Sixteen Ohio county law enforcement officials endorse Matt Dolan for Senate

Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan, a Republican who is running for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat, has been endorsed by 16 elected law enforcement professionals in Ohio as the race for the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) ramps up.

In a release obtained by the Washington Examiner, the 16 law enforcement officials said they would back Dolan because of his “strong public record of supporting Ohio’s law enforcement community.” The list includes 14 county sheriffs and two county prosecutors.

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“Time and again, Matt has provided Ohio’s sheriff and police departments with the funding and programs we need,” the officials said in a joint statement. “He is running a campaign focused on policy solutions and putting the needs of Ohio first. That’s why we support Matt Dolan for U.S. Senate.”

Dolan, a centrist Republican from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, said he was “honored” to have the endorsements of the law enforcement officials. Prior to his time as a state senator, he was a former county prosecutor and an assistant Ohio attorney general. The Republican became a member of the Ohio state Senate in 2017.

“As a State Senator, I have made funding Ohio sheriffs and police departments a priority. In the U.S. Senate, I will oppose any effort by Democrats to restrain the ability of our nation’s law enforcement community to keep Ohio and America safe,” Dolan said.

The Republican candidate took a shot at Brown in the statement, saying the efforts by Democrats “like Sherrod Brown in Ohio and across America to demonize and defund law enforcement must be stopped.”

In February 2022, Brown signed on to a letter, along with other Democratic senators, that was sent to President Joe Biden urging him to “prioritize the demilitarization of law enforcement by limiting the transfer or purchase of certain military equipment for federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local law enforcement agencies.”

In the 2022 Ohio Senate race, Dolan unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination, getting 23.3% of the vote and finishing third in the primary behind Josh Mandel and eventual winner J.D. Vance. Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians, has the ability to self-fund his campaign, having given himself millions in his 2022 bid, per Federal Election Commission records.

Brown was elected in 2007 and has held the office since. Ohio has been trending Republican over the past decade, having gone for former President Donald Trump in the past two presidential elections. Also, in 2022 Ohio sent Vance to the Senate over former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), who ran as a centrist Democrat. Since 2011, Brown has been the only statewide elected Democrat in Ohio outside of the state Supreme Court justices.

The only other announced Republican candidate is Bernie Moreno, who has aligned himself with Trump. He previously ran for the Senate in 2022 but dropped out of the race after talking privately with Trump. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is also widely expected to join the race soon. NBC News reported last week that he had alerted Republican donors that he plans to get into the race “soon,” and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) is a member of the House Freedom Caucus and is being pushed by the Club for Growth to enter the race.

Dolan will likely be one of the only candidates not angling for Trump’s endorsement in the coming race.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) identified the Ohio Senate race as one of four Senate seats Republicans can flip that would help them take back the Senate.

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“Ohioans want a problem solver who has successfully faced big challenges impacting our quality of life, not the political blame game that lacks commonsense solutions,” Dolan said in his campaign announcement in January.

The 16 elected law enforcement officials who endorsed Dolan include Logan County’s sheriff, Harding County’s sheriff, Butler County’s prosecutor, Hancock County’s sheriff, Lake County’s sheriff, Belmont County’s sheriff, Knox County’s prosecutor, Morgan County’s sheriff, Champaign County’s sheriff, Washington County’s sheriff, Ashtabula County’s sheriff, Union County’s sheriff, Knox County’s sheriff, Fayette County’s sheriff, Madison County’s sheriff, and Licking County’s sheriff.