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ROUNDUP: Trump’s Vance Endorsement “Escalated The Tension And Nastiness” As GOP Voters Vow Not To Support Vance

April 25, 2022

For Immediate Release:
April 25, 2022
CONTACT: Michael Beyer, [email protected], 504-307-7154

ROUNDUP: Trump’s Vance Endorsement “Escalated The Tension And Nastiness” As GOP Voters Vow Not To Support Vance

Columbus, OH — Donald Trump’s endorsement of U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance has “escalated the tension and nastiness” in the Ohio GOP Senate primary. Instead of uniting the party, Trump has only created more vicious infighting with a week left in the primary.

Read more: 

NBC News: Trump’s J.D. Vance endorsement breeds more chaos in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary
Henry Gomez
April 23, 2022

  • …it’s clear [Trump] has shaken up what was already the nation’s most chaotic and expensive Senate race in ways that no one — not Vance, not his supporters or his opponents — expected.
  • Rather than clearing the field or creating a unified front of GOP support for Vance, Trump’s endorsement has escalated the tension and nastiness that from the start have served as the race’s hallmarks.
  • In a letter to the former president this week, several pro-Trump activists in Ohio, including one of his 2016 state directors, called the endorsement a “betrayal,” citing Vance’s past attacks on Trump and his lack of relationships with the party’s grassroots leaders. Until his Senate bid, Vance was known primarily for “Hillbilly Elegy,” his memoir-turned-Netflix movie, and for his ties to Republican mega-donor and tech executive Peter Thiel.
  • “I’m livid,” said Ralph King, a 2016 convention delegate for Trump who helped organize the letter. “This endorsement reeks of the swamp. Donald Trump is selling us out.”
  • The Club for Growth, a conservative group that supports the early front-runner Josh Mandel but had been friendly with Trump, announced it would continue airing a TV ad that emphasizes Vance’s past criticisms. Trump Jr. retaliated on Twitter by branding Mandel as “establishment,” in part because he supported 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, whom Trump also endorsed that year. Those involved in the race are preparing for more pointed attacks on Mandel from Trump at Saturday’s rally, or from Trump Jr., who is scheduled to campaign with Vance again next week.
  • A source close to Trump Jr. who requested anonymity to discuss strategy said that Dave McIntosh, the Club for Growth president, “didn’t do Josh Mandel any favors” with its endorsement.
  • “Instead of just trying to push J.D. across the finish line, Don is going to do everything in his power to cut Mandel to pieces.”
  • The senior Trump also threatened legal action this week against Winning for Women Action, a PAC that supports Jane Timken and has emphasized her close ties to the former president. A recent ad from the PAC features footage of Trump and Timken embracing, with a narrator telling of how Trump “turned to Jane Timken” when he needed a “conservative fighter” — a reference to her successful 2017 campaign for Ohio GOP chair. In a cease-and-desist letter, Trump’s team asserted that the ad “implies” a Senate race endorsement.

Cleveland.com: Not everyone’s convinced Trump’s nod to J.D. Vance in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary makes the race a layup
Andrew Tobias and Seth Richardson
April 24, 2022

  • But it’s also ruffled some feathers, particularly among the more engaged Republicans at the county party and grassroots activist level.
  • “A lot of them aren’t happy, to be honest with you,” said Bob Frantz, a longtime conservative talk radio show host in the Cleveland area. 
  • Dave Johnson, the influential chairman of the Columbiana County Republican Party, said the last-minute endorsement hasn’t sat well with most people he knows who are closely involved with state Republican politics.
  • “Folks who have worked so hard for him and worked so hard for his message sort of felt betrayed because he picked a guy who worked against that message and was against him otherwise in almost every way,” Johnson said.
  • In an interview, Michael Biundo, a top adviser to the Gibbons campaign, didn’t strongly contest the new pro-Vance polling that showed Vance jumping out to a lead. But, he said news of the endorsement comes late in the race and could have a hard time breaking through, particularly as other candidates, including Gibbons, try to launch ads and other measures to counteract it.
  • “He’s got a lot of questions he has to answer, and that is an anchor on him right now as he tries to take full advantage of the Trump endorsement,” Biundo said.

Washington Examiner: Trump’s Vance endorsement gets mixed reviews, even among supporters
Kate Scanlon
April 24, 2022

  • Former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance has been met with mixed reviews among even his most ardent supporters.
  • The endorsement sparked criticism from some Republicans in the state who asked Trump to reconsider his choice, arguing in a letter that Vance is a “political chameleon” who called Trump and his supporters “racist” in 2016. In his own remarks at the Saturday rally, Vance offered his full support to Trump, calling him “the best president of my lifetime.”
  • But in interviews at Trump’s rally Saturday in Ohio, many attendees who self-identified as Ohio voters and Trump supporters said they were still undecided in the upcoming primary or that they planned to support one of the other candidates, including Josh Mandel or Mike Gibbons.
  • But in interviews at Trump’s rally Saturday in Ohio, many attendees who self-identified as Ohio voters and Trump supporters said they were still undecided in the upcoming primary or that they planned to support one of the other candidates, including Josh Mandel or Mike Gibbons.

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