Even before Frank LaRose announced a Senate run in Ohio, he had spent weeks crisscrossing the state for a different sort of campaign.
Ohioans will vote Tuesday on a ballot measure that has implications for abortion access in the state, and LaRose, Ohio’s top elections official, has been on a tear.
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Leading up to election day, he attended dozens of Republican events — 76 in total, according to his staff — stumping in favor of Issue 1, which would make it harder to amend the state constitution.
The stakes are high — three months from now, voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. But first, Republicans want to place an obstacle in the Democrats’ way.
The GOP-led legislature called a special election for Issue 1, which would require 60% of voters to approve amendments to the constitution rather than a simple majority.
Millions of dollars have poured into Ohio, both for and against the ballot measure. Early voting figures blew through expectations.
LaRose, who introduced Issue 1 with GOP legislators in the fall, has leaned into the titanic struggle playing out in what would ordinarily be a sleepy summer race.
According to LaRose’s telling, he and the conservatives standing with him are on a mission to keep out-of-state forces from corrupting their founding document.
“We're leaving it all on the field,” LaRose, on his way to an event in northwest Ohio, told the Washington Examiner in an interview on Thursday. “The grassroots energy that I see is the silent majority deciding they're not going to be silent anymore.”
Of course, that’s not how Democrats see it. They view the special election as a hypocritical power grab — Republicans previously moved to eliminate August elections, citing low turnout, only to schedule one when a vote on abortion appeared imminent.
But LaRose is tapping into conservative angst that transcends the special election. In his sights: the race to challenge Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) next year.
The primary will be one of the most-watched of the 2024 cycle as LaRose and two deep-pocketed rivals, businessman Bernie Moreno and state Sen. Matt Dolan, compete for the Republican nomination.
LaRose says he’s making the stand as a matter of principle, warning that Issue 1 has implications for parental rights, the Second Amendment, and a whole host of issues that could be brought up in ballot measures.
“I don't make my decisions based on what's in my best interest. I make my decisions based on what's in the best interest of Ohioans and what's good public policy,” he said. “I think we've got too many politicians that stick their finger in the wind and see which way it's blowing, and then they do what they think is popular.”
But LaRose has not hesitated to make it a wedge issue in the 2024 primary. Last week, he challenged Moreno, a luxury car dealer, and Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians, to donate $1 million each in support of Issue 1.
“They're not working nearly as hard as I am — again, 70 Issue 1 events and tens of thousands of miles kind of speaks for itself,” he said.
“It would be, I think, the right thing for them to do, to step up and put some of their money into this effort. Lauren and I are not millionaires. We're maybe $100,000-aires. So we don't have the personal wealth to do that,” he added, referring to his wife. “But I'm certainly putting in the sweat equity.”
The Dolan campaign dismissed the challenge as a “gimmick,” while a Moreno spokesman told Cleveland.com that he already “quietly” donated $100,000 to the cause.
It’s not the first time LaRose has stressed his election efforts in the 2024 race. In fact, it’s central to his pitch — that he’s the only “battle-tested conservative” in the primary.
LaRose cites his “pro-life” and “pro-gun” voting record in the state Senate he served in for eight years. He puts just as much emphasis on his pursuit of election security as Ohio’s secretary of state.
Last year, he stood up a public integrity unit to investigate election fraud claims and touts his implementation of regular post-election audits.
The emphasis has drawn condemnation from Democrats, who say he’s flirted with former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread fraud. His decision to campaign for Issue 1 while overseeing the special election, meanwhile, led the Libertarian Party to file an ethics complaint.
But LaRose believes the focus is what conservatives want from their leaders. Moreover, he believes it will be rewarded at the ballot box next year.
“I've clearly demonstrated that Ohio runs honest elections, that we know how to secure our elections,” he said. “They know I'm the guy that keeps their elections honest, and they know that I share their conservative values, and that's who they want in the U.S. Senate.”
Republican strategists see little downside to LaRose campaigning on Issue 1, at least in the primary. If the ballot measure fails on Tuesday, as it is expected to with such high early voting, the stump speeches were, if nothing else, an opportunity to shake hands and interact with the grassroots whose votes he’ll need in March. If it passes, he can say he took on the “special interests” and won.
The November ballot measure on abortion will give him another opportunity to campaign, though Democrats have already spent recent days painting him as the "face of a losing effort."
LaRose has dismissed speculation that Issue 1 could hurt his candidacy if it fails.
"If it helps me politically, all the better," he said. "If it hurts me politically, I can accept that as well. I believe we'll win, but even if we don't, I know that conservatives recognize that I'm out there fighting for what they believe in."
LaRose is already a known entity statewide, thanks to his two runs for secretary of state. It shows in polling, with a July survey by Ohio Northern University finding him ahead of Dolan by 14 points. He leads Moreno by 25.
That lead is expected to narrow or vanish as the race picks up in earnest, likely sometime after the November special election. At that point, Moreno and Dolan will begin to spend heavily to introduce themselves to voters.
Part of LaRose’s strategy is to define them first. He often calls himself the only “lifelong Republican” in the primary. “I'm running against two former Democrats, and it's up to them to answer for that,” he said.
Ohio strategists generally expect that Dolan’s centrist streak will hurt him in the primary, but they doubt the “Democrat” label will stick, particularly in a state that has undergone a political realignment in recent years.
“There's a lot of people that were former Democrats in the state that became Republicans. I don't think they’d punish you for that,” one Republican operative said.
As for LaRose’s issue advocacy, the operative said the stump speeches are useful as a messaging tool but predicted the challenge for him will be fundraising.
“I mean, they’re positives, but there's a lot of other things that are far more important in a race like this,” the operative said. “Money being like No. 1, 2, and 3.”
Dolan only raised $300,000 in the second quarter but is expected to invest heavily in his bid — he's already transferred $4 million of his own money. Moreno, meanwhile, raised $2.2 million in the second quarter.
LaRose, who entered in mid-July, has yet to post fundraising numbers, but a political group backing his candidacy raised around $1 million last quarter.
The secretary of state dismissed the idea that Dolan or Moreno have an edge over him because of their wealth. The winning formula, he suggested, would be aggressive fundraising and a lean operation.
“I don't think that self-funding candidates start from a position of strength,” he said. “I think that it matters to go out there and earn the support of the smart, savvy business owners of the state who could smell BS a mile away, and that's what I've done in the past.”
Also looming over the primary is Trump, whose endorsement could prove pivotal in a state the former president won by 8 points in 2020.
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LaRose is quick to point out Trump endorsed his second run for secretary of state last year, but it’s widely believed he will back Moreno, whose son-in-law worked as a Trump aide.
LaRose endorsed Trump’s 2024 run in late July, hours before he and other Ohio officials met the former president at his home in Bedminster, New Jersey.