WASHINGTON — As he prepares to run for the U.S. Senate in 2018, Republican State Treasurer Josh Mandel hopes to rely on the same populist themes used this year by President-elect Donald Trump, but Democrats are skeptical that message will work against two-term incumbent Sherrod Brown.
Mandel, who lost to the Democrat Brown in the 2012 Senate race, on Wednesday became the first Republican to enter what could among the country's most high-profile races in 2018. Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, is considering entering the contest as well, although he would have to yield his relatively safe House seat to run statewide.
A primary between Mandel and Tiberi would further divide an Ohio Republican Party that has been in disarray since Trump easily won the state last month despite Gov. John Kasich's refusal to endorse him.
Although Mandel endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in the Republican presidential primary, he is trying to emulate Trump’s style, pledging in a video released Wednesday on Twitter that he would work to “drain the swamp” in a Washington that's "rigged." By contrast, Tiberi holds Kasich’s old congressional seat and has long been a Kasich ally.
“Casting himself as Trump Jr. today may very well come back to haunt him,” said Dennis Eckart, a former Democratic congressman from Cleveland and a Brown confidante. “Besides, it would really nice to have a U.S. senator who thought of things independently and wasn’t a carbon copy of a New York billionaire.”
“He hardly knows Trump,” Eckart said. “It’s like somebody who gets married through internet dating. They never have even met the person. It’s very difficult to see Josh Mandel channeling Donald Trump when he endorsed Marco Rubio for president.”
Mark Caleb Smith, a professor of political science at Cedarville University, said it would be interesting to see if Trump's performance in Ohio refashions Ohio for Republicans somehow or whether his appeal is unique.
“Mandel would have a hard time arguing he is an anti-establishment figure since he has been a familiar face in Ohio politics for several years,” Smith said.
In a conference call with Ohio reporters, Brown said he is “focused on my job. I’ll just leave it at that.”
A Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity said Mandel would be “formidable” in a primary “ because he can raise a lot of money, and he clearly is running a Trump campaign.”
But the Republican called Brown “one of the best politicians in the state. Very, very smart. And in what could be a very good Democratic year, it could be tough to beat him.”
In Mandel's video, which was released on the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mandel said he comes from a "family of fighters."
"While one of my grandfathers was wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army during World War II, my other grandfather was fighting to survive Auschwitz,” Mandel said. “At the same time, my grandmother was fighting to survive the Nazis in Italy, being saved by a network of courageous Christians.”
Echoing Trump, Mandel said “it’s time to take the fight to Washington,” adding that most people think Washington is broken, but really it’s just a "rigged system.”
“I will never succumb to political correctness,” Mandel said, clearly adopting a Trump line.
Although Barry Bennett, a former Trump adviser, said “it’s entirely possible that Trump could be very popular in 2018,” historically the party of an incumbent president does not do well with voters in the first off-year election.
“If Trump is struggling and if Democrats are able to resist him effectively, Sherrod Brown could find himself in a positive, pro-Democrat environment in 2018,” Smith said.
During his conference call, Brown suggested that Trump could “lose these voters who voted for him the first time” if he pursues an approach that favors weaker financial regulations and tax cuts that tend to benefit wealthier people.
Reporter Jana Heigl of the Dispatch Washington Bureau contributed to this story.