Two brand-name politicians advanced in Ohio’s primaries Tuesday, while President Donald Trump successfully exacted revenge on Indiana Republicans who defied him.
In Indiana, seven GOP state senators who helped defeat Trump’s plan to redraw their state’s congressional districts last year faced Republican opponents endorsed by Trump. Most of them lost.
In Ohio, one-time presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy nabbed the GOP nomination for governor and former senator Sherrod Brown secured the Democratic nomination for Senate. Brown’s race against Sen. Jon Husted (R) is one of the most closely watched contests as Democrats try to take control of the Senate.
Here are takeaways from the primaries in the two Midwestern states.
Indiana Republicans lost to Trump-backed opponents
Last year, more than half the Republicans in Indiana’s state Senate joined with Democrats to vote down Trump’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts, which would have given Republicans a strong shot at winning two more House seats. The effort was part of a nationwide push by Trump to help Republicans keep control of the House this fall in an otherwise unfavorable political environment.
On Tuesday, seven of the Republicans who broke ranks with the president faced well-funded opponents endorsed by Trump. Five of the incumbents lost, one of them won, and one race had not yet been called late Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
Millions of dollars poured into ordinarily sleepy races, giving Republicans across the country that going against Trump can come at a steep cost — even in races that are normally dominated by local issues.
Ramaswamy secures GOP nomination for governor
Ramaswamy easily won the Republican nomination for governor and will face Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director who helped lead Ohio’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The entrepreneur built a political profile with a book attacking “wokeness” in the corporate world and then mounting a longshot bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Despite running against Trump, he aligned himself closely with the president and became an ally.
He was initially tasked with helping Elon Musk lead the DOGE efforts to upend the federal government but left to run for governor, winning an early endorsement from Trump.
In the primary, Ramaswamy faced Casey Putsch, a political novice who built a YouTube following as “Casey the Car Guy.” Putsch cast himself as the “true American” in the race while mocking Ramaswamy’s ethnicity and Hindu faith. Putsch’s campaign echoed other ugly attacks that Ramaswamy has faced on social media — online vitriol that Ramaswamy has urged his party to draw a hard line against.
“If you believe in normalizing hatred towards any ethnic group — toward Whites, toward Blacks, toward Hispanics, towards Jews, towards Indians, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement,” he told a youth conservative conference last year.
Epstein plays a starring role in Ohio Senate jockeying
Sherrod Brown decisively defeated first-time candidate Ron Kincaid in the Democratic primary, setting the stage for a pivotal — and costly — general election that will play an important role in determining control of the Senate. Brown, one of the state’s best-known Democrats, ended his 18-year tenure in the Senate when he lost in 2024 by 3 percentage points.
He will face Husted, who was appointed in January 2025 to fill the Senate seat vacated by JD Vance when he became vice president. Husted did not face a primary challenger on Tuesday, and in some ways the general election was already underway. Brown pivoted to attacking Husted well before polls closed Tuesday, releasing his first television ad last week trying to tie Husted to sex trafficker and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Husted also aired his first television ad last week, reintroducing himself to voters, while the Ohio Republican Party started selling tongue-in-cheek merchandise highlighting what it said were Brown donors with ties to Epstein.
The winner in November will serve the last two years of the six-year Senate term that Vance won in 2022.
Both sides view the race as crucial as Democrats try to win a Senate seat in a state Trump won three times, and it’s expected to be expensive. Brown had raised about $26 million as of April 15, more than twice as much as Husted. Last month, the Senate Leadership Fund announced it had set aside $79 million to help Husted.
Former ICE official won’t face Rep. Marcy Kaptur
In Ohio’s 9th House District, Madison Sheahan, a former high-ranking Trump administration immigration official, lost her bid for the Republican nomination in a district that GOP operatives believe offers one of the party’s best chances to flip a House seat.
Sheahan left her job as deputy director at U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement in January, hoping that her background in service of Trump’s top issue would propel her to the nomination. She touted her ICE service at campaign events and in advertisements, but immigration did not play a defining role in the crowded GOP primary as polling shows Trump’s approval on the issue declining.
She lost to Derrick Merrin, the Republican nominee in the district two years ago, who was better known to voters than Sheahan. Immigration could gain more prominence in the fall as Merrin seeks to define himself against Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D), who has held the seat since 1983.
David Nakamura contributed to this report.
The post 4 takeaways from the Indiana and Ohio primaries appeared first on Washington Post.
