GOP candidate JR Majewski at a Trump rally in Vandalia, Ohio on November 7, 2022.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Craig Riedel, the leading GOP candidate in a competitive Ohio district, recently trashed Trump.It’s already cost him support from fellow Republicans — and boosted his primary foe, JR Majewski.Majewski was the party’s 2022 nominee and lost by 13 points after lying about his military service.
As it turns out, fealty to former President Donald Trump remains extremely important within the GOP — even if it may come at the expense of winning.
In Ohio’s 9th congressional district, some state Republicans are now coalescing behind JR Majewski, a candidate who lost to Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur by 13 points last year — despite Trump winning the district by 3 points in 2020.
An Air Force veteran who now works in the nuclear security industry, Majewski was largely abandoned by national GOP leadership last year after the Associated Press reported that he had misrepresented his military service.
He also once subscribed to the “QAnon” conspiracy theory — painting “Trump 2Q2Q” on his lawn — and brought a group of 60-70 people to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, later declaring that he was “pissed off at myself” for not entering the building.
After Majewski launched a comeback bid in April, he withdrew from the race in May due to a family health issue, only to re-enter the race again in October.
The leading Republican candidate this cycle has been Craig Riedel, a former state representative who’s boasted endorsements from House GOP leadership, a Koch Brothers-aligned outside group, and dozens of state legislators.
So why are Republicans suddenly flocking to Majewski?
In part because Riedel was recently caught saying bad things about Trump.
‘A different person than me’
Late last week, Riedel was caught on leaked audio saying that he would not seek Trump’s endorsement as he wondered why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wasn’t “gaining more traction” in the 2024 race.
“Look, Donald Trump, he’s a different person than me,” said Riedel. “I don’t like the way he communicates. I do think he is arrogant. I don’t like the way he calls people names.”
We obtained EXCLUSIVE leaked audio exposing @craig_riedel who is running as a Republican in Ohio’s 9th District, bad-mouthing President Trump while simultaneously showcasing endorsements on his website from some of Trump’s biggest supporters including Jim Jordan and Elise… pic.twitter.com/ivN1IP8XHn
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 8, 2023
Things have swiftly gone south for Riedel, despite him rushing to endorse Trump as he called Majewski a “proven loser.”
Rep. Max Miller, an Ohio Republican who served in the Trump administration, rescinded his endorsement of Riedel. US Senate candidate Bernie Moreno switched his endorsement from Riedel to Majewski. And both Sen. JD Vance and US Senate candidate Frank LaRose endorsed Majewski after having stayed on the sidelines.
In an interview at the Capitol on Tuesday, Vance denied that his endorsement was driven by Riedel’s leaked comments, saying he believed Majewski was bound to become the nominee anyway.
“It seemed like a pretty stupid gaffe,” said Vance. “But I was not going to endorse Craig regardless.”
The death knell for Majewski’s campaign last year was his claim that he’d served extensively in Afghanistan, including going 40 days without running water.
“I lost my grandmother when I was in Afghanistan, and I didn’t get to see her funeral,” he said on a February 2021 podcast appearance, according to the New York Times.
In reality, records viewed by the AP showed that he mostly served in Japan — where he was demoted for drunk driving — before a 6-month stint in Qatar, where he helped load planes that then traveled to other bases, including in Afghanistan.
When Business Insider interviewed Majewski in Toledo last year, he struggled to address questions about those claims, ultimately declaring that “taking a shower with running water or not is not the highlight of my career, and I don’t understand why it continues to be a question.”
In response to an inquiry from Business Insider on Wednesday seeking clarification on how much time Majewski spent in Afghanistan, campaign spokeswoman Erica Knight said that the candidate had “engaged in numerous missions in and out of Afghanistan” and that “all comments published claiming he did not serve inaccurately discredit the service of a Veteran.”
The campaign also provided a letter from last year that did not offer further clarification on his Afghanistan claims, other than to say that the Air Force did not “track the daily movement” of support crew members like Majewski’s flights in and out of Afghanistan.
Yet since last year’s election, Majewski has been able to claim vindication on two points.
The US Air Force recently added the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal to his record, an acknowledgment of his service in Qatar that says little about whether he was actually in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Air Force found that his military records had been improperly released to an opposition research firm.
But on Tuesday, Vance appeared to believe that Majewski had been mostly vindicated and that national Republicans had “[run] from a fight as opposed to leaning into it” last year.
“I won’t pretend to know everything about it, but my understanding based on his service record, based on conversations with JR, is that he did spend some time in Afghanistan,” said Vance.
Asked about Majewski’s January 6 ties and past adherence to QAnon, Vance again argued that Majewski’s nomination was a done deal, despite Riedel’s superior fundraising and party support.
“Look, I’m sure that there are many things that we can do differently as a party, that JR could do differently as a candidate,” said Vance. “I think he’s going to be the nominee, and I see my job as helping Republican candidates win.”
Meanwhile, the Ohio state GOP — despite recently endorsing Trump — says it’s staying out of the primary for the Toledo-area House seat.
“At this time, there is no plan for the Ohio Republican Party to get involved in the OH-09 primary,” said party spokesman Dan Lusheck. “We look forward to working with our eventual nominee to defeat Marcy Kaptur and expand Republican control of the US House of Representatives.”