Ohio Republican Senate showdown: Timken spotlights border trip and touts she’s ‘Trump tough’ in new ad

FIRST ON FOX: Jane Timken is taking goal at President Biden over border safety as a part of her statewide advert blitz in her bid for the Republican Senate nomination in Ohio’s crowded and aggressive GOP main.

“Beneath Joe Biden, unlawful immigrants and drug cartels are flooding Ohio with heroin and fentanyl. Now opioid deaths are surging once more,” the previous Ohio GOP chair costs within the advert, which was shared first with Fox Information on Tuesday. “I’m Jane Timken, and I do know border safety is nationwide safety.”

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Border safety is high of thoughts with Republican voters in Ohio and throughout the nation, and Timken’s new spot, which was recorded as she stood on the wall alongside the U.S.-Mexico border, is the newest within the main showdown to highlight the problem.

Timken’s workforce says the spot will run on broadcast and cable TV within the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton and Youngstown markets as a part of her marketing campaign’s ongoing seven-figure advert purchase.

Timken, whose husband is the previous chairman, CEO and president of his household’s metal manufacturing company, is considered one of eight candidates within the GOP main race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who’s endorsed Timken.

The opposite main Republican candidates within the race are 2018 Ohio GOP Senate candidate Mike Gibbons, a Cleveland entrepreneur, actual property developer and funding banker; former Ohio treasurer and former two-time Senate candidate Josh Mandel; enterprise capitalist and best-selling writer J.D. Vance; and state Sen. Matt Dolan, a former county and state prosecutor whose household owns Main League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians.

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Aside from Dolan, the opposite main contenders have been showcasing their assist for former President Trump, who stays the most well-liked and influential politician within the GOP as he performs a kingmaker’s function within the celebration’s 2022 primaries and repeatedly teases one other White Home run in 2024.

Timken describes herself as “Trump powerful” within the business and pledges “as the true Trump conservative, I’ll struggle to end this wall, safe this border, and crackdown on the drug cartels.” 

The spot additionally features a clip of the then president from the 2020 cycle saying at a rally that “Ohio GOP Chairman, Jane Timken. She’s unbelievable.”

In a main race the place all almost all the key contenders have loads of private wealth, or are backed by nicely financed exterior teams, advert spending is hovering. Based on figures from the nationwide advert monitoring agency AdImpact, $26 million had already been spent by way of early final week by the campaigns and tremendous PACs to run advertisements within the Ohio Senate race, with almost all of the spending coming within the GOP main.

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Timken’s new advert is hitting Ohio airwaves with seven weeks to go till the state’s scheduled Mary 3 main. A Fox Information ballot carried out March 2-6 and launched final Wednesday indicated Gibbons at 22% amongst like Republican main voters, with Mandel at 20%, Vance at 11%, Timken at 9%, Dolan at 7%, and almost 1 / 4 of these surveyed undecided.

Based on AdImpact, the Ohio Senate race so far is the second most costly within the nation this cycle, behind the showdown within the neighboring battleground state of Pennsylvania for one more GOP-held open seat.

The winner of the Republican main could face off in opposition to longtime Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan of northeastern Ohio. Ryan is taken into account the favourite for the Democratic nomination in race that additionally contains progressive Morgan Harper, a former Client Monetary Safety Bureau senior adviser and 2020 congressional candidate.

Fox Information’ Dana Blanton contributed to this report.