With almost all candidates in contested Republican primaries nationwide frenetically trying to associate themselves with former President Donald Trump, one stands out for openly doing the opposite.
In a 12-way Republican race to replace retiring Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup in Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District, longtime local official Phil Heimlich is running in the state’s March 19 primary as an unabashed critic of Trump, on multiple grounds.
“In effect, Trump tried to overthrow our government,” Heimlich told me. “What he did was in a sense a coup d’etat: he tried to overthrow a valid election and inspired a mob to attack our Capitol.”
Heimlich said Trump’s coup involved much more than just the Jan. 6 riot. “It was the pressure on the Justice Department. It was the threats to the Georgia and Michigan state officials. The pressure he put on [Vice President] Mike Pence. The false electors. This was a combination of efforts to, in effect, overthrow the [incoming] government of the United States.”
The Ohioan’s criticisms of Trump don’t stop there.
“I am 100% behind supporting Ukraine,” Heimlich said. “If Ronald Reagan came back and saw members of his party praising Vladimir Putin or encouraging him to attack our allies … he would hang his head in shame. … [Trump] is friendlier to Putin than he is to our democratic allies.”
I believe Heimlich is right about most of that, but how can he expect these stances to win him a primary election in today’s extremely Trumpy Republican Party?
Actually, it’s simple math. Ohio’s primary sends to the November general election whoever wins a vote plurality, without need for an intraparty runoff to reach 50%. And it’s an “open” primary, meaning people can decide on Election Day which party’s primary to participate in, so people who often vote Democratic or independent can vote in the Republican races (but no other races) on that particular day.
Let’s assume that 80% of the district’s ordinary Republicans are pro-Trump. With 11 other candidates dividing that pro-Trump vote, it might be hard for any single one of them to reach 20%. If Heimlich can get most of the anti-Trump 20%, he therefore is in good shape. Now add in any anti-Trump Democrats or independents who want to vote in the GOP primary because the Democratic nominee has almost no chance to win in November in this very heavily Republican district. If Heimlich attracts most of their votes, too, he clearly has a reasonable chance to secure his plurality.
Heimlich, a 71-year-old former prosecutor (for 10 years), also has a voter base and a reputation as a solidly conservative four-term Cincinnati councilman plus a term as a Hamilton County commissioner. He seems utterly uncowed by the new Trump-dominated Republican establishment wherein Trump’s daughter-in-law was just elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee while pledging to have the party pay Trump’s legal bills.
Then again, Heimlich’s family is accustomed to fighting establishments. His father, thoracic surgeon Henry Heimlich, was the discoverer of the famous, eponymous abdominal thrust “maneuver” that since 1974 has been used to save the lives of countless people choking on food or other objects.
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“When he invented the Heimlich maneuver, he faced incredible opposition from the Red Cross and many medical authorities,” Phil Heimlich said about his father. “But he had the courage to stand up for what he thought was right. And the result is so many lives saved.”
Readers and voters might want to see a metaphor there for this Heimlich’s battle against the current Republican Party commissars.