Why did Husted break with GOP on key vote?

There are two possible explanations for U.S. Sen. Jon Husted's vote last week in favor of a Democratic amendment to thwart President Donald Trump's so-called anti-weaponization fund. One is principles, and the other is politics. On the principles side of the ledger, we suppose it's possible that Husted, an Upper Arlington Republican who almost always toes the party line, had genuine objections to the fund. It is widely regarded as a slush fund to reward Trump's allies and supporters. (Democrats put forward the failed amendment while the Senate was working on a reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement. The bill passed the Senate last week. It passed the House on Tuesday.) The fund was part of what could charitably be described as a settlement between the U.S. government and Trump, who had sued the government he runs over the improper release of his tax records. In exchange for dropping his lawsuit, Trump got $1.776 billion to disburse to those who supposedly had been victims of government "weaponization." People who work for Trump were charged with determining who was deserving of the money. Although Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche assured Congress that anyone, regardless of political party, could apply for some of that money, everyone knew it was designed to reward Trump's supporters. (Blanche has since said that the fund isn't moving forward, but Trump has equivocated.) Among those expected to be in line to receive taxpayer money were people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol in a failed effort to prevent certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election. (For the record, Joe Biden won that contest.) Trump pardoned the attackers, including those who had assaulted police officers. Unsurprisingly, the idea of giving taxpayer dollars to people who beat police officers wasn't politically popular. It even proved too much for some Republicans, including those in Congress who have spent the past year and a half bending the knee to Trump. That blowback led to Blanche's retreat on the fund, but there still weren't enough Republicans willing to vote in favor of the Democratic amendment. The measure failed, with 50 votes against it and 49 in favor, with Husted joining Democrats and two other Republican senators — Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Dan Sullivan — who are viewed as politically vulnerable this year. Which brings us to the second and more likely reason that Husted voted in favor of the amendment: He, too, is up for reelection this year and is among Democrats' top targets. Indeed, last week Fox News released a poll that showed Husted trailing his Democratic rival, former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Columbus, by 8 percentage points. The results, which pegged Brown's support at 53 percent compared to Husted's 45 percent, were outside the poll's 3-point margin of error. Naturally, Husted's team downplayed the poll. "Polls will go up and down all summer," campaign spokeswoman Amy Natoce wrote in a statement sent to Spectrum News. "What won't change is that voters fired Brown two years ago after looking at his record, and they're not willing to go backwards now." She's correct that poll results do change over time. For example, Brown was running behind Husted in other organizations' polls taken in April, March and December. With the Fox poll, taken between May 28 and June 1, factored in, Brown and Husted are tied at 47.5 percent each in the RealClear Politics polling average. And while Brown did indeed lose to now-U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Avon in 2024 by less than 4 percentage points, the Fox poll showed he has a chance of beating Husted in a state that Trump won that same year by about 11 points. It also gives some data to help explain why. In November 2024, Fox News reported, 52 percent of Ohioans viewed Trump positively while 46 percent viewed him negatively. But the latest polling from Fox found those numbers roughly inverted. Now 42 percent of Ohioans view Trump positively, while 57 percent view him negatively. Meanwhile, 41 percent of Ohioans viewed Husted favorably, while 50 percent viewed him unfavorably. Brown was viewed favorably by 53 percent of those polled compared to 44 percent who held an unfavorable view of him. Oh, and the poll found that inflation and high prices were the top issue for 43 percent of voters. Affordability has been a persistent concern since before Trump returned to the White House on a promise to bring prices down. That hasn't happened in part because of Trump's damaging trade wars and the fallout from the war with Iran, which caused gas prices to spike. Given the poll results, it's understandable that Husted might want to put a little distance between himself and Trump. Besides, Republicans know how to count and apparently concluded that they could lose three votes and still defeat the Democratic amendment. That Husted was among the politically vulnerable Republicans who broke ranks is a clear indication of just how concerned his party is about his chances in November.