In an Ohio Republican Senate primary dominated by Josh Mandel and J.D. Vance, Jane Timken is offering a different theory of the case.
“We have a lot of Johnny-come-latelys in this race,” Timken told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday in a telephone interview, backhanding nomination front-runners Mandel, the former Ohio treasurer, and Vance, a first-time candidate who authored a bestselling memoir and worked as a venture capitalist. “Ohio voters want authenticity.”
The Mandel campaign pushed back, taking Timken’s attack and redirecting it right back at her.
“Josh Mandel was the first statewide official to endorse Donald Trump in 2016 and has been a consistent fighter for President Trump’s America First agenda,” Mandel campaign manager Scott Guthrie said. “It’s no wonder Jane Timken feels the need to prop up her failing campaign by exaggerating her support for President Trump.”
The Vance campaign declined to comment. But a Republican operative close to the candidate was similarly amused at Timken’s accusation that he is posing as a Trump supporter to fool Republican primary voters into supporting him. Vance did oppose Trump initially, during the 2016 campaign, but began to express support for the 45th president during his tenure in the White House.
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“It’s hard to comprehend that Timken actually knows what America First is — rather than looking at what the talking points were from [Trump] White House,” the GOP operative connected to Vance said.
By any measure, Timken should be a GOP front-runner in the race to succeed Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring. She is loyal to Trump and was elected chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party at his behest soon after the 2016 campaign, during which she toiled in the Buckeye State to help deliver him the state’s Electoral College votes.
Timken’s voter turnout operation might be unparalleled in the field of half-dozen viable Republican primary opponents. She boasts “an army of grassroots volunteers” who have knocked on more than 1 million doors and spoken to just as many GOP voters. Plus, Timken and her husband have dedicated $2 million of their personal fortune toward the primary. The campaign, which plans to publicize its year-end 2021 fundraising Monday, said the numbers would show strength.
Yet Mandel and Vance have sucked up nearly all of the oxygen in this race. Outside Ohio, the two Republicans have attracted the most attention. Inside Ohio, the polling suggests that Mandel and Vance are the candidates to beat, with Mandel leading in most surveys and Vance exhibiting significant growth. Timken argues that outside perceptions of the primary campaign have always been off base.
Now, she said, the polling is beginning to provide a more accurate snapshot of where the horse race is headed. “What they’re missing is that I’m a workhorse, not a show horse,” Timken said. “The reality is I’m tied for first.”
To make her case, the Timken campaign is pointing to internal campaign polling but also recent polls conducted on behalf of supporters of her competition.
In the Timken campaign poll from earlier this month, Mandel led the field with 18%, followed by Timken at 16%, businessman Mike Gibbons at 14%, businessman Bernie Moreno at 9%, Vance at 8%, and state Sen. Matt Dolan at 4%. In another January poll, this time for conservative advocacy group Club for Growth, which is backing Mandel, Timken again trailed Mandel, this time 26% to 15%, followed by Gibbons at 14%, Vance at 10%, and Moreno at 7%.
In a third January poll, this time from the Moreno campaign, Mandel led Timken 19.8% to 18.1%, followed by Moreno at 10.2%, Gibbons at 9.7%, Vance at 9.5%, and Dolan at 3.3%. The Timken campaign emphasizes that all three polls show the former Ohio GOP chairwoman in second place behind Mandel, whose lead has shrunk, and ahead of Vance — not to mention Dolan, Gibbons, and Moreno.
Timken’s claim? She is climbing, and the others are stuck or falling. “It’s really a race between Josh and me,” she said.
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Naturally, Dolan, Gibbons, and Moreno reject Timken’s theory of the case — as do Mandel and Vance. Timken’s opponents point out that her record on supporting Trump is not pristine, including early last year when she did not immediately condemn the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 ransacking of the U.S. Capitol.
Mandel is waging his third bid for Senate. In 2012, he fell short to Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, and in 2018, he dropped out of the race unexpectedly to deal with a family matter. This time around, Mandel has focused on wooing evangelical Christians and conducted most of his campaigning in churches. The Mandel campaign scoffed at Timken’s argument of competitiveness, never mind her assertion that the race is a jump ball between the two of them.
