But that may not be enough to topple DeWine in the state’s upcoming May 3 primary.
Despite some notable splits with Trump, he is entering the final stretch of the campaign in a strong position to win the GOP’s nomination for another four-year term. He’s facing challenges from three lesser-known conservatives who could essentially split the far-right faithful, with DeWine potentially emerging as a Republican who crossed Trump’s base and managed to survive.
“Whatever happens in the election happens, but this was a crucial time in our history,” DeWine, 75, said in an interview, referring to his management of the pandemic.
The dynamics harken back to an era when Ohio prized middle-of-the-road candidates, making it a bellwether for presidential elections for decades. But that reputation for moderation eroded under Trump, who won the state in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns. The higher-profile race for an open U.S. Senate seat is perhaps more reflective of Ohio’s rightward shift as candidates have spent months trying to out-Trump one another as they seek his coveted endorsement.
So far, the former president has stayed quiet in the governor’s race, a credit to DeWine’s ability to walk a fine line of expressing support for Trump while also keeping him at a distance. Despite their different approach to the pandemic, which Trump sought to minimize, there was only one hint of a genuine rift between the two men.
That was when DeWine suggested in November 2020 that it was time for Trump to acknowledge that Joe Biden had won the White House. Trump’s response was a tweet wondering who would challenge DeWine in this year’s primary. “Will be hotly contested!” Trump predicted.
Former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, who served four terms in Congress, was thought to be DeWine’s biggest threat, especially if he could win an endorsement from Trump after getting his backing four years ago in a failed U.S. Senate bid. But some recent polls show Renacci splitting the anti-DeWine vote with Joe Blystone, a farmer who jumped in the race early and built a following in rural Ohio.
Much of the frustration toward DeWine has bubbled up in Republican-dominated rural counties where mask mandates and school shutdowns were met with resistance. Those areas hold the fewest votes yet carry significant weight because Republicans often pile up big enough margins to negate the strong Democratic turnout in the state’s big cities.
“They say in politics people forget things. Down here they haven’t forgotten,” said Dennis Cooper, a member of the Clermont County Republican Party, which overwhelmingly endorsed Renacci over DeWine earlier this year. “It wasn’t just one thing. It was one thing on top of another that made no sense.”
Still, DeWine has a huge fundraising advantage and a network of supporters built from a political career spanning more than 40 years. Both are why more prominent Republicans in the state decided against challenging him even as dissatisfaction grew.
Ryan Stubenrauch, a former DeWine policy adviser who’s now a GOP consultant, thinks the anger is coming from a vocal minority.
“There’s a whole lot of people mad at a lot of things. The last two years have been really rough on people,” he said. “I don’t know if the party has changed or all of our politics have shifted over the last two years.”
One thing that hasn’t changed, he said, is DeWine. “He values life just about over everything,” Stubenrauch said.
He’s an old-school conservative who just months into his first term as governor signed into…
Read More: Ohio’s GOP governor aims to overcome anger in party base
