House GOP scrambling as top two candidates in key Ohio race mired in separate controversies

House Republicans are scrambling to figure out their best course of action in the race to win Ohio’s 9th Congressional District seat after separate scandals engulfed the two Republican candidates seeking to replace Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH).

An audio recording of former state legislator Craig Riedel trashing GOP 2024 presidential front-runner Donald Trump was leaked last week, where Riedel claimed the former president was “arrogant” and stated he would not endorse Trump. The other candidate who has been backed by the House GOP, J.R. Majewski, who sought the office last year, reportedly drastically misrepresented his combat duty in Afghanistan.

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“Look, Donald Trump, he’s a different person than me,” Riedel said. “I don’t like the way he communicates. I think he is arrogant. I don’t like the way he calls people names. I just don’t think that’s very becoming of a president.”

Riedel has since endorsed the former president, claiming Trump’s policies on the border, taking on China, and fighting inflation are what’s needed in 2024 over President Joe Biden.

Tom E. Puskar/AP

While the leaked audio of Riedel has likely improved Majewski’s standing in the GOP primary, House Republicans are skeptical he can defeat Kaptur in the general, especially after falling short before. Ohio’s 9th District is rated as “Lean Democrat” by the Cook Political Report, making it an important race as Republicans look to flip the seat to maintain their majority in 2024.

Three unnamed sources reportedly told Politico that House Republicans are seeking a third candidate by the Dec. 20 filing deadline.

Questions surrounding Majewski, due in part to the report that he lied about his military valor, cost him the seat last year by 13 percentage points. In 2022, Majewski claimed he was an Air Force combat veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan, but the Associated Press found no records backing his claim and instead found evidence he was loading planes in Qatar.

Majewski later suggested that his missions in Afghanistan were classified.

“Unless he’s found somebody that knows he was in Afghanistan, and he can have some proof that he was in Afghanistan, I don’t know how he overcomes that issue,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) reportedly said of Majewski. “It’s a disqualifier for anybody that does it. I’m not saying he did. But so far, last I heard, he didn’t have a good answer.”

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Democrats are also targeting Majewski as being disloyal to Trump by claiming he previously called Trump an “idiot” in a direct message on social media. An image of the direct message was posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in April 2022. However, Majewski has claimed the evidence of the exchange is fake and “photoshopped.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to the National Republican Congressional Caucus for comment.