How Republican Rob Portman May Derail the Trump Train in Ohio
Senator Rob Portman speaks during a news conference at the Oakley Kroger Marketplace store to announce the supermarket chain's decision to offer the opioid overdose reversal medicine Naloxone without a prescription on Feb. 12, 2016, in Cincinnati.
AP Photo/John MinchilloRob Portman may have been the last of nine senators to abandon Donald Trump in the day after the revelation of his sexual-assault boast, waiting until well after dark on Saturday to rescind his endorsement. But while the delay may have indicated caution, Portman’s language did not reflect a wrenching deliberation. “I had hoped to support the candidate my party nominated in the primary process,” Ohio’s junior senator explained in an austere six-sentence statement. “While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him.”
If Portman’s words were relatively free of drama, it is because the public unhitching of his fortunes from Trump’s merely formalized an inevitable divergence of their objectives. Already by Labor Day, polls showed him on the precipice of a landslide against his Democratic challenger, former Governor Ted Strickland, with little sign that Trump interfered with his plans. Public polls indicate at one in seven Ohioans is on a trajectory to back both Portman and Hillary Clinton.