Pro-Mandel Dark Money Group With Ties To Jim Jordan Launches First Attack Ad In Preview Of GOP #OHSEN Primary To Come
April 30, 2021
In Case You Missed It, today Cleveland.com reported that dark-money Super PAC USA Freedom Fund is going on the air this weekend with ads in support of dark money darling Josh Mandel that will only make the already messy Ohio Senate Republican primary even messier. In what’s surely a sign of things to come, the Freedom Fund ad goes after J.D. Vance for his flip-flops on Trump; Jane Timken for outsourcing that occurred at TimkenSteel, where her husband previously served as CEO; and Mike Gibbons for investing in overseas companies with questionable political ties.
It also hilariously attempts to portray Josh Mandel as a ‘proven winner’ after he lost the 2012 Senate race and dropped out of the race in 2018.
“Republican candidates are doing a great job of helping to make our case for us. As they tie themselves in knots attacking each other and increasing the level of vitriol in their primary daily, they’re reminding voters just how uniquely unqualified each of them are to serve in the U.S. Senate,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Adding even more intrigue to the Republican infighting is the connection of USA Freedom Fund to Rep. Jim Jordan, whose campaign treasurer also works for political groups connected to the Super PAC.
Read more about the attack ads HERE and below:
- More than a year before the election, the first attack ads in what’s expected to be a nasty Republican U.S. Senate primary in Ohio are hitting the airwaves this weekend.
- A group called the USA Freedom Fund is running the ads, which boost former State Treasurer Josh Mandel while attacking some of his Republican opponents, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Jane Timken, investment banker Mike Gibbons and author/investor JD Vance, who hasn’t declared his candidacy but is expected to do so. Tom Datwyler, the treasurer for USA Freedom Fund, also is the treasurer for Mandel’s Senate campaign.
- It’s expected to be among the most expensive primaries of the 2022 election season.
- USA Freedom Fund is a Super PAC, which means it’s allowed to accept and spend unlimited amounts of money to support political candidates, as long as it doesn’t coordinate with any candidate or political party. It appears to be structured as a dark money group, a term that applies to political organizations that attempt to make it difficult to track the source of their money.
- The group was created on April 29, 2020, and funded shortly after that by a $320,000 contribution from a different Super PAC called the Ohio Freedom Fund.
- The Ohio Freedom Fund got much of its money for the 2020 election — about $257,500 out of $299,000 raised — from another group called Invest in Ohio, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. The Ohio Freedom Fund’s only named donor is Leo Hawk of Lima, who gave $12,500 in October 2020.
- The Ohio Freedom Fund’s treasurer is Datwyler, who also is Invest in Ohio’s principal officer. Datwyler also serves as campaign treasurer for U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan.