A local vote with national reach. On May 3, Trumpism will be exposed to one of its most important tests at the polls since the defeat of former President Donald Trump in 2020: the Republican primary in Ohio.
The race is to determine the candidate for state senator ahead of next November’s midterm elections. However, the exercise remains more than delicate for the populist, who invited himself into the race by dubbing a candidate on the margins last week, the novelist JD Vance, ex-detractor of the billionaire who has now become a spokesperson for his theories. fallacies on electoral fraud.
A defeat of this “colt” – just like a possible victory, moreover – could define the continuation of things for the ex-president by giving the real measure of his influence on a Republican Party which is still struggling to turn the page on his difficult presidency and bumpy exit.
“A rejection of the Trump-backed Republican primary candidate for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat—opportunist JD Vance—could damage Trump’s influence on U.S. policy and jeopardize his third bid to take the helm. White House, in 2024”, wrote this week the political columnist of the Cincinnati EnquirerJason William, in a post denouncing the populist’s intervention in the process and the support given “to the least qualified candidate in the race”, according to him.
The game is far from a foregone conclusion for Donald Trump, whose support for the author of the popular novel Hillbilly Eleganta reflection on the crisis of the American dream seen through the eyes of Ohio’s rural middle class, this week created a schism within the political formation in the Midwestern state.
On Wednesday, more than half of the delegates of the Republican National Committee indeed demanded in a letter addressed to the ex-president the withdrawal of his support for a candidate whom they describe as “charlatan”, evoking a betrayal towards the Republicans who supported the populist’s candidacy in the last two presidential elections.
“We are the original and proud Trumpists who were your delegates in Ohio when everyone was against you or supported other candidates,” they wrote in a letter unveiled by the Fox News network. “We respectfully ask that you reconsider your support of JD Vance to support those in the great state of Ohio who, like us, first believed in you in 2016.”
A roll of the dice
The former American president must participate in a rally north of Columbus on Saturday evening with his candidate, who, according to Republican strategist Mark Weaver, should take advantage of this visibility to continue to progress in the race. “It will be very useful for JD Vance to share the stage with Donald Trump, he said in an interview with the To have to. Donald Trump is still hugely popular in Ohio, a state he won twice, the last time with an eight-point lead over Joe Biden. But what’s happening here isn’t the best indicator of his nationwide popularity. »
An opinion not entirely shared by his colleague Matt Dole, political consultant for the Republicans of the State, who believes that if the novelist does not manage to qualify next May 3 for the general election in November, “it would signal that Trump will no longer have the door open for a nomination “for the presidential election of 2024, he explains in the digital pages of the specialized daily The Hill.
Seven Republicans, including several outspoken supporters of Donald Trump, are currently in the race to represent the party in the Senate election next November. Among them, ex-state treasurer Josh Mandel, who, according to a Trafalgar Group poll released last week, led by six points (28% of voting intentions) on the choice of the ex-president , J.D. Vance (22%).
Thursday, the political group Protect Ohio Values, which first promoted the candidacy of the novelist, however affirmed that the support of Donald Trump had increased the voting intentions in favor of JD Vance, until placing him now in head, at 25%, according to a survey carried out by the group this week. Against 18% for Mandel.
“Trump’s support is unlikely to change anything in this campaign,” said political scientist Justin Buchler, professor at Case Western Reserve University, joined by The duty in Cleveland. Despite his notoriety, his support record is not very strong, and many of those he supports do not do very well in their campaigns. »
Uncertain outlook
In 2018, 36 candidates backed by Donald Trump failed in their electoral race in the midterm elections, compared to 47 who won the coveted seat, according to a count carried out by the public network NPR. In 2022, the ex-president stands behind 130 aspirants to a position in Congress, but nevertheless offers them a more uncertain prospect due to his defeat or the stain left by the January 6 insurrection on the end of its mandate.
Note that 70% of candidates supported by Trump for their part support the “big lie” of the ex-president on the theft of the 2020 elections by the Democrats, calculated the political analysis site FiveThirtyEight. Charges that are consistently at odds with investigations, prosecutions, recounts, and facts, including in Republican-controlled states.
Moreover, those supported by Donald Trump for the November elections have experienced several failures, such as in Pennsylvania, where his candidate Sean Parnell had to withdraw from the race due to accusations of domestic violence, and in Alabama, where he withdrew his support for Mo Brooks, whose candidacy for the post of senator was far from making a splash in the polls.
In Alaska, the populist has set his sights on Kelly Tshibaka to dislodge Senator Lisa Murkowski, critic of the ex-president who hardly seems to worry about it. With six times more money in her electoral coffers than her rival, she did not fail to puff out her chest against her detractor a few weeks ago by voting for the appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, proposed by Joe Biden, against the line of his party and the call for the rejection of this candidacy launched by Donald Trump.