State Sen. Matt Dolan on Tuesday became the first serious Ohio Republican to announce a bid against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, a move that comes less than a year after Cleveland Guardians part-owner spent $10.6 million of his own money on a failed primary campaign for the Buckeye State’s other seat. As we’ll discuss, though, Dolan is far from the only candidate looking to take on Brown, who will be one of the GOP’s top Senate targets this cycle.
Dolan, whose family owns Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team, last time stood out in the packed primary field to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman both for his vast resources and for being the one major candidate to condemn the Big Lie and call for the party to move on for Donald Trump. The state senator, who campaigned as a conservative who could achieve results, denied he was anti-Trump, but that hardly stopped the GOP’s master from making his defeat a priority.
Trump repeatedly trashed Dolan over his team’s new name, writing, “Anybody who changes the name of the ‘storied’ Cleveland Indians (from 1916), an original baseball franchise, to the Cleveland Guardians, is not fit to serve in the United States Senate.” (Dolan said he was not involved in the decision.) Politico reported last year that Trump also successfully encouraged one Senate candidate, wealthy businessman Bernie Moreno, to drop out of the primary to make sure the GOP didn’t lose the seat to a “Democrat” in the primary or general, a comment that very much seemed to be about the state senator.
Trump went on to endorse venture capitalist J.D. Vance late in the primary, a move that may have allowed him to consolidate enough of the base to stop Dolan from slipping through: Vance beat former state Treasurer Josh Mandel 32-24, while Dolan was just behind with 23%. Dolan, who supported Vance’s successful general election campaign even though the nominee had spread lies about the 2020 election, kicked off his new campaign by signaling he’d run a similar effort as last time. “The midterm election showed us nationally that if the Republicans are going to put up folks that are focused on yesterday, running these campaigns of grievances, we’re going to lose,” he argued.
Dolan, though, will almost certainly be in for another tough primary against opponents looking to portray him as insufficiently conservative. Local observers have anticipated for some time that Secretary of State Frank LaRose will get in, and his team did nothing to tamp down that talk on Tuesday. “Sherrod Brown has been in office for 48 years, and in 2024 there is a one-shot opportunity to take back the U.S. Senate,” said a LaRose spokesperson, adding, “Naturally, there is a lot of discussion right now over who is the most qualified candidate to replace him, and Secretary LaRose intends to be a part of that conversation.”
Rep. Warren Davidson, a conservative hardliner who was elected to succeed none other than John Boehner in 2016, has publicly expressed interest last month, while venture capitalist Mark Kvamme has also mused about running for office. Cleveland.com additionally wrote in November that Moreno is thinking about giving it another shot, while Attorney General Dave Yost is also privately considering. Neither Republican has said anything publicly about their 2024 plans yet, though Yost made headlines last week after the media reported that he’d briefly retired in order to draw a pension in addition to his salary, a choice that Democrats were quick to attack.
Brown, for his part, made it clear last year that he’d seek a fourth term in a longtime swing state that has lurched hard to the right in recent years. The senator has even been working to convince two of his colleagues, Montana’s Jon Tester and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, to run again, noting that their decisions could impact whether or not he’s the GOP’s top Senate target.
