“Defending Her RINO Congressman,” “No One Is Coalescing Around Your Candidate,” And “Buying Consultant Vacation Homes”: How Republicans Spent The Week Attacking Their #OHSEN Candidates

January 14, 2021

Happy Friday, and welcome to “Buckeye Brawl,” a weekly newsletter from the Ohio Democratic Party highlighting the nasty, chaotic, and expensive Republican primary for Senate. This out-of-control primary is making conservatives “deeply worried” about the prospects of Republicans losing this seat.

As the Republican Senate primary continues to sink lower and lower, these GOP candidates are injecting even more nasty personal attacks, more chaos, and more money into this race. We’re here to help you keep track of all of it.

This week, Politico’s Steven Shepard said, “The nation’s wildest, most-wide-open Senate primary gets wilder, more wide open.”

Here’s what you may have missed:

DEFENDING A RINO. The pro-Josh Mandel Club for Growth is up with a new $750,000 ad buy hitting Jane Timken for her anti-Trump past. The ad says, “Jane Timken knows she wants your vote. But Timken claimed she didn’t know how she would have voted on Trump’s impeachment while passionately defending her RINO congressman after he voted to impeach Trump.” It’s a similar line of attack to what Mandel has been saying for months. This week, Mandel’s campaign was promoting an op-ed attacking Timken titled, “Pro-Impeachment Senate Candidate Jane Timken Desperately Hoping Voters Forget Her Record.” Mandel’s spokesperson also slammed Timken, saying, “I don’t believe any candidate who didn’t back President Trump on Jan 6th deserves his endorsement in 2022.” Yikes.

BUYING THEIR CONSULTANTS VACATION HOMES. Matt Dolan, the only candidate who Trump explicitly said he would not endorse, announced he put $10.5 million of his own money into his campaign this week. The Big Tech-backed, pro-Vance Protect Ohio Values PAC Executive Director Luke Thompson subtweeted Dolan, saying, “Watching Cleveland self-funders spend a million per point on the ballot while buying their consultants vacation homes.” Or was Thompson subtweeting Bernie Moreno, the other Cleveland self-funder who has put millions of dollars into his campaign? With so many self-funding millionaires, it’s hard to say!

WHERE OH WHERE IS TIMKEN TIME? Reacting to Timken releasing yet another internal poll and accompanying campaign memo hyping the poll, Mandel campaign manager Scott Guthrie went after Timken, saying, “When they make you write a defensive full page press release saying that people are “coalescing” around your 15% candidate, you are confirming that, in fact, no one is coalescing around your candidate.” Guthrie mocked Vance, retweeting this: “Funny how JD Vance ain’t even running top 4 in Ohio.” Last week, Vance’s allies attacked Timken, calling releasing an internal poll “desperate” and another Vance booster said she is “begging for endorsements.” Seems like the rest of the GOP Senate field agrees it is definitely not Timken Time!

Thanks for reading along – that’s all for the Buckeye Brawl this week. If you have questions, my email is mbeyer@ohiodems.org. Have a great weekend!