COLUMBUS – Former president Donald Trump has thrown his support behind author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance in the race to win the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman.
Vance, who has come under scrutiny from some of Trump’s most loyal supporters for criticizing the former president in the past, won the coveted endorsement Friday in his bid to win the GOP nomination in Ohio’s May 3 primary.
“I’m honored and thrilled to have his support,” Vance said following the announcement.
“Donald Trump is the best president of my lifetime for the simple reason that he never bent to the mob and fought consistently for hardworking Americans. He set an example in the White House that I’ll follow in the Senate. Together, we’re going to take this country back.” –statement by J.D. Vance
In making the endorsement, Trump said the OSU graduate and former Marine “is the most qualified and ready to win” in a general election contest against a Democrat.
“It is time for the entire MAGA movement, the greatest in the history of our Country, to unite behind J.D.’s campaign because, unlike so many other pretenders and wannabes, he will put America First,” Trump wrote.
Following news reports that Trump was going to endorse Vance, a draft letter circulating among Republicans and obtained by The Associated Press this week had called on Trump to remain neutral in the race.
“With one of the nastiest and most expensive Senate races in the country already at fever pitch this week, Trump’s endorsement will only pour gasoline on this intraparty brawl and make it even harder for Republicans to coalesce around whatever out-of-touch millionaire hobbles out of this chaotic primary,” Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Michael Beyer said.
Trump is scheduled to campaign for Vance and other GOP candidates during a rally at the Delaware County fairgrounds on April23.
Mandel runs Ohio GOP Senate campaign ‘through churches’
Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel makes no secret of his Jewish religion.
He is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, attended Jewish summer camp and sends his kids to Jewish day school.
Nonetheless, Mandel has run a campaign steeped in Christianity.
His campaign website features a picture of a cross and an American flag.
He has pledged to make decisions in Washington with “the Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other.”
And he holds most of his campaign events at evangelical churches.
It’s a strategic repositioning that reflects a wider realignment of the U.S. political landscape, with Republican Jews and conservative Christians increasingly aligning over pro-Israel policies.