Biden, Trump prevail as party leaders in Ohio primaries
Candidates aligned with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prevailed in Ohio’s closely watched primaries Tuesday, bolstering their holds on their respective political parties as voters began to choose nominees for the midterm elections.
In a contested Democratic primary for a Cleveland-based House seat, Rep. Shontel Brown, endorsed by Biden, defeated former state Sen. Nina Turner, who ran to Brown’s left with endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, IVT., whose 2020 presidential campaign she co-chaired, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, D-N.Y. The race was a rematch of an expensive August 2021 special election, in which Biden had remained neutral.
Turner was hurt by her past criticism of the president, including a 2020 interview where she said the choice between Biden and Republicans was a choice between half a bowl of human excrement or a full bowl.
In Ohio’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, the winner was J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and venture capitalist who reinvented himself as a Trump loyalist and secured the former president’s endorsement last month. In November, Vance will face Rep. Tim Ryan, a moderate Democrat who’s emphasized his votes against free trade deals and said he’ll ignore “culture wars” to focus on jobs.
“Thanks to the president for everything, for endorsing me. I’ve gotta say, a lot of the fake news media out there, and there’s some good ones in the back there, there’s some bad ones, too, let’s be honest; but they wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda,” Vance
said in his victory speech, using combative rhetoric in line with the former president’s typical words.
As is often the case at Trump’s rallies, Vance’s supporters booed at the mention of the media, and a man yelled, “Donald Trump!”
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich credited the former president with propelling Vance to victory.
“The power of President Trump’s endorsement is undeniable, his dominance over the Republican powerbrokers in D.C. cannot be overstated, and the promise of this MAGA Movement will not just define the Midterms, but it will win for years to come,” he said in a statement.
Trump-backed candidates or those who associated themselves with the former president also found success Tuesday in lowerprofile or less competitive primaries.
Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a Miss Ohio winner endorsed by Trump, beat back six rivals in the GOP primary for the newly drawn 13th Congressional District. In Ohio’s 7th District, Trump-endorsed Max Miller won easily after two members of Congress in northeast Ohio retired rather than face Miller in an intraparty battle.
J.R. Majewski, a Trump devotee who has been associated with the Qanon conspiracy theory, won his primary to take on Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Majewski attended the Jan. 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal rally” in Washington.
He twice has decorated his lawn with odes to Trump, drawing headlines during the 2020 presidential election for painting a massive Trump 2020 campaign sign in his yard and later a huge portrait of Trump’s face.