The novelist and venture investor J.D. Vance has been endorsed by Donald Trump, shaking up the Republican fight for the first major Senate midterm election.
Josh Mandel’s wager was simple: no one would be able to outflank him in emulating Donald J. Trump, whether on hard-right America First beliefs or the former president’s bellicose, come-at-me attitude.
“They are the racists, not us,” Mr. Mandel remarked of Black Lives Matter campaigners. He inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment, particularly among Afghan refugees, and erroneously claimed that Mr. Trump’s 2020 election was stolen from him. Mr. Mandel, the Jewish grandson of a Holocaust survivor with a Christian cross on his website, stumped largely evangelical groups, stating that “there is no such thing” as separation of church and state.
It worked for a long time. In the crowded Republican Senate race in Ohio, Mr. Mandel was widely considered the front-runner.
But two weeks ago, the one person he most wanted to impress — the former president himself — turned down Mr. Mandel, a former state treasurer, and endorsed J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” reshaping the campaign overnight.
