary are facing another fault line. 
 
Frank LaRose, who has been called out for running a “shadow campaign” for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat and said just days ago he’s been “staying in close touch” with Daines, has stayed silent on the former President’s bid. Earlier this month, both LaRose and Matt Dolan appeared alongside Trump-nemesis Ron DeSantis at events across Ohio. 
 
LaRose and Dolan’s lack of support has not gone unnoticed by Bernie Moreno, who has already slammed Dolan for being “Democrat-light” and said anyone who refuses to support the former President should be “disqualified.”
 
“Republicans running for Ohio’s Senate seat are scrambling over one another and throwing jabs left and right to earn their conservative bona fides,” said ODP spokesperson Reeves Oyster. “It’s only going to get messier from here as this primary heats up and the field is forced to battle for Trump’s endorsement.”

Columbus, OH – As GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy plays politics this week with Congressional efforts to avoid default, Ohio Republicans in the U.S. House should answer if they plan to support his politically-motivated bill, which would rip critical funding away from Ohio workers and retirees. The bill would claw back ‘unobligated coronavirus funds,’ which includes funding that was secured through the Butch Lewis Act to protect the pensions earned by tens of thousands of Ohio retirees. 

“Instead of doing their jobs and passing a clean bill to avoid a dangerous default that could wreck the economy – as they did three times under President Trump – Ohio Republicans in Congress are playing political games with the future of Ohio workers and retirees. Every Republican Member of Congress should go on the record to declare whether or not they support a bill that would rip away critical funds that protect the pensions of tens of thousands of Ohio workers,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Speaker McCarthy will likely need the vote of every Republican Member of Congress in Ohio, including expected Ohio Senate candidate Warren Davidson, to pass his bill. 

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Columbus, OH – In case you missed it, the Washington Post did a deep dive over the weekend on the craven political attacks GOP politicians are launching on Ohio voters as they work to effectively end citizen-led ballot initiatives in Ohio. As the Post reports, these efforts are clearly targeted at preventing voters from securing key rights, including abortion rights. The Washington Post dubbed the GOP political gamesmanship playing out in Columbus ‘as transparent as it is cynical.’ 

“Facing the possibility that abortion rights could be enshrined into the state constitution by a vote of the people later this year, Republicans want to change the rules by making it tougher to pass such amendments by requiring them to receive 60 percent of the vote. The effort is as transparent as it is cynical,” writes Dan Balz for the Washington Post. 

“GOP politicians in Columbus have stooped so low that they are drawing national attention to their shameless, politically-motivated efforts to rig the game in their favor and prevent Ohio voters from making their voices heard on key issues like abortion rights. We will continue to fight these attacks on Ohio voters with every tool we have,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Read more from the Washington Post HERE and below: 

• For 111 years, Ohio voters have lived with a set of rules for amending their state constitution through citizen initiative. The requirements have not changed and the threshold for enactment has always been 50 percent plus one. Today, Republicans in the legislature want to change that. The reason is abortion, and the maneuvering underway there adds to a bigger story about the Republican Party.
  
  
• The story in Ohio is somewhat convoluted, as legislative and parliamentary processes often are. But the motive is clear: Facing the possibility that abortion rights could be enshrined into the state constitution by a vote of the people later this year, Republicans want to change the rules by making it tougher to pass such amendments by requiring them to receive 60 percent of the vote.
  
  
• The effort is as transparent as it is cynical. Some proponents of the rule change will not specify that abortion politics is the reason they are rushing to do this. They offer alternative explanations for their thinking, such as protecting the integrity of the state constitution from nefarious special interests and keeping the constitution from being mucked up with all manner of minor or narrow amendments. Proponents of the abortion rights amendment, however, say those explanations are hollow and hypocritical.
  
  
• It speaks to the state of contemporary politics and the mind-set of many Republican elected officials, who are using their power in state legislatures to undo rules that they see as unfavorable to them. Early and mail-in voting regulations are prime examples of such action. As seems to be the case with abortion in Ohio, Republican lawmakers are trying to change rules when public opinion appears to be against them.
  
  
• LaRose said the proposal was designed “to help protect the Ohio Constitution from continued abuse by special interests and out-of-state activists.” Later, Stewart said explicitly in a letter to fellow Republicans in the state House that the reason for the new proposal was because the left was trying to do “an end run around us” to put abortion rights into the state constitution and to give “unelected liberals” and allies on the state Supreme Court power to draw legislative districts.
  
  
• There is one other wrinkle in all this. Ohio recently did away with its August elections (except in a few cases) on the grounds that they were costly and generally resulted in low turnout. Having failed to enact the rules change measure in the lame-duck session late last year, the first opportunity to take this to the voters would be next November, in which case it would not apply to the reproductive rights amendment.
  
  
• So now, proponents of raising the threshold for passage of constitutional amendments also want to authorize an August election. State Senate President Matt Huffman (R) said recently that spending $20 million on an August election is worth the money “if we save 30,000 lives as a result.” 
  
  
• Rather than trying to convince a majority of Ohio voters that abortion rights should not be added to the state constitution, Republican legislators have decided to try to move the goal posts. As Curtin has said, this represents a clear attempt to take power away from citizens and put it in the hands of statehouse politicians. That is the way things work these days.

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