Senate Republican leaders, who have been wading into key states' 2024 GOP primaries in a shift from their 2022 strategy, are sitting out the candidate selection process in must-win Ohio.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have been working for months to recruit the most electable candidates in must-win swing states to retake the majority next year. Both men have said their path to victory relies on wins in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, four states with Democratic incumbents up for reelection. Democrats currently only control the Senate by a 51-49 margin, meaning Republicans only need to net two seats to win back control.
OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE FRANK LAROSE ENTERS GOP SENATE PRIMARY
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) chaired the NRSC in the 2022 cycle and sparred with McConnell publicly and privately over primary strategy. The NRSC remained neutral in the 2022 primary process as former President Donald Trump got involved, which led to several controversial candidates reaching general election voters. Those nominees faltered in race after race and ultimately cost Republicans control of the Senate. The losses were a core reason for the 2024 strategy changes.
The NRSC has gotten involved in the Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia GOP primaries to boost leadership's preferred candidates. In Ohio, however, the party's Senate campaign arm is staying out of the growing primary field of Republicans looking to challenge incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown's (D-OH) bid for a fourth term.
Brown's reputation as an unabashed progressive in an increasingly red state has made him a prime target of Senate Republicans as they look to reclaim control of the upper chamber. Despite benefiting from the power of incumbency, strong name recognition, and high approval ratings, Brown's 2024 race will be the highest-profile fight of his career.
Daines acknowledged that Senate GOP leadership was staying out of the Buckeye State primary late last week, just ahead of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's Monday announcement that he was entering the race. An NRSC spokesman pointed the Washington Examiner to those remarks when reached for comment on the committee's Ohio strategy.
"When you have three candidates that any one of them could win the general election, we don’t stay up late at night worrying about that," the NRSC chief said on Thursday of the Ohio contest.
Citing discussions with NRSC officials, spokespeople for two of those candidates confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the committee had expressed similar sentiments to them. One source noted that the NRSC doesn't feel a need to involve itself in a primary contest where there each of the leading candidates is viewed as electable.
LaRose, who has been actively raising money through a super PAC for months before launching his 2024, will have to walk a political tightrope of sorts while presenting himself to voters. The centrist Republican has tried to distinguish himself from former President Donald Trump's false election fraud claims and has been unapologetic about his work to uphold the 2020 election results, though he cannot risk alienating base voters by promoting either.
LaRose also began making calls to donors about a potential run after some Republicans pushed for him to enter the 2022 primary, though he ultimately decided against a bid.
State Sen. Matt Dolan came in a close third in the 2022 GOP Senate primary, just behind former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who had the backing of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) was the eventual winner of that contest after he secured the coveted Trump endorsement. Unlike Vance and Mandel, who ruled out a 2024 Senate bid, Dolan has run both races as an unapologetic Trump critic while avoiding making him a focus of his campaign. He launched his most recent bid in January.
Aside from his legislative work in the state Senate, Dolan, the son of billionaire Cleveland Guardians owner Larry Dolan, is a lawyer in private practice.
It is unlikely that Dolan will secure Trump's endorsement, and it seems even less likely that he's seeking the former president's support.
Bernie Moreno, an Ohio-based businessman with ties to the former president, is taking a different approach. Moreno declared his candidacy in early April, two years after agreeing to sit out the 2022 race as it became clear Trump was planning to endorse Vance. The Trump ally eventually went on to back Vance himself, helping prep him for general election debates and raise funds.
Trump praised Moreno ahead of his campaign launch, but he withheld an endorsement of the self-proclaimed political outsider. Vance, the only Trump-backed candidate who won their statewide race in the 2022 cycle, endorsed Moreno in late May.
Should the 2024 Ohio GOP Senate primary be a three-man race, Moreno is certainly the leader of the pack in the contest for Trump's endorsement. The competition is a bit more complex in terms of fundraising and polling.
While Dolan reported $3.9 million cash on hand in his Federal Election Commission filing for the second quarter of this year, he only raised $308,511 of that. The Dolan family scion has donated $4 million to his campaign, filings show. Moreno, meanwhile, says he raised $2.2 million in that time. The public will not see LaRose's FEC filings until the October 15 Q3 deadline.
Dolan and Moreno each can self-fund their campaigns as long as needed, a luxury LaRose lacks.
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A Moreno adviser expressed confidence to the Washington Examiner that the Trump-aligned businessman has a pathway to the nomination, noting that the candidate has "the message, the grassroots, the money, and the operation."
In terms of polling, recent surveys have shown LaRose ahead of Dolan and Moreno, though only by a small margin and with a majority of voters still undecided. LaRose has the early benefit of name recognition with voters as someone who already holds statewide office, though his two competitors have the money to flood the airwaves with ads introducing themselves to Ohioans.