(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) The New York Times published a piece calling out the Democrat party for meddling in the Republican Senate primary race in Ohio.
A Democratic group in the state paid for an ad emphasizing the conservative credentials of candidate Bernie Moreno, who received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
The ad accused Moreno of being a “MAGA Republican,” and called him “too conservative for Ohio,” which Times author argued likely made him more appealing to Ohio’s conservative voters.
Ohio voted for Trump in 2020, beating Biden by eight points. In 2022, JD Vance won a Senate seat by 6 points.
Despite the risky gambit, Democrats pushed Moreno under the belief that the political newcomer would be easier for incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown to defeat than two other challengers with experience at the state level.
The Times criticized the Ohio Democrats for intervening, undercutting President Joe Biden’s 2024 primary message as he attempts to run on a campaign of fearmongering that Trump and those who support his agenda are too dangerous to be elected.
It noted that the Left had spent an estimated $53 million attempting to promote rival candidates they alleged were “election deniers” on the theory that it would boost Democrat chances in the general election.
Although the strategy appeared to pay off more often than not in the 2022 midterm race, Democrat politicians and political strategists warned about the possible repercussions of this strategy.
“It is risky and unethical to promote any candidate whose campaign is based on eroding trust in our elections,” wrote nearly three dozen former Democratic House and Senate lawmakers in 2022. “Our democracy is fragile, therefore we cannot tolerate political parties attempting to prop up candidates whose message is to erode our dedication to fair elections.”
The Times also argued that prying into races like these in a historically Republican state was a dangerous game, whereas meddling in a solid-blue state would be more permissible.
The storied paper’s relationship with the Biden campaign has been on ice recently, with publishers and other officials with the Times letting slip that Biden officials met with reporters and lambasted them over their coverage.
Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., denounced the Times for daring to fact-check the president in an appearance on MSNBC.
“I move that every newspaper in America quits doing any fact-checks on Joe Biden until they fact-check Donald Trump every morning on the front page,” she continued. “It is ridiculous that the New York Times fact-checked Joe Biden on something.”
The recent Times article may have taken a subtle dig at McCaskill, suggesting that she helped pioneer the strategy of pushing ads to help promote a more conservative opponent in her 2012 race against former Rep. Todd Akin.
Although McCaskill succeeded in vanquishing Akin with a smear campaign that accused him of supporting rape, her plan backfired horrifically in the next election cycle, when conservative state Attorney General Josh Hawley stepped up to the plate and handily defeated her.
