Political pundit Bryan Quigley said Tuesday’s GOP U.S. Senate primary in Ohio will be a toss-up race where “every vote is going to count.”
Three Republican candidates – businessman Bernie Moreno, Ohio State Senator Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls), and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose – are competing for the GOP nomination on Tuesday to face off with incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in the November general election.
Quigley, citing recent polls that show all three candidates with single-digit point margins between one another, said the race is “neck and neck” and “essentially a three-way tie.”
“This is very much a race that is live,” Quigley said while appearing on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Quigley said the state’s open primary, which does not require voters to declare party affiliation, will make the race “interesting,” as “moderates and Democrats have a chance to run some interference” by propping up “weaker candidates” – specifically Dolan or Moreno – in the race to make Brown have an easier shot at winning the general election come November.
“In my home state of Missouri where I grew up, we saw this a year several years back where you had a Democrat that actually came in and picked the more conservative Republican candidate for Senate to run ads against before the primary vote to essentially ensure that that candidate won so that she would have a safer time than winning, and it actually worked out for her in that instance,” Quigley explained. “Here in Ohio, you have some similar things that may be happening. I’ve seen there is an ad that is going after Bernie Moreno, and that may be because they believe he’s the weaker candidate, but I also think that the open primary opens it up for Dolan. If Dolan wins, you have a candidate that, frankly, a lot of the Republican base will not be excited about.”
Quigley noted how Moreno, even though former President Donald Trump endorsed the candidate, has spent three times as much money than Dolan and LaRose during this campaign cycle and remains virtually tied in a three-way race with the other candidates.
In regards to Dolan, Quigley described the candidate as the “never-Trumper” and “anti-Trump Republican” in the race.
When it comes to LaRose, however, Quigley said the secretary of state is the best candidate that would “excite the Republican base” and has the best chance at beating Brown in the November general election.
Trump endorsed LaRose while he was running to be Ohio’s secretary of state.
“Ohio, which used to be a purple state, a swing state, has become a pretty reliable red state in recent elections. There’s certainly some thinking that a candidate that excites the Republican base would have a leg up in this and that would be Frank LaRose. I think it would be harder to get Republicans excited about Bernie Moreno or Matt Dolan because of their track record,” Quigley said.
“Just looking at these three candidates, to me, the candidate most aligned with the Make America Great Again movement is Frank LaRose, the Secretary of State,” Quigley added.
Polls are open on Election Day in Ohio from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Election Day” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
