OHIO — The GOP candidate pool for Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is growing.
What You Need To Know
- Political analysts said it’s not clear if an endorsement by former President Donald Trump actually carries the same amount of weight that it would have carried back in 2022
- Dr. Brianna Mack indicated Secretary of State Frank LaRose will need to revisit his previous donor base for the 2024 U.S. Senate race
- Experts believe Sen. Sherrod Brown will not be able to run this time as a candidate simply for blue-collar workers without addressing some of the cultural issues
Secretary of State Franklin LaRose announced his campaign for U.S. Senate earlier this week, joining Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno and Sen. Matt Dolan.
Briana Mack, assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University, noted that in looking at the three candidates right now, Dolan is the only one that’s previously run a U.S. Senate campaign.
When asked about how big of a deal it is to gain an endorsement from former President Donald Trump for this 2024 race, she said she’s not sure if it’ll carry the same weight that it would have back in 2022.
“After all, we still don’t know if any of these charges are the federal charges on Trump would actually stick or what’s going on in that New York case, as we see in the national GOP party as we’re seeing a weird separation or distancing from Trump as they’re trying to figure out what to do post his case,” Mack said.
As things start to heat up in the campaign, money to finance, it all will be key. Moreno and Dolan are wealthy candidates that could handle the bill of their own campaign if necessary. For LaRose, Mack believes he’ll have to go back to the donors who helped him get into his current office. Something that will be helpful in this race outside of funding, according to Mack, is the fact that “Unlike Moreno or Dolan, LaRose does have experience with the current administration.”
In the meantime, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown has been able to remain in office for some time, even with Ohio being a predominantly Republican-led state when it comes to politics.
This time around, Mack said Brown will have to change his approach.
“Brown will have to actually apply himself with more liberal Democrats, as opposed to continue running as a Democrat because now you have these candidates or other Republican candidates that are so blatantly explicitly GOP, that you can’t really run as a conservative Democrat for lack of a better term or run as a man of the working class for blue-collar workers without addressing some of the cultural issues that have those blue-collar workers walking, flocking more so, to the GOP,” Mack said.
