A car dealership guru. A state legislator whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians. An active Secretary of State.
All of them have all hopped into Ohio’s Senate Republican primary, and a campaign brawl is brewing.
Their dividing lines are mostly familiar. Donald Trump looms large, with his endorsement potentially shaping up to be the deciding factor in the race. There are self-funders who can spend with abandon, and there are candidates who will have to fundraise to propel them to victory. There’s a public relations battle shaping up for the role of “political outsider.” And there’s a highly competitive Senate seat for Republicans on the line.
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But there’s a notable difference in this race compared to that of other swing-seat GOP primaries this year: Any one of them could become a senator.
National Republican operatives say they’re so confident that any one of these candidates—car dealership owner Bernie Moreno, state Sen. Matt Dolan or Ohio Sec. of State Frank LaRose—could topple incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) that they’re staying out of the primary altogether.
“When you have three candidates that any one of them could win the general election, you know, we don’t stay up late at night worrying about that,” National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told CBS last week.
That’s antithetical to the rest of the NRSC’s strategy this year of choosing favorites in budding swing-seat primaries, including in West Virginia, Montana and Nevada.
But with no outright insider-favorite, and polls showing a plurality of undecided voters, it’s a free-for-all. And with a free-for-all, the candidates aren’t wasting time trying to knock each other out.
“The moment LaRose and Moreno took off their training wheels they crashed in a ditch,” Dolan strategist Chris Maloney said in a statement.
“[Moreno’s] opponents are career politicians and liberal Republicans who don't have the courage to stand up to the DC swamp,” Moreno spokesperson Conor McGuinness told The Daily Beast.
And in his announcement interview with Politico, LaRose sought to undercut Moreno and Dolan’s appeal. “They’ve been prosperous in their lives, and we congratulate them for that. But that doesn’t make you necessarily a good public servant or a good Senate candidate or a good senator,” he said.
While Ohio Republicans would largely have hoped to avoid a messy primary, that doesn’t appear to be on the cards.
Dolan was the first to announce, marking his second try at the U.S. Senate after he finished third in the GOP Senate primary last year. He’s served on-and-off as a state senator since 2005 and has the benefit of self-funding his bid. Dolan’s father previously owned the Cleveland Guardians. His brother is currently the owner and CEO, and Dolan himself holds a minority stake.
“Matt Dolan is the only candidate focused on prosecuting the case against Sherrod Brown as opposed to gifting him material for the general election,” Maloney added in his statement.
On the political front, Dolan is positioning himself as a more middle-ground option among the pack. He’s been teetering between saying he’s not anti-Trump while dishing out criticism of the former president. And Dolan is not openly seeking Trump’s endorsement.
The same can’t be said for his opponents.
Moreno is running with Trump’s encouragement—and strongly appears to be courting his endorsement. He was second into the race and has been positioning himself as an America-First ally, not shying away from his conservative chops. Moreno has leaned into his backstory as a Colombian immigrant who came to the United States and built a car dealership empire in Ohio before moving on to work in Blockchain.
“Bernie Moreno is the only businessman, outsider, and pro-Trump conservative running for the GOP nomination in Ohio,” McGuinness said in a statement.
Moreno also ran for Senate last year but dropped out before the actual primary. This time around, that outsider brand has won him support from Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who was elected to office last year.
That backstory has also positioned Moreno to be a formidable self-funder alongside Dolan.
LaRose, however, won’t have that same benefit on personal wealth to fuel his bid. He announced his run just last week—but his entry was long expected. Daines himself had publicly speculated LaRose would run.
While LaRose can’t self-fund like his opponents, he does have name recognition and won Trump’s endorsement for Secretary of State last year. He’s also signaled that he would welcome Trump’s endorsement this time around and is aligning himself on the more conservative wing of the party.
“Army Green Beret Frank LaRose is the only battle-tested, proven conservative in this race… Secretary LaRose is off to a commanding start and we expect that to continue as voters learn more about his vision for setting our nation back on course,” LaRose spokesperson Ben Kindel wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast.
Ohio politicos expect the trio of GOP contenders to be the last of the upper tier of candidates. Conservative Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) was openly toying with a run earlier this year, but ultimately opted against it. The absence of a far-right contender in the primary overall would be welcome news for national Republican strategists who saw the consequences of fringe candidates in the 2022 midterms.
Daines has repeatedly said he’s focused on supporting Republican candidates who can win both the primary and the general election, noting the need for nominees to appeal to independent voters too.
One recent poll commissioned by the LaRose campaign showed 39.8 percent of Ohio Republican voters were undecided, marking a sea of untapped potential for all of the candidates. Another 27.9 percent of respondents were set on supporting LaRose, followed by 11.1 percent for Dolan and 5 percent for Moreno.
Another poll by Suffolk News/USA Today released in July showed 56.8 percent of Republican primary voters were undecided, while LaRose had 18.9 percent respond they would support him, followed by Dolan at 13.7 percent and Moreno at 9 percent.
Ohio has trended red in recent years, making Brown one of the most-targeted incumbent Senate Democrats this cycle. The Ohio Republican primary will take place March 19, 2024.
That leaves plenty of time for voters to be courted, swayed and turned off. Even as NRSC opts to leave the race be, outside groups and endorsers are sure to push their influence and spending on Ohio voters for months.
Still, there’s a fine line between a healthy, competitive primary and one that gets sloppy. Often, top GOP officials will hope to avoid the latter. Over-exposing candidates’ weaknesses in a primary can be fodder for opponents in a general.
Suffice to say, Ohio Democrats are relishing the prospects.
“The Republican ‘slugfest’ for Ohio’s Senate seat is shaping up to be another long, contentious battle that will leave whoever emerges damaged in the eyes of Ohio voters,” Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Reeves Oyster said in a statement.
