“Quite a ringing endorsement, eh?” he said in an email blast Sunday night, saying Vance is “clearly irrelevant” to Trump. For voters inclined to follow Trump’s endorsement, the gaffe risked muddling in their minds which candidate has the former president’s backing.īut Trump didn’t have the same issue Monday evening when he urged supporters on a call with Vance to vote Tuesday for a man he repeatedly called a winner and said had his “complete and total endorsement.” Mandel is the last name of one of Vance’s most bitter rivals, former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, another candidate who had courted Trump’s support. And he’s doing great,” Trump told the crowd. The primary has been heated from the start, with nearly all the Republicans in the race competing for Trump's endorsement - a prize that eventually went to Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy.” At the time of the endorsement, Vance was trailing in the polls, and the race is seen as one of the first big tests of Trump's enduring influence among Republican voters.īut at a rally in Nebraska on Sunday, Trump seemed to undercut his support for Vance by mixing up his name with that of another candidate in the race. Democrats see the race as one of their best chances nationally to flip a seat in the midterm elections, while Republicans remain optimistic about their chances of holding a seat in a state that has swung to the right under Trump’s influence. The involvement of prominent surrogates in the primary shows the high stakes of Tuesday’s election, when seven candidates are seeking the Republican nomination for the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Former President Donald Trump, who held a rally in Ohio late last month to boost candidate JD Vance, botched Vance’s name at an event in Nebraska over the weekend while trying to tout his endorsements nationwide - but he got it right as he held a final tele-rally to bolster Vance Monday night. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, were among the conservative emissaries making final pitches in the critical Senate race. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, along with Reps. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - High-profile surrogates for Republicans running in Ohio’s hotly contested Senate primary are fanning out across the state or holding other events to give their endorsed candidates a last-minute boost ahead of Tuesday’s election.