Trump Endorsement Is No Golden Ticket; GOP Field Remains Open to Others, Analysts Say

Former president Donald Trump (L) listens as J.D. Vance, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, speaks during a rally hosted by the former president at the Delaware County Fairgrounds in Ohio on April 23, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The victory of Trump-endorsed venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance in the GOP senatorial nomination battle in Ohio on May 3 has led some commentators to issue judgments about Trump’s continuing dominance of the party that fail to recognize a more nuanced reality on the ground, political consultants and strategists said this week.

Despite some of the hype in the media, the GOP field is still very much open to contestants who embody varying strains of Republicanism, they said.

The final results of the primary election showed a clear margin of victory for Vance, who garnered 340,991 votes, or 32.2 percent of the total, compared to 253,051 votes (23.9 percent) for Josh Mandel and 247,024 (23.3 percent) for Matt Dolan.

Following Vance’s win, Politico published an article with the headline, “Trump Reasserts His GOP Dominance” arguing that GOP voters in Ohio and beyond will turn out in large numbers to cast their ballot for candidates with Trump’s seal of approval. But experts said that a number of factors were at work in Vance’s campaign and it is important not to overstate the degree of Trump’s continuing sway within the party.

Keith Naughton, principal of the Maryland-based consulting firm Silent Majority Strategies, sees Vance’s rise in the polls following Trump’s April 15 endorsement as relatively modest.

“There is an overreaction. Vance went from 11 percent to 32 percent, so Trump is worth about 20 points. Note that Mandel and Dolan did not lose any voters after the Trump endorsement, in fact they gained a couple of points each,” Naughton said.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance arrives onstage after winning the primary, at an election night event at Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 3, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Trump’s Effect

“The mainstream media are obsessed with Trump and are incapable of any impartial analysis. Trump scored a win, but he was not dominant, and it was in a state where he ran very strongly in 2020,” Naughton said.

Nor is it correct to infer that Vance’s Ohio win has national implications and will set the stage for other Trump-backed candidates.

‘Trump candidates will get a little momentum, mostly from media coverage and perhaps some fundraising. But most voters vote on their own state issues and based on their own candidates. Pennsylvania voters don’t care what people in Ohio think,” Naughton added.

Mark Weaver, a political consultant based in Ohio, concurs with this view. Although Trump is still influential, it is important not to overreact to events in Ohio or misconstrue their significance, Weaver believes.

“Vance’s victory will propel other GOP candidates to seek the Trump endorsement for primary elections. Other than that, it will have very little effect in other states,” Weaver said.

Weaver predicted that, in the absence of a major scandal or misstep, Vance will win Ohio’s senatorial race in the fall, but said that has little relevance to the question of Trump’s control over the party.

“Republicans will usually vote Republican in a general election, especially this year. Trump’s endorsement of any given Republican candidate would be superfluous” in a general election, he added.

Paul A. Djupe, director of Data for Political Research at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, said that the Ohio primary was not a contest between candidates who favored Trump versus others who were trying to go in a radically different direction.

In Djupe’s view, the candidates competed to be like Trump in their stances, and Trump’s endorsement came into play at a time when they enjoyed relatively comparable levels of support. Hence Vance’s victory is of significance within, but not beyond, Trump’s base.

“Trump’s endorsement, therefore, was a strong signal among a motivated electorate and generated news coverage beneficial to Vance that gave him a roughly 15-point boost. I have doubts that Trump could elevate an underdog in an electorate that was not already concerned about his opinion,” Djupe commented.

Moreover, support for Vance hardly broke down evenly in a diverse state with densely populated cities as well as large rural areas. Vance’s support was far stronger in the latter.

“It is clear from the vote data that Vance won Ohio’s rural areas, which are heavily Republican. Urban Republicans went in other directions, though we should not overstate the differences. Vance, Mandel, and Dolan ran close across the state, and Vance did not win a majority of any of Ohio’s 88 counties,” Djupe said.

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Role of Peter Thiel

Yet another factor suggesting that Trump does not call all the shots in the GOP and that primary elections are highly susceptible to other influences is the support that Vance received from billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

In Naughton’s view, Thiel and his colleagues have learned from the mistakes of other megadonors who have thrown money at political races without tipping the balance decisively.

“Money is important, of course, but only if you deploy it correctly, and you need to be able to afford a certain ‘entry fee’ depending on the race and the state,” Naughton said.

“Thiel propped up Vance when he was struggling and clearly had a good regional strategy and knew what buttons to press. They didn’t panic when [Mike] Gibbons took his brief lead. Without Thiel, Vance is a prodigal son, a niche candidate. I don’t think Vance puts together the ‘entry fee’ without Thiel,” Naughton added.

Hence the field is open to GOP candidates who may more effectively balance their appeal and present themselves as attractive to both urban and rural voters. A candidate who speaks effectively to urban issues, as well as manifesting the kind of populist that Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” was able to exert in the rural parts of the state, could potentially do far better than Vance.

A Tough Race Ahead

It is important not to read too deeply into Vance’s victory or to become overconfident about his prospects in the fall, even with Trump’s endorsement, Djupe believes. GOP candidate Mandel did not do well against incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2012 or 2018, Djupe noted, and Tim Ryan, who will square off against Vance in November, is highly similar to Brown.

“There’s also a modestly worrying sign in the primary vote data for Vance. After Trump’s endorsement, support for Matt Dolan shot up. Dolan was the only candidate to express opinions that ran contrary to Trump orthodoxy,” he said.

Yet another factor that may undermine Vance in the fall is the furor that has sprung up this week over the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting that the court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. Such a highly controversial may not benefit GOP candidates in the end.

“It’s hard to say what role overturning Roe v. Wade might have on the 2022 election, but I think it is likely to shift energy to the Democratic Party. Many Republicans do not favor banning abortion or overturning Roe. In a tight race, the boost of energy to the left could prove important,” Djupe said.

But Vance may benefit to some extent from macro trends in Ohio politics.

“In a midterm election with Ohio shifting Republican in the last six years, Vance has a more than even chance of winning the seat,” Djupe acknowledged.