Republicans’ latest special election headache is unfolding in central Ohio, where a chaotic primary has divided the party and stoked fears of losing another seat in Donald Trump territory to Democrats.
The race pits the two wings of the House Republican Conference against each other, going all out to nominate rival candidates. On one side is the scrappy co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Jim Jordan, who is lining up behind Melanie Leneghan, a self-described Trump Republican. Jordan is going up against former Rep. Pat Tiberi, a close ally of GOP leadership who resigned from his seat in January and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from his old campaign account to boost state Sen. Troy Balderson as his successor.
A week before the primary, the Club for Growth, a longtime conservative antagonist of business-backed Republicans like Tiberi, is jumping into the 10-candidate race with TV ads attacking Balderson, Club strategists told POLITICO.
It’s the latest in a series of mainstream-versus-outsider battles in Republican primaries around the country. But some of Balderson’s backers say there is more than intraparty politics at stake: They argue that a Leneghan primary win would put the GOP in danger of losing another special election this summer, in a district that’s been held for decades by Republicans like Tiberi and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Democrats have already flipped a Senate seat in Alabama and a House seat in Pennsylvania in recent months, and House Republicans would dearly love to avoid a repeat in August.
“[Leneghan] is out-of-step with mainstream Republicans that dominate that district, and we’ve got a bunch of candidates dividing up that majority, so we could pick someone who doesn’t represent the district with her pretty extreme viewpoints,” said Matt Borges, the former Ohio Republican Party chairman. “We’re looking at a situation where every seat counts to hang on the majority. We don’t need any self-inflicted wounds.”
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05.16.2024