Republicans say Democrats’ hardball Ohio Senate play could backfire

Democrats working to boost a Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for the US Senate in Ohio, as a way to boost their own progressive senator, should be careful, an aide to the Republican said, lest such efforts backfire and they lose a precious seat.

Such tactics have been used by Democrats before – when they support a more extreme Republican to be nominated out of a calculation that that candidate will then stand less chance of winning against a Democrat in a general election. Of course, such tactics could backfire and see extremists elected.

“Democrats constantly underestimate the America First movement at their own peril,” Reagan McCarthy, communications director to Bernie Moreno, told news outlets.

“They thought President Trump would be easy to beat in 2016 and then they got their clocks cleaned when he demolished Hillary Clinton. The same thing is going to happen to Sherrod Brown this year.”

Democrats control the US Senate by 51 seats to 49. Republicans have high hopes of retaking the chamber, with Ohio on their list of targets.

Brown, 71, is a major presence on the Democratic left, first elected to the Senate in 2006 when he beat Mike DeWine.

DeWine is now the Republican governor of a former battleground state that has trended right. In the last Senate election, the bestselling author JD Vance, a self-described “conservative knuckle-dragger”, took the other seat.

This year’s Republican Senate primary sees Moreno, a businessman also endorsed by Vance, facing Matt Dolan, a state senator backed by DeWine, and Frank LaRose, the secretary of state. Polling indicates a close race with Dolan leading. Election day is next Tuesday.

On Thursday, multiple outlets reported that Duty and Country, a group linked to the Democratic Senate