The marquee race tonight is the GOP Senate primary in Ohio, and as Nathaniel wrote earlier this week, this race is undoubtedly a test of Trump’s continued influence — but likely a win for Trumpism no matter what, as all of the candidates — save Dolan — are far Trumpier than retiring Sen. Rob Portman.
But as we’ve written at FiveThirtyEight previously, this trend — Trumpier candidates replacing retiring GOP members of Congress isn’t unique to Ohio. In fact, per our analysis from April 2021, the majority of Republicans who left Congress and were replaced by another Republican, were replaced by more conservative Republicans.
That said, we did find that some Republicans were also replaced by more moderate members. In other words, there isn’t one right answer here, but what’s telling, as that chart above shows, is that many of the more conservative replacements were far more conservative than their predecessors.
What should we expect moving forward? More Trumpy Republicans like Vance or Mandel replacing more moderate Republicans like Portman? Or do we think this will ultimately be more of a mixed bag?