Politics
Trump faces off against GOP establishment as he parachutes into contentious Republican Senate primary
Donald Trump is aiming for a repeat performance.
Two years ago, the former president backed JD Vance in Ohio’s crowded and combative Republican Senate nomination race, boosting Vance to victory in the GOP primary a couple of weeks later.
Fast-forward to the present and Trump is returning to Ohio this weekend to once again support the Republican Senate candidate he endorsed in the state’s increasingly contentious GOP primary.
Trump, who earlier this week clinched the Republican presidential nomination and is now his party’s presumptive 2024 nominee, will headline a rally in Dayton, Ohio, Saturday for businessman Bernie Moreno.
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Former President Trump poses for a photo with businessman Bernie Moreno ahead of a rally in Wellington, Ohio, June 26, 2021 (Bernie Moreno campaign)
Trump’s trip will come three days before the state’s March 19 primary. The rally was announced Monday night by Buckeye Values PAC, a pro-Moreno group.
The move came hours after state Sen. Matt Dolan, one of the two other major GOP Senate primary contenders, along with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, was endorsed by two-term Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a former longtime U.S. senator and state attorney general.
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Late last week, Dolan, a former top county prosecutor and Ohio assistant attorney general whose family owns Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, also landed the backing of former Sen. Rob Portman. DeWine and Portman are considered top members of Ohio’s Republican old guard or establishment.
“Matt Dolan has a vision for the future. He listens. He fights. And he knows how to get results for Ohio,” DeWine said in endorsing Dolan.
And DeWine has said Dolan’s the strongest Republican candidate to defeat longtime Democrat Sherrod Brown in November.
Dolan, who along with Moreno is making his second straight bid for the Senate in Ohio, has highlighted that he’s a supporter of Trump’s policies but not the former president’s personality. Dolan is the only one of the three major candidates not to seek Trump’s support.
Moreno, an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. legally from Colombia and later became a successful Cleveland-based businessman and luxury auto dealership giant, was endorsed by Trump in December.
Vance, who will campaign with Moreno across Ohio on Monday, last year backed him, which was seen as a prelude to the eventual Trump endorsement. Moreno also enjoys the support of two other Trump allies — Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a Buckeye State native. Vance, Jordan, and two other Trump allies – Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and 2024 Arizona Senate candidate and 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake – will attend Saturday’s rally.
Former President Trump welcomes JD Vance, Republican candidate for U.S. Senator for Ohio, to the stage at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio., Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar)
After DeWine endorsed Dolan, Moreno framed the race as a battle between “the America-First Republican Party” and the “RINO establishment.”
And Andy Surabian, a senior Moreno campaign adviser who’s close to Trump’s political orbit, emphasized in a social media post that “the Ohio Senate race is officially Team America First vs Team RINO.”
RINO is a term used to insult some in the GOP as “Republicans in name only.”
There’s been a dearth of public polling in the Republican Senate primary, and the three major campaigns are treating the race as a dead heat ahead of next week’s primary. Millions have been spent by the campaigns and aligned super PACs to flood the airwaves with negative attack ads.
Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose speaks during an election night watch party Nov. 8, 2022, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete, File)
And now Democrats are meddling in the primary.
Duty and Country PAC, which is funded by Senate Majority PAC, the top super PAC supporting Senate Democrats, is dishing out nearly $3 million in the final days ahead of the primary to run ads boosting Moreno, whom they view as the weakest general election nominee.
There was another major development in the primary race this week, as the Associated Press published a report Thursday claiming that an adult hookup website account was created in 2008 using an email linked to Moreno.
Pushing back against the report, Moreno called it “a sick, last-minute attack by desperate people.”
The winner of the GOP primary will face off in November against Brown, who is the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio over the past decade. Brown is being heavily targeted by Republicans in a state that was once a premiere battleground before shifting red.
Democrats control the U.S. Senate with a 51-49 majority, but Republicans are looking at a favorable Senate map in 2024, with Democrats defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs. Three of those seats are in red states that Trump carried in 2020 — Ohio, Montana and West Virginia, where Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is not running for re-election.
Five others seats are in key swing states narrowly carried by President Biden in 2020 — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Trump gestures at a campaign rally March 9, 2024, in Rome Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
As Trump locks up the GOP presidential nomination, he’s once again exerting increasing control over the Republican Party.
A week ago, a top Trump ally and the former president’s daughter-in-law were installed as chair and co-chair of the Republican National Committee. On Monday, the new regime at the RNC pushed roughly 60 current staffers out the door.
But Trump’s clout with congressional Republicans suffered a setback this week, as the GOP-controlled House went against Trump’s wishes. A few weeks after downing a bipartisan border deal in Congress, partially due to the former president’s wishes, most House Republicans supported the passage — over Trump’s objections — of a bill that could eventually ban TikTok in the U.S.
The showdown in Ohio is one of the few major down-ballot GOP primaries where the Trump-backed candidate is at risk of losing.
“Trump’s got a lot invested in Bernie Moreno,” veteran Republican strategist Matt Gorman said.
Longtime Ohio-based GOP consultant Mike Hartley, who remains neutral in this year’s primary, told Fox News “it’s important to Trump, evidenced by the fact that he’s coming into the state, just like he did for JD Vance.”
“President Trump wants to have allies in Congress to help him get his agenda passed. I think it’s as simple as that,” Hartley added.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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May 15, 2026
Politics
Senator John Kennedy introduces America to ‘Margaret,’ his elliptical trainer named after Thatcher
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Margaret Thatcher once ran Britain. John Kennedy’s “Margaret” mostly runs him into the ground.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is going viral after posting a tongue-in-cheek workout video introducing followers to “Margaret” — his elliptical trainer named after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — while wearing a red bandanna and speaking directly to the camera from his Louisiana carport.
“Hey X, I have somebody I’d like you to meet,” Kennedy says at the start of the minute-long video posted to social media Friday.
“This is Margaret. Margaret is my elliptical trainer. I named Margaret after Margaret Thatcher because both kick butt and take names.”
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Senator John Kennedy, R-La., posted the video showing his unconventional at-home workout routine with elliptical “Margaret” to social media channels Friday. (@SenJohnKennedy via X)
Kennedy goes on to explain that “Margaret” lives outside under the carport for three reasons: the machine is too heavy to move, his wife “won’t let” him bring it inside and because he enjoys getting in a workout during Louisiana summers.
The Senator said he enjoys working outside during Louisiana summers, a detail that drew disbelief from many viewers familiar with the state’s famously brutal heat and humidity.
“As you can see, Margaret, my elliptical trainer, is out here under my carport in Louisiana,” Kennedy says. “After Margaret kicks my butt, I look for air conditioning.”
The surreal, self-aware clip quickly drew thousands of reactions online, with users roasting Kennedy’s bandanna look while also praising the senator’s everyman personality.
SEN KENNEDY PRAISES FETTERMAN AS A ‘TOTAL BANGER,’ WHO ‘DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN’ ABOUT ANGERING LIBERALS
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., talks to reporters in the basement of the U.S. Capitol on July 31, 2025, as Senate lawmakers work to finish legislative business before the August recess. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“You are rocking the dadgum crap outta that bandana,” one user wrote. “I thought you were representing the Bloods for a minute. Tell Margaret I think she’s cute but evil.”
Others praised Kennedy’s personality and down-home delivery style.
“You are a gem to us normal folk Mr. Kennedy. Live long and prosper!” one supporter posted.
“Senator Kennedy is that kind of Southerner that makes you feel you’re sitting on the front porch having some bit of common sense enlighten you in that poetic Southern way,” another wrote.
The Louisiana Republican has long cultivated a folksy, humorous public image that often breaks through online with colorful one-liners and unconventional social media moments.
Sen. John Kennedy speaks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 21, 2022. (J. Scott Applewhite/Reuters)
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Kennedy ended the video with a line that only added to the internet’s fascination.
“My work here is done,” he said. “And I can see myself out.”
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday turned down an appeal from Virginia Democrats whose new voter-approved state election map was canceled by the state’s Supreme Court.
The justices made no comment, and the legal outcome came as no surprise.
The U.S. Supreme Court has no authority to review or reverse rulings by state judges interpreting their state’s constitution — unless the decision turned on federal law or the U.S. Constitution.
But the Virginia ruling came as a political shock, particularly after 3 million voters had cast ballots and narrowly approved a new election map that would favor Democrats in 10 of its 11 congressional districts.
That would have represented an increase of four seats for Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Even worse for Democrats, the court setback in Virginia came a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling in a Louisiana case had bolstered Republicans.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices reinterpreted the Voting Rights Act and freed Republican-controlled states in the South to dismantle districts that were drawn to favor Black Democrats.
In the two weeks since then, the GOP has flipped seven districts in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida.
The Virginia Supreme Court decision pointed to a procedural flaw that turned on the definition of an “election.”
To amend the state Constitution, Virginia lawmakers must adopt the proposal twice — once before a “general election” and a second time after the election. It is then submitted to the voters.
Last fall, Democrats proposed to amend the state Constitution to permit a mid-decade redistricting.
However, by a 4-3 vote, the state justices said the General Assembly flubbed the first approval because it took place on Oct. 31 of last year, just five days before the election.
By then, they said, about 40% of the voters had cast early ballots.
In defense of the Legislature, the state’s attorneys said the proposed amendment was approved before election day, which complies with the state Constitution.
But the majority explained “the noun ‘election’ must be distinguished from the noun phrase ‘election day.’ ”
It reasoned that because early voters had already cast ballots before the constitutional amendment was first adopted, the proposal was not approved before the election.
The dissenters said the election took place on “election day” and the proposal had been adopted before that time.
The state’s lawyers adopted that view in their appeal and argued that under federal law, the election takes place on election day.
But the Supreme Court turned away the appeal with no comment.
The result is that a state amendment that won approval twice before both houses of the Legislature and in a statewide vote was judged to have failed.
The state says it will use the current map, which had elected Democrats to the House in six districts and Republicans in five.
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