Amid a full court press to showcase their support and loyalty to Donald Trump in hopes of securing the former president’s endorsement, an already contentious battle between the leading contenders for the GOP Senate nomination in Ohio is turning increasingly brutal.
“Who’s cheering for the wrong team? J.D. Vance,” charges the announcer in a new TV ad by rival Republican candidate Mike Gibbons. “Vance called President Trump an ‘idiot’ and ‘reprehensible,’”
The commercial is the latest round of incoming fire in the GOP primary in the 2022 race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman in a state that Trump won by eight points in both his 2016 White House victory and his 2020 reelection defeat. The showdown is fast becoming the most expensive and ugly GOP Senate contest in next year’s midterms.
Gibbons, a Cleveland entrepreneur, real estate developer and investment banker who ran in 2018 for the Senate in Ohio, is spending more than half a million dollars to run the ad statewide on broadcast and cable TV.
The spot includes old clips of Vance from 2016 saying “I’m a Never Trump guy. I never liked him” and “I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton.” Gibbons then claims that “J.D. Vance is not on our team,” spotlights that “President Trump fought for you. I’ll do the same.”
