JD Vance may have been rising in the polls before election day, but it was former President Trump’s endorsement and one big super PAC contribution that put him over the top. In this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, hosts Mike Thompson and Steve Brown discuss the race for Ohio's open Senate seat and the other primary results.
Primarily speaking
After a bruising $65 million primary campaign, JD Vance emerges the victor, capturing the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. The Yale-educated venture capitalist and author—who has never run for office before and who once spent a year bashing Donald Trump—had basically one man to thank for his win.
The Trump endorsement gave Vance a relatively comfortable 8-point win over Josh Mandel and Matt Dolan. Mike Gibbons and Jane Timken were further back.
Vance also owes a thank you to billionaire Peter Thiel, who reportedly gave his super PAC the largest donation ever given in a Senate race.
On the Democratic side of the US Senate race, Congressman Tim Ryan won easily over opponents Morgan Harper and Traci Johnson.
In the race for governor, Mike Dewine won pretty easily over three challengers but did not capture even half of the Republican vote. He won with 48%.
Because of a lack of public polling, it was hard to get a read on the Democratic race, but in the end, it was not close. Former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley won the Democratic nomination by nearly a two-to-one margin over former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley. Whaley is now the first female major-party nominee for governor of Ohio.
Abortion politics will sway the November election
An extraordinary leak from the U.S. Supreme court indicates that, at least initially, five justices were ready to scuttle the ruling that makes abortion legal in the United States.
The leak of the February draft ruling sent a jolt across the country.
Here in Ohio, if the court overrules Roe v. Wade, the state will likely start enforcing the so-called heartbeat law, which bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected. Ohio lawmakers are now considering a so-called trigger law that would make most abortions illegal immediately.
Democrats and Republicans will both likely try to leverage the issue to drum up support in the general election.
Snollygoster of the week
Protect Ohio Values is the JD Vance super PAC that got $15 million from Peter Thiel, the tech entrepreneur.
The PAC ran most of the ads supporting Vance and this week Politico reported the PAC basically acted as Vance’s campaign operation. It shared polling data, opposition research, and strategy documents with the campaign.
It is illegal for a super PAC to coordinate directly with a campaign but Protect Ohio Values found a loophole.
Politico reports the super PAC published all that information on a public website. So, in theory, all that information could have helped every candidate in that campaign.
However that data, while public, was hard to find. Apparently, hardly anyone outside the Vance campaign found it.
Send questions and comments to snollygoster@wosu.org.
