As Republican Senate candidates continue to struggle, it’s cleanup on aisle Trump

From Ohio to Pennsylvania to Arizona, Donald Trump remains the overriding influence on the GOP’s campaign to retake the Senate

Republican Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance (REUTERS)

Donald Trump has announced that he will travel to Ohio next week to campaign for Senate candidate JD Vance, the venture capitalist-turned-author-turned-explainer-of-the-white-working-class-to-elites-turned-Trump-acolyte. And Mr Vance needs the help.

As friends of the newsletter Manu Raju and Alex Rogers of CNN reported, he has been widely described as missing in action after a summer partly spent out of the country. His top political patron, Peter Thiel, has refused to throw more money into his race, having similarly abandoned another struggling beneficiary, Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.

In a sign of how things are going, the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund, is having to bail out Mr Vance and pump $28 million into the Senate race. Similarly, Rob Pyers, who runs the invaluable California Target Bot Twitter account, flagged that the fund dropped $3.67m in Georgia’s Senate race, $3.67m in Pennsylvania, $3.54m in North Carolina, $3.07m in Ohio, $2.40m in Wisconsin and $2.03 in Nevada. (Mr Masters got nothing.)

Much has been made about the feud between Mr McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott about whether Republicans have a strong enough slate of candidates to take the Senate back, even though they only need to net one seat to do it.

But regardless of whether they do or not, the reason they have the candidates running now is that Mr Trump endorsed them (Mr Vance, Mr Masters, Dr Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania) or suggested they should run (Herschel Walker in Georgia). Similarly, Mr Scott would not have to fear his NRSC endorsing candidates if it wasn’t for the easily triggered Maga base.

Of course, this comes after Mr Trump had to go to Pennsylvania this past weekend to stump for Dr Oz in Wilkes-Barre. Mr Trump endorsed him toward the end of the primary after initially endorsing Sean Parnell, who dropped out after his estranged wife gained custody of their children amid allegations of abuse. His exit scrambled the race, but Mr Trump’s endorsement of the former physician and television host helped him win the nomination – albeit by a miniscule margin.

Dr Oz still hasn’t convinced many of the faithful that he is one of them. In recent weeks, he’s amped up his attacks on Democratic opponent John Fetterman, and there are some indications he’s gained ground; as the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported, one poll from Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna Polling and Research found Mr Fetterman now only enjoys a five-point lead after polling ahead of Dr Oz by double digits.

This comes as the Oz campaign has zeroed in on Mr Fetterman being unable to debate him after recovering from a stroke. That led to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette putting out an editorial saying “If Mr Fetterman is not well enough to debate his opponent, that raises serious concerns about his ability to serve as a United States senator.” The attack lines seems to be sticking, since retiring Senator Pat Toomey, the Republican who’s vacating the seat, echoed the sentiment himself at an appearance with Dr Oz.

(Side note: the retirement of Mr Toomey, an archconservative who nonetheless had serious reservations about Mr Trump and ultimately voted to convict him for his actions on January 6, is further indication of just how much Mr Trump dictates the ebb and flow of the Republican Party.)

Dr Oz is far from out of the woods yet, though. The same SP&R poll that put him five points behind Mr Fetterman found that he still doesn’t have the full support of the GOP faithful; while 87 per cent of Democrats back Mr Fetterman, only 78 per cent of Republicans back Dr Oz, with 9 per cent on the fence and 13 per cent not supporting him at all.

When your dispatcher was in Wilkes-Barre for the Trump rally, Dr Oz was met with a noticeably chillier reception than other candidates like extremist gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.

At one point someone yelled “he’s a RINO”, a sentiment one Republican voter echoed after the rally.

“I do not trust that he’s going to do the right thing for America, for America first,” Marleen Laska told your dispatcher – though her dislike of Mr Fetterman might end up mattering more. “I have to vote for him because, you know, we need to get at least a RINO as opposed to Fetterman.”