Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

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More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online.

At OHEA.oeg, With days to go until the primary, Donald Trump comes to town and is met with some mixed feelings about a big endorsement.

And the Republican candidates for governor talk about their key issues and differences.

All this weekend, the state of Ohio welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

The last week before the May 3rd primary began with a rally that drew a few thousand to the Delaware County Fairgrounds to see former President Trump and his newly endorsed candidates.

Statehouse correspondent Joe Ingles was there late on the afternoon of Friday, April 15th.

Former President Trump announced the endorsement shortly after, but all but one of the seven Republican U.S. Senate candidates.

Trump's choice was J.D.

Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy and Venture Capitalist Summary publicans, including GOP county chairs, were puzzled why Trump would choose Vance, especially since he denounced the former president in the 2016 campaign.

And even afterwards, Vance's opponents resurrected and shared his anti-Trump tweets and interviews for weeks claiming Vance is not a true conservative.

But at Saturday's rally, Vance said he was wrong about Trump is nice, but the simple fact is he's the best president of my lifetime.

Trump said there's one reason he chose Vance.

We have to pick the one that's going to win.

This guy's tough is how he's going to win.

Vance is heavily funded by venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who poured $10 million into a superPAC backing Vance.

And since the endorsement has put in $3.5 million more.

Polling in this race hasn't been reliable, and it's hard to tell if the crowd at the rally will actually support Trump's endorsed candidates.

David Cochrane from Urbana said he's decided he'll back Vance.

Well, quite frankly, I don't know that much about him.

Just because Trump is.

Trump says he's okay and he's okay.

But Mandy Kirkham of Powell wasn't sold on Vance yet.

I think that Trump is always going to be free to do whatever he wants and endorse whoever he wants.

Doesn't mean we have to agree with them or like it.

Lori and Terry Dennis of Marion said they were also undecided in the U.S. Senate race.

They said they like investment banker Mike Gibbons.

It's easy between Vance and Gibbons right now so they can get things.

Also in the crowded field for U.S. Senate are former state treasurer Josh Mandel, former Ohio Republican Party chair Jane Timken, state senator and Cleveland Guardians, part owner Matt Dolan and central Ohio businessman Mark Puckett and Neil Patel, Trump hasn't endorsed a gubernatorial candidate, though.

Governor Mike DeWine was the chair of the former president's Ohio campaign in 2020 DeWine was not at the Trump rally.

He was diagnosed with COVID the same day Vance was endorsed, though he has now recovered and is back to regular office and campaign activities.

But one of DeWine's opponents was present.

Former Ohio Congressman Jim Renacci ran for governor in 2018 but said Trump asked him to run against Democratic incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown, a race he lost to Brown by six points.

Renacci said he would still love to get Trump's endorsement for governor this time, but he believes he can beat DeWine with or without it.

Though there's been little reliable outside polling, Renacci said polls show about 12% of the GOP voters surveyed haven't made up their minds.

We have a sitting governor who can't break 40%, which is another problem, too.

So the goal real early be in the next ten days, get those 12% to come my way.

If the president endorses, it's over for Governor DeWine, and I think he knows that will.

Right, Ostrander said.

He's going to vote for Tennessee.

He is true to what he says.

He's pro-Trump, pro-guns.

Mandy Kirkham says she's undecided between Renacci or the other candidate in the race, farmer Joe Blystone.

But she's adamant about who she won't vote for.

DeWine.

I think he's too wishy washy We never know which way he's going to go.

Terry Dennis said he and his wife are leaning toward Sly Stone.

Like Sly Stone.

This is pretty big, guys.

We wouldn't stop him.

David Cochran said he was also voting for Blystone, adding he doesn't like the way DeWine handled the pandemic.

And in particular, the lottery that allowed Ohioans who had received vaccines to be entered into $1,000,000 jackpot.

I'm totally against that.

Trump has also endorsed seven of Ohio's 12 Republican congressmen and candidates Max Miller, his former adviser and newcomer Madison Jessie Otto Gilbert, in a notable last minute announcement.

Trump endorsed Secretary of State Frank Leros, who has both said Ohio's 2020 election was the state's most successful election ever but hasn't pushed back or denounced on Trump's false claims about that vote.

Trump also endorsed Auditor Keith Faber Faber in the Rose Hour.

Both Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is yet to produce constitutional legislative maps.

So no primaries for those candidates have been set.

In a somewhat unusual move for the state's chief elections officer.

La Rose also endorsed Vance, but Favre said he won't be backing a candidate in the U.S. Senate race, saying he counts several candidates as friends.

And that he's made a commitment to staying out of the race.

Joe Ingles, Statehouse News Bureau.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission is getting back together the day after the primary, two days before a fifth try at House and Senate maps are due to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The decision by Republican Speaker Bob Kopp to meet came after Republican Auditor Keith Faber joined House Minority Leader Allison Rousseau and Senator Vernon Sykes in calling for that panel to meet to work on new maps.

The Democrats had won in a meeting on Monday but were denied because only those two members asked for it.

Advocates for Fair Maps also rallied this week near the Supreme Court building in advance of the May six deadline.

A panel of three federal judges has said it will put into place the third set of legislative maps ruled unconstitutional and gerrymandered in March.

If there aren't constitutional maps by May.

28th last week on this show, Democratic candidates for Governor John Cranley and Nan Whaley made their last pitches to voters.

This week, we feature three of the four candidates on the Republican side.

These interviews had to be shortened because of time constraints, but our complete conversations are on our website.

State News Dot org.

Click on the Ohio election 2022 tab.

We start with incumbent Mike DeWine, who sat down with State House correspondent Andy Chow.

Well, I think people want a conservative administration.

And, you know, this has been a very conservative administration, if you look at it from a fiscal point of view.

We spoke to the pandemic.

We have balanced the budget.

We have not had to tap into the rainy day fund at all.

We now have the highest bond rating that we've had since 1979.

And by all indications, fiscally we're doing very, very well and we've been able to cut taxes income taxes by $2.2 billion along with all of that.

So fiscally that's been a very conservative administration.

This on the social issues On abortion, for example, there's no one more pro-life.

And Mike DeWine, we've signed the Heartbeat Bill.

We've seen a number of other pro-life bills.

We've able to get more money to pregnancy centers around the state of Ohio than we've ever seen before.

So very, very pro-life administration We also, as far as the Second Amendment, we've signed every every pro-Second Amendment bill that's been presented to us.

So this has been from a social conservative and a fiscal conservative point of view, a very, very conservative administration.

On the topic of social issues, the legislature, Republicans in the legislature have introduced bills to ban so-called critical race theory for diversity inclusion equity topics.

There's a recent bill that would ban teachers from talking about sexual orientation gender identity, whether these bills make it to the legislature or not.

These are things that are being discussed in Ohio.

What kind of impact do you think that has on people who want to decide to stay in Ohio or come to Ohio?

Where do these social issues how do these social issues impact Ohio when it comes to trying to attract people and retain people?

Well, first of all, I'm not in favor of critical race theory being taught.

I think most Ohioans, maybe all Ohioans can agree that we don't want our first graders being taught about sex education.

I mean, so there's certainly some areas where there's common ground.

I've outlined what I think should be what should happen in schools, what schools should do.

As I've talked about before, I thought I was going to be a social studies teacher and in high school.

So, you know, rigorous debate in class is good, you know, holding kids so accountable so they not only have ideas or opinions, but they have some facts to back it up is probably a good thing.

You want to teach critical thinking, not critical race theory, but critical thinking is certainly something that we expect our kids to be taught and how to marshal their arguments.

And and in looking at history, looking at the original documents, looking at the Constitution, looking at the Bill of Rights, looking at the at the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, I mean, all of that, I think we should be able to agree on that.

These are important, important things to do.

But when it comes to a possible backlash to some of these bills that have been introduced, do you think that maybe that backlash is over, embellished?

Do you think people really care about these social issues?

Or do you think it's maybe like the the the loud minority that's caring much about this and that more people care about other issues other than these Well, certainly some people do care about it.

I mean, I think one of the things that we should be able to agree on is that parents need to be involved in school.

I mean, we want you know, we want our parents to be more involved in schools.

And being involved in school means being able to express to the school board say, look, we don't you know, we don't think you should be talking about this or you should not be involved in, you know, to take the extreme example of sexual education for a kindergarten child when, you know, if that's going on in school, we would expect parents to not like that.

And I think we can say from the state, we don't we don't approve of that.

We don't want that.

You have challengers, Joe Blystone, Jim, Tennessee, both putting themselves as outsiders.

Of course, Jim Renacci did serve in Congress, but they say that Ohio needs an outsider to be governor.

And, of course, you've served in public office for a long time.

Why should voters not want an outsider?

Why is it important to have somebody who's been in public service for a long time?

Well, I'm not sure whether that's the issue.

I think the issue is, you know, how well what do people think about the job that I've done?

You know, from looking at from the holistic point of view, I think when the pandemic hit, it was helpful that I've been in public office for a while because I'd learned some things.

And frankly, you learn from your mistakes and the mistakes that I'd made in the past.

And we all make mistakes, and I certainly made them.

But when I analyzed them and thought about those that really came from me not getting enough information and drilling down and getting the facts.

And so when the pandemic hit, you know, we've I've tried to do that.

I tried to get as much information as I can before I make a decision.

I do that every day.

I do that every day.

Whatever the issue is, I try to pull information and find out you know what?

Look at what other states are doing.

For example, we have 50 states as great 50 laboratories of democracy, as they say.

We've had the opportunity to look and see what works and what doesn't work.

So I think that experience of seeing what works, what does not work, is very helpful.

In my role as governor.

I talked with DeWine's opponents by Zoom first, former Congressman Jim Renacci.

While Republicans want a Republican I mean, I'll I will tell you right up front, Mike DeWine runs a primary like he is a Republican, but then he operates and governs like a Democrat.

I have heard that time and time again, look at his policies.

We spend more.

I mean, we went from 76 billion to 80 billion.

We taxed more.

He raised the gas tax He says he's pro-life, but yet he hired a pro-abortion medical director.

And while he was shuttering businesses, which is also not a Republican, standard, while he was shuttering businesses, he relicensed an abortion facility.

Those are things that don't make you a Republican and you can't become a Republican right before the primary election.

Now he's trying.

I got to give Mike credit.

He's signing bills that he said he would never sign before because he's in a race and he is going to lose this primary if he doesn't get people to forget about his past and make them think he's a Republican.

You've talked a lot about issues like critical race theory, trans athletes in girl sports, what you called woke propaganda in schools.

What kind of impact do you think those kind of issues have on people who want to stay in Ohio or who are considering coming to Ohio?

And you think most people think as you do or do you think that this is a loud minority that you're speaking to here?

Well, I got to tell you one thing that this campaign, my campaign has done is we're talking to the people.

We've had multiple education forums.

We've actually called over 370,000 Republicans out of 950, got live responses and asked them what their number one issue is.

And I can tell you, out of the top five issues, education was one of them.

They want to eliminate CRT.

They want to eliminate social emotional learning.

They want to eliminate comprehensive.

By the way, why are we teaching comprehensive sex education to kindergartners through third grade?

These are the do you have examples of that?

Have you.

Do you have any examples of that?

And also of critical race theory being taught?

Because I've strongly reported that those things are not being taught in schools.

Well, I've got to tell you, we've had the studies and we've gone out.

I had a parent come up to me and one of our.

And by the way, it's recorded.

So you can see the parents saying that they're a seven year old son.

Came home and said the teacher said, you see your skin color, you're privileged, you see her skin color.

It was an African-American girl.

She's not privilege You need to understand your privilege.

She was shocked.

The parent was shocked.

There was another parent and another form that talked about the same issue.

So yes.

And this is on tape.

So it's not like Jim is just saying this.

We had 250 people at one of our education forums and the parents were talking about these issues that they were very concerned about the parents and we had to form.

So I travel the state.

I talked to the parents.

Absolutely.

They are concerned that their children and by the way, I actually had one parent show me one of the things that they were being taught that third grader was being taught, which actually was talking about sexual activities.

I mean, this is a shame.

This is unbelievable.

And as a governor, just step up and say, even if you don't believe it's happening, it would never happen under gymnasiums.

Are you concerned that you and Joe Blystone and Ron Hood will potentially let the anti DeWine vote and DeWine will go on to win the primary?

Well, if that happens, that happens.

Look, here's what here's what's important for your listeners.

DeWine can't get better than 40% of the vote.

That's where he's going to end up.

Mark my word, we have a poll today that has him at 34%.

I don't know.

And it fluctuates I've seen him at 32.

I've seen him at 39.

I've seen one.

There's only one poll out there that had him at 50%.

There was some Fox poll with 200 people.

Most of our polling it has him under 40, which means 60% of Republicans do not support Mike DeWine.

So in the end I have to be able to get more than 40% of the vote.

And I'm hoping that most people look at the other three, the other two candidates and say, who has the best vision for Ohio?

You know, the other two candidates complain they hate this, they don't like this, they don't like government, they don't like that.

Well, here's what I say.

We have some good, principled people in Ohio government what we have to do is we just have to work with a vision to move Ohio forward.

That's how simple the Republicans and Democrats are going to like.

What I want to do because I want to work to make Ohio the powerhouse it used to be.

You and Joe Blystone in particular said that you're outsiders, though you were a congressman for eight years.

Why do you think being an outsider is important?

I mean, does experience count for something?

I mean, you just talked about your experience.

Oh, no, I think.

Like, this is the reason why I don't think Joe Blystone can win because he has no background notes variance.

You know, he couldn't even fill out a campaign finance report properly.

As three violations on campaign finance.

Yeah.

It's just amazing how a guy is even still in the race.

He's got a lawsuit against him.

He's got a whole bunch of things coming at him.

In the end, an outsider with some experience like myself.

Look, I went to Washington not because I wanted to be in Congress because my Chevy dealership was taken away from me.

So I did get to learn what it's like to serve.

I also spoke this week by Zoom with central Ohio farmer and businessman Joe Blystone.

People are just on fire.

A lot of energy behind.

What Governor DeSantis is doing in Florida is fighting for the people he's representing.

You know, many speeches I give people come up to me after the fact and say, Joe, you know, we love every single thing that you say.

We want you to lead us.

And I don't even I don't like that word lead.

I don't want to be anybody's leader.

I want you to hire me on filling out your resumé.

I want you to look at it I want you to hire me to represent your voice in Columbus.

I want to show that a blue collar working farmer can go to Columbus and bring the power back to the people where it's been stolen from for decades.

You talked about changing the tax structure and that that's really important here.

But a lot of your campaign has been about issues like critical race theory, woke propaganda, these sorts of issues that are kind of social issues What impact do you think that those issues really have on people who want to either stay in Ohio or want to come back to Ohio?

And do you think most people view as things as you do, or do you think you are speaking for a loud minority?

No, I think there's a big majority of folks that obviously a lot of conservatives that, you know, they're not they're not out there being loud because that's not a conservative way.

They're there.

They're kind of quiet conservatives.

They don't like the fight.

They don't like to cause a ruckus.

Like many of the many of these crazy woke lefties, organizations, they say they want to be part of a community, a positive community.

They they want goodness they want godliness and they want to be able to have have have the I guess the sense that if they when they send their child to public school, that they're truly getting an education.

You know, I believe our public school system have become an indoctrination tanks, whether it's the critical race theory or the 1619 project or the SDL or the the gender identity that they're pushing.

I mean, there's no place for any of this stuff in the school districts.

You know, we have seven year olds that now you, you're trying to plant the seed that now they're trying to decide, well, maybe I'm not a boy or maybe I'm not a girl.

Maybe I don't know what I am.

I mean that you're either a boy or a girl.

You're that's the way God intended it.

And we should not be planning this seed with these little impressionable minds.

What they should be thinking about is what two plus two is what sound the cow makes or where their food comes from or.

Or why does the why is the earth round?

Or Why is the sun so hot?

I mean, simple things.

Let's let's get back to educating, reading, writing, arithmetic, science, American history, how about let's teach some civics?

Let's teach our young children what our flag means, why we flag it or why we fly it, why we should respect it.

Teach them that there's many men and women died so we could have this great free country and have conversations like this.

That's what we need to get our public education back to good old, honest education.

And not not pushing all these this the indoctrination of woke ism.

And you think that's happening?

You think that critical race theory is being taught in schools, though it's been reported it's not.

And sex education is not being taught to elementary school students.

You think it's actually happening?

It is.

Absolutely, yes.

I want to ask you if you're concerned that you, Ron Hood and Jim Rene's you're all kind of in this lane, could potentially split the anti-doping vote and then DeWine would win.

No, I know my opponent, Jim, is worried about that.

Hey, if he's worried about that, maybe he should drop out.

Jim Hennessy told me last year if I ever let him in a statewide poll, that he would drop out.

But I guess his word is not his word because he's staying in this actually, I beat him in two statewide polls, but here he still is.

So I think his ego is too big to do what's best for Ohio.

The last primary, DeWine won 499,000 votes.

We know that's pretty nail in this state, considering we have, I don't know, approximately 1.9 million registered Republicans, 8 million plus independents.

So, you know, again, we're in this mess because people don't show up at the ballot box in a primary.

They are many, many people that I've talked to all over the state.

You know, if they ever show up in a primary, a lot of times it's in a presidential election.

Year, and that's it.

So I believe being on the road for over a year, we have inspired a a silent majority out here of just good old, good old working class moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas that there were eyes wide open.

Right now they're paying attention.

They don't like the path that our country is going, let alone our state.

They want they want our country back.

The fourth candidate in the race, former Representative Ron Hood, did not respond to interview requests again.

These interviews had to be shortened to fit into this week's show.

But the complete interviews are on our Web site.

State News dot org click the Ohio election 2022 tab.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please follow us in the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright Morris and Arthur LLP Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Right is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Puerto right dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online At OHEA.org