Emboldened Trump faces challenges
NEW YORK — Fresh off a victory in the first real test of his power as GOP kingmaker, former President Donald Trump enters the next stretch of the midterm campaign emboldened — and facing new risks.
Trump’s late-stage endorsement of JD Vance in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary catapulted the “Hillbilly Elegy” author to victory in last week’s election, reinforcing the deep ties the former president holds among the most loyal Republican voters.
“Every single candidate that I endorsed won their primaries on Tuesday,” Trump crowed at a Friday night rally in Pennsylvania, where he held up Vance as a trophy of his achievement. “Tuesday’s primary results are just the latest proof that we have transformed the face of the Republican Party. Thank goodness.”
With Trump trying to assert his dominance over the party ahead of another potential presidential run, some allies say the Ohio victory could encourage him to step up his involvement in other bitter primary fights from Arizona to Missouri, where a former governor and current U.S. Senate candidate, Eric Greitens, is facing allegations of abuse. But there’s also caution that the coming phase of the campaign, which continues on Tuesday with a tight GOP race for governor in Nebraska, could be more complicated for Trump.
“Round one to Trump, but I think it gets an awful lot harder from here,” said Dan Eberhart, a GOP donor who spent time last week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. “I think it’s going to encourage him to get even more involved and it’s also got to worry him,” Eberhart said, pointing to questions about what it will be like “the day after Pennsylvania or the day after Georgia?”
In some respects, Trump’s allies acknowledge, Ohio was a uniquely favorable state for him.
Trump carried Ohio by more than 8 percentage points in the 2016 and 2020 elections. The candidates running to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Rob Portman desperately courted his endorsement while trying to paint themselves to voters as the Trumpiest of the bunch. The field was crowded, meaning that even a small bump would have been enough to make a difference. And Trump’s endorsement addressed what had been Vance’s biggest vulnerability in the race: his past criticism of Trump.
“It clarified things, consolidated the vote and helped JD overcome a trust deficit with primary voters,” said Luke Thompson, who ran Vance’s super PAC. “That happens because Trump’s endorsement told conservative voters: You can trust this guy because I do.”