Ohio secretary of state ‘awkwardly’ walks MAGA tight rope in GOP Senate primary

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LaRose had stayed out of the 2020 presidential race, citing his role as the chief elections official in Ohio, and chastised Trump that November for claiming the election was stolen.

A lot has changed since then. LaRose is running for Senate in Ohio and has aggressively sought the former president’s endorsement, considered a game-changer in a state Trump won by 8 points in 2020.

LaRose is far from the only Republican to set aside past reservations to curry his favor. Leaked emails show one of his rivals, businessman Bernie Moreno, to have been aghast at the idea of a Trump presidency back in 2016.

Today, Moreno is a stalwart supporter, and the odds-on favorite to get his endorsement.

But LaRose has struggled in very public terms to navigate that reset. He readily acknowledges his differences with Trump. “I’ll admit that he’s got a style that’s different from mine,” he reiterated in an interview with the Washington Examiner last month.

“I think that some candidates have made this silly mistake of trying to be like a cheap knockoff of Trump,” he said. “They’ve tried to like, ‘Oh, I’m going to act the way he acts or whatever.’ He’s his own man. His style is different from mine.”

But on matters of substance, LaRose’s desire to maintain some daylight between himself and the former president has landed him in Trumpworld’s crosshairs.

LaRose, like other Republicans courting his favor, has flirted with claims of a stolen election, seen as a litmus test for fealty to Trump.

He’s leaned heavily into election security in his time as secretary of state and, whenever asked if fraud altered the results of the 2020 election, hints at the idea of election interference nationally, even as he maintains that Ohio elections are secure. It’s one reason why Trump endorsed his run for a second term as the state’s top election official last year.

But LaRose has not gone as far in his transformation as Moreno, the father-in-law of Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a former aide in the Trump administration.

“President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right,” Moreno said bluntly in a straight-to-camera ad he recorded last year, when he briefly entered the 2022 Senate race in Ohio.

LaRose’s hesitance to embrace Trumpism fully, in conflict with his desire for the endorsement of the man who comes along with it, has made for some perceived stumbles in recent days.

Appearing on MSNBC last week, he offered muted sympathy for Mike Pence after the host asked if he correctly refused to block certification of the 2020 election results, as Trump had pressured him to do.

The vice president “made the best decision he could with the information in front of him,” LaRose said.

A LaRose campaign strategist, seemingly responding to blowback for the comment, quickly issued a clarification.

“To be clear, Frank wasn’t expressing agreement with or praise for the Vice President’s actions,” Brett Buerck said in a statement. “His position is that a lot of people wish they’d done things differently on January 6th. Mike Pence made decisions based on what he knew at the time. Not everyone agrees that he did, and that includes President Trump.”

Just days later, LaRose fired Rob Nichols, a top staffer who drew the ire of Trumpworld for tweets critical of the former president. Mary Cianciolo, a spokeswoman for LaRose, declined to discuss personnel matters beyond confirming that Nichols was let go, but three sources told NBC News he was fired over the posts.

Several Republicans in the state considered the firing a betrayal — Nichols is well-regarded as an operative who has worked for Ohio politicians ranging from ex-Gov. John Kasich to former Rep. Pat Tiberi — and many questioned why he took such an extreme step to chase an endorsement he is unlikely to receive.

“Is the Trump endorsement worth burning bridges and setting fire to friendships?” asked one Republican strategist in the state, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Is the Trump endorsement worth that much?”

The public squirming is indicative of a simple fact, the strategist added: The MAGA hat LaRose is wearing is not a natural fit.

“It just appears unnatural. It’s like he’s twisting himself in knots,” the strategist said. “When you’re not true to yourself, it shows.”

That’s not to say Moreno is so different — he called Trump a “lunatic” in private correspondence in 2016 and even suggested he would stop donating to the Republican Party if he became the nominee.

Those remarks, plus LaRose’s own past statements, have become fodder for each side as the candidates seek out Trump’s endorsement.

“Bernie is the only one who attacked President Trump and accused him of causing irreparable harm to the U.S. for questioning the 2020 election,” said Buerck, before knocking Moreno for owning luxury car dealerships. “President Trump is smart enough not to be conned by a used car salesman into buying a lemon.”

The Moreno campaign, for its part, points to LaRose’s onetime criticism of the former president, including calling his attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “racist” in 2019, and cites his past support for No Labels to paint him as a “bonafide RINO,” or Republican in name only.

“That’s why he’s desperately trying to deceive GOP voters, because he knows once Ohioans learn the truth about his liberal record, his campaign will be DOA,” said campaign spokesman Conor McGuinness.

Unlike LaRose, however, Moreno has forged a closer relationship with Trump since he became president and built goodwill by dropping out of last cycle’s Senate race at his urging. He was among the allies who traveled to Bedminster, New Jersey, to attend Trump’s speech after the Justice Department charged him for his handling of classified documents.

The problem for LaRose, two Ohio strategists told the Washington Examiner, is that he is, at his core, a traditional conservative in the era of Trump.

“The party has changed a ton in the last 10 years. He can intellectualize that change, but he has not fully accepted the change,” said one Republican operative. “His campaign is one that is going through the motions.”

That’s not the only working theory for LaRose’s hesitance on Trump. Bob Clegg, a Republican strategist in Ohio, suggested he’s reluctant to speak freely as secretary of state.

Democratic strategist Jeff Rusnak took the view that LaRose does not want to alienate more centrist voters.

“I think LaRose really wants to be all things to all Republicans and all conservatives,” he said. “And so, it’s like the many personalities of Frank LaRose we’re seeing here.”

What is certain is Trump’s dominance over the state. He almost single-handedly transformed Ohio into a red state, winning it by the largest margin of any presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, since 1988.

While his supporters do not uniformly believe the election was stolen, Trump’s endorsement is so valuable that candidates feel the need to appease Trump to appeal to the base.

The test case for that was 2022, when Trump’s endorsement of now-Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) propelled him to the front of a crowded primary field.

Vance not only ran on stolen election claims but leaned heavily into Trump’s brand of working-class populism, despite at one point being a Trump critic himself.

The field is a lot smaller this cycle — Vance won with a plurality of the vote against six other competitors. Besides Moreno, LaRose’s only competition is state Sen. Matt Dolan, who has no interest in Trump’s endorsement.

But Clegg sees the same peril for LaRose that befell Josh Mandel, the former treasurer of Ohio. Mandel, riding on his name ID as a former statewide official, led public polling for much of the race, only to place second after being passed over for a Trump endorsement.

For now, LaRose holds a similar front-runner status.

“His endorsement changed the whole complexion of the race,” Clegg said of Trump, “and I kind of view this race in those terms.”

The best-case scenario for LaRose would be a Trump endorsement, but barring that, his camp would hope that Trump stays neutral in the contest.

Moreno allies, however, are bullish on an endorsement, even as they acknowledge it may be some time before Trump makes a decision.

“You never know, of course. But I think there’s a good chance that he’ll endorse Bernie,” Vance, who is backing Moreno in the race, told the Washington Examiner. “My sense is that he’s letting the race unfold a little bit.”

“I think Bernie’s got a very good chance without Trump’s endorsement; I think that he has a good chance of getting Trump’s endorsement,” he added.

Dolan, on the other hand, stands little to no chance. Despite describing himself as a Trump supporter — he voted for the former president twice and says he would do so again should he become the nominee — he also called the Jan. 6 riot a “failure of leadership” by Trump and believes the country should move past his claims of a stolen election.

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Trump has bristled at Dolan’s indifference, saying last year that he is “not fit” to serve in the Senate.

That has left LaRose as the “Goldilocks” of the Ohio Senate race, said Clegg, seeking out a position somewhere adjacent to but not arm in arm with Trump.