The Ohio Republican Party will hold an election for state chairman on Friday that GOP insiders are monitoring for clues as to how far President-elect Trump’s takeover of their party will go.
In that contest, forces aligned with Trump are trying to purge sitting Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges as punishment for his loyalty to Gov. John Kasich, who declined to endorse the president-elect over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Kasich and a slew of state and local officials are backing Borges.
The challenger, Stark County Vice Chairwoman Jane Timken, has the support of Bob Paduchik. He ran Trump’s Ohio campaign operation and was rewarded by the president-elect with an appointment to the post of Republican National Committee vice chairman. In an interview with the Canton Repository newspaper, Timken said that she has Trump’s personal endorsement.
But Borges has the edge. Kasich installed the 66 members of the Ohio GOP Central Committee that will decide the chairman’s race, and indeed Borges’ supporters expect him to win without much trouble. That’s why a Timken victory could cause tremors inside the party nationally.
Her winning would mean that activists presumably loyal to Kasich defected to Trump, which could embolden activists elsewhere to challenge their own entrenched establishments and signal upheaval that goes far beyond Ohio.
“RNC insiders are definitely paying attention,” a Republican official told the Washington Examiner Tuesday, on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly.
Most of the state’s GOP establishment in Columbus is backing Borges, including includes Kasich Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor.
Timken’s support has been characterized as more heavily grassroots. Most of her support is coming from counties outside of the Columbus region. Still, Timken has her share of endorsements from prominent Ohio GOP campaign donors and other insiders who backed Kasich during the campaign and worked hard to get Trump elected. And, the Timken family has deep political and business roots in Ohio and has been a major player in Buckeye State Republican politics.
Judged by the results of the 2016 elections, Borges’ performance as chairman was a resounding success — hardly grounds for firing. Trump won Ohio by more than 8 percentage points and Republicans scored big in key down ballot races; Sen. Rob Portman won re-election in a rout.
That wasn’t good enough for Borges’ opponents. They accuse him of slow-walking resources and other support for Trump during the campaign and jeopardizing the gains the party made in November.
More than that, Timken’s backers worry that having a state chairman that is not on good terms with the White House will have a negative impact on the party, even though Ohio far too important to the GOP in presidential elections to be ignored.
Quietly, Ohio Republicans are hoping that Friday’s election for state chairman ends the Trump-Kasich proxy war. And that might require Kasich to, as one Ohio Republican put it, go to the White House and “smoke the peace pipe” with the new president.
Otherwise, there could be a fight over control of the state central committee that could spill over into the 2018 primary elections. That’s when central committee members are up for election.
Ohio Republicans would rather spend their energy preparing for what could be a difficult midterm election year, rather than seeing Trump loyalists and the Columbus establishment fighting over electing a preferred central committee slate.
“We are all Trump people now,” offered Saul Anuzis, the former Michigan GOP chairman who remains involved in party activities and is monitoring the Ohio contest. “But just wait 100-200 days, then you’ll see factions and alliances start to develop — and maybe sooner.”
