A car dealer just rode Donald Trump’s endorsement to victory in Ohio. What does that mean for November?

Bernie Moreno decisively won the GOP nomination for US Senate in Ohio on Monday, the second candidate to be essentially carried to victory by former President Donald Trump in the state in two years.

He’ll join the other Republican with that distinction, JD Vance, in Ohio’s US Senate delegation next January if he is able to beat incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in the fall. Mr Moreno actually ran against Mr Vance in the last election cycle but withdrew to clear the way for his one-time rival after the Hillbilly Elegy author won Mr Trump’s endorsement that year.

Tuesday evening’s victory is a sign of Donald Trump’s continued endorsement strength — particularly in the midwest and in states where he has less directly clashed with state Republican leaders. It remains far from an absolute shot at victory — just ask David Perdue, the failed 2022 candidate for governor in Georgia — but a potent force in the Republican Party nonetheless.

Indeed, it can be said that Mr Trump’s endorsement, like in Mr Vance’s case, is by far the factor most responsible for Mr Moreno’s win. The car dealership owner and his allies like Club for Growth blanketed TV networks in the state with ads touting his Trump endorsement and it appeared to be one of the only things a significant number of Republican voters knew about the two-time Senate candidate.

Outside the Dayton event, roughly a half dozen Republican voters who planned to vote in the primary spoke to The Independent; all were supporting Mr Moreno, and none could name other reasons beyond Mr Trump’s endorsement for their support.

Stan Strohmenger was one of those voters. In an interview shortly after Mr Trump’s remarks concluded and the president boarded his massive private plane, he