Greater Cincinnati GOP candidates echo Trump claims that have been deemed false

Former President Donald Trump will stop for lunch Wednesday in Cincinnati with Sen. J.D. Vance and supporters able to pay $50,000 per plate.

Vance, a onetime Trump critic now on the shortlist to become Trump's running mate, has taken a common strategy among Republican candidates.

That strategy goes beyond supporting Trump and defending his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and in his various court cases.

Even in Cincinnati's suburbs, Republican candidates are echoing Trump's false claims and repeating debunked conspiracies about Jan. 6 and his trials.

In a political environment where candidates must play to the extremes of their base to win a primary, there's little to lose and much to gain with this strategy, experts and politicos told The Enquirer. Polls show most Republican voters shrug off Trump's criminal charges and defend Trump's role in Jan. 6; many have also adopted his conspiracy theories.

"Oftentimes in Republican primaries, just getting a candidate to admit that Biden won the 2020 election seems notable," said J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor of the political analyst site Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, in an email.

How local Republicans responded

Through interviews and surveys, The Enquirer asked 70 Republican candidates in Greater Cincinnati this year about how they would characterize the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they would support Trump if he were convicted.

Only 20 responded, with all but one reaffirming support for Trump and in some way defending his actions during the Jan. 6 attacks. The only one to condemn Trump, Symmes Township Republican Phil Heimlich, has been one of the region's most vocal Republican Trump critics. The anti-Trump message got Heimlich 5% of the vote and a sixth-place finish out of 10 in the March GOP primary for Ohio's 2nd Congressional District.

Republicans running in the Democratic stronghold of Hamilton County were advised by the GOP county chair not to answer the questions. The Enquirer sent the survey out ahead of the March primary to show how the candidates might differ from each other.

"I find the survey to be deeply biased and unfair in its questioning of the Republican candidates," Hamilton County Republican Chairman Russ Mock wrote in a letter urging candidates to not fill out the survey.

In Hamilton County, a county Trump lost with 40% of the vote, Republicans largely avoided the survey or Trump. Only three Republicans responded to the survey. One was Heimlich, who denounced Trump and said he "incited the crowd to march to the Capitol and disrupt the lawful counting of electoral votes."

John Sess, a Republican from Westwood, wrote in the survey: "Questions still swirl as to whether it was instigated by government agitators."

PolitiFact and numerous other news organizations, as well as multiple federal investigations, have rebutted the claim the FBI or other federal government agencies instigated Jan. 6.

Sess is running for the Ohio House against Democratic incumbent Dani Isaacsohn in a heavily Democratic House district that covers a large portion of Cincinnati. He called Jan. 6 "a sad day for America."

Another Hamilton County Republican, Adam Koehler, gave a more diplomatic response to his description of Jan. 6. Koehler is running against Democrat Denise Driehaus for Hamilton County commissioner.

"The Capitol situation was a real eye-opener, showing how split we are as a nation," Koehler wrote in the survey. "It was a mix of scary and sad to see things get out of hand, all because of political anger and too much misleading information out there. It's a wake-up call that we need to cool down and really listen to each other to fix things up."

Both Koehler and Sess said in the survey they would vote for Trump even if he's convicted of a crime.

Republicans leap to Trump's defense

In safe Republican territories, the questions about Trump and Jan. 6 were not taboo. And candidates falsely blamed Trump's legal woes on President Joe Biden as somehow directing the prosecutions.

"President Trump is being wrongly charged and tried by the corrupt Biden judicial system," wrote Amelia Republican David Taylor in response to the survey question about whether he would support Trump if convicted of a crime. Taylor beat 10 other Republicans to win the Republican nomination for the 2nd Congressional District just east of Cincinnati, a district where Trump won with two-thirds of the vote in 2020. Taylor is the heavy favorite to win the open congressional seat in the fall.

"The charges brought against him are political games being played by the political elite who only care about themselves."

Legal experts have said Biden does not have the authority to bring criminal charges against anyone.

Some of the Republicans who responded lamented the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but described it as largely peaceful or the result of a few individuals gone awry.

Several spread debunked theories of outside government agitators or said Trump ordered National Guard troops ahead of the rally. Trump never issued any such order for National Guard troops ahead or during Jan. 6, according to the Associated Press and other news agencies.

NKY primary could show Trump's power

The May 21 Republican primary in Northern Kentucky could show whether a stronger stance in favor of Trump and his legal woes or a more nuanced answer will win in this Republican stronghold just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

Some Northern Kentucky legislative primaries for the Kentucky General Assembly this year pit establishment-style Republicans who thrived in a pre-Trump era against more conservative candidates, some of whom have dubbed themselves "Constitutional Republicans."

Ed Massey, a former state representative, hopes to regain the seat he lost two years earlier in suburban Boone County. He decried the events of Jan. 6 but absolved Trump of any blame.

"I think what happened on Jan. 6 is a travesty," Massey told The Enquirer. "I'm not blaming the president, President Trump, for that. He wasn't there. He had no control over the people that chose to assault our capitol."

Trump gave a speech at a "Stop the Steal" rally on the Ellipse by the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. He reiterated his false claims of a stolen election, told the crowd, "if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” then urged them to march to the Capitol.

On Wednesday, during a campaign rally in Wisconsin, Trump said he asked his Secret Service detail to take him to the rally. The Secret Service agents refused.

Massey faces attorney T.J. Roberts, who said he works for a law firm that represented some of the Jan. 6 defendants.

"For a whole lot of people, that was just a protest," Roberts told The Enquirer when asked about how he would describe Jan. 6. "But now, I think that it's largely been manipulated and distorted by looking at the actions of a few bad actors, many of whom are suspected as federal agents."

The man who beat Massey two years ago, Rep. Steve Rawlings, is now running for a Kentucky Senate seat.

"The facts are not yet all publicized," said Rawlings in response to questions in an Enquirer survey ahead of the May 21 primary.

Rawlings backed the false claim Trump requested to bring troops into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. "It has become a politicized event with only partial truths being shared to the public."

Rawlings also blamed Democrats for targeting Trump.

"The same people express concerns about "our democracy" yet they employ anti-democratic methods to destroy their enemies," Rawlings said in The Enquirer's survey.

'A reflection on who votes'

Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson said candidates don't risk many votes in a primary by backing Trump and his version of events on Jan. 6, he said. They do risk votes if they cross Trump and his base, said Grayson, a Republican from Boone County.

"It’s a safe position for them," Grayson said. "They think they aren't going to see punishment. I mean, we'll find out on Election Day. It's just a reflection on who votes in the primaries and who makes the most noise."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Here's what local candidates have to say about Trump's legal troubles