What Went Down During Ohio’s And Indiana’s Primary Elections

Monica, that’s a great point that often gets missed. Even if the suburbs have shifted toward Democrats in many major metropolitan areas, they still host a ton of Republican voters. Just look at the primary results tonight for the Ohio GOP Senate race and you see that Vance finished first in some well-known suburban counties, like Delaware, north of Columbus, or Butler, north of Cincinnati.

It’s interesting, though, that while Trump’s pick prevailed in the Senate race, DeWine, who earned Trump’s ire in 2020, also prevailed in the race for governor. I realize Trump didn’t end up endorsing a challenger to DeWine, but I think we’re going to see mixed signals like this throughout the primaries. Still, this is clearly a win for Trump (and Trumpism) tonight.

I agree with Geoffrey as well. Vance didn’t lead in a single poll until Trump endorsed him. He was struggling to raise money or defend against attacks about his past anti-Trump comments, and the super PAC giving him air cover was running low on funds and sounding the alarm in a major way. The Trump endorsement neutralized those attacks and inspired Thiel to give the pro-Vance super PAC another $3.5 million lifeline.