Bare-knuckle brawl putting Trump influence to the test: What to expect in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary

As wind ripped through the grounds of the Dayton Air Show on Saturday, former president Donald Trump and his assembled loyalists made a last-minute bid to boost one of their own past the finish line.

“You gotta win, Bernie!” the former president mock-pleaded. “Don’t leave me alone!”

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, left, listens as Senate candidate Bernie Moreno speaks at a campaign rally March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio

Ohio presents a unique moment for Mr Trump’s control of the Republican Party. After an embarrassing showing by his hand-picked chosen in 2022, the former president’s tendency to put his thumb on the scale in competitive GOP primaries is irking more and more Republican officials, even as many publicly continue to endorse his presidential bid. He’s done it again in Ohio: endorsing car dealership owner Bernie Moreno in a three-way race against fellow Republicans Matt Dolan and Frank LaRose, respectively a state senator and Ohio’s secretary of state.

Matt Dolan is one of the two candidates running against Trump’s favoured winner, Bernie Moreno

Polls show the race to be close, with single digits supporting the three men in some surveys. The race is unique; as many as four in 10 likely Republican voters were undecided as of last week. And mud-slinging has begun in earnest, too: an ally of Mr Moreno sent out a flier to Republicans in the mail labelling Mr LaRose an ally of transgender rights. His enemies, separately, have circulated a story from the Associated Press which revealed that an email address used by the Trump-backed Moreno was registered on a sex website, Adult Friend Finder, in 2008 seeking “young guys to have fun with while travelling.” (The Moreno campaign has