'So ridiculous' MAGA candidate already giving GOP operatives heartburn: report

A Republican candidate's leaked comments about Donald Trump has turned a northwest Ohio primary race into a three-way dogfight.

After GOP candidate Craig Riedel's recorded comments about Trump – he called him "arrogant" and criticized his name-calling – were leaked to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, Republican Party officials recruited state Rep. Derek Merrin to prevent MAGA superfan J.R. Majewski from winning the primary to face longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, reported The Daily Beast.

“It’s a bit of a debacle in terms of recruitment, because I think J.R. would have lost head-to-head to either [Merrin or Riedel],” said a GOP source involved in Ohio politics. “But they’ll siphon off too many votes from each other.”

Riedel's comments have alienated the MAGA base, and Merrin carries a ton of baggage from his legislative career, but Majewski badly lost his 2022 race against Kaptur after he was caught significantly overstating his military record – and Republicans pointed to another incident after he notched a surprise win in the GOP primary.

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Majewski traveled to Washington, D.C., for meetings with party officials after his primary win, and sources told The Daily Beast the political newcomer best known for mowing Trump's face on his lawn visited the Decades nightclub and secured a table with bottle service, and a photo of him at the table later circulated among GOP lawmakers.

The candidate had a placard on his table identifying him as “Congressman J.R. Majewski.”

Republicans were already alarmed by his inexperience and bluster, but that incident was the last straw. “It was just so ridiculous,” said one of the GOP sources.

House SpeakerMike Johnson (R-LA) broke with other members of party leadership and endorsed Merrin last week, but he has a long history with disgraced Ohio state House speaker Larry Householder, who was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for corruption, and he fell short in a bruising fight last year in his own bid for the gavel.

Merrin was so certain he'd win the speakership in January 2023 that he made plans to remodel the chamber and upgrade lawmaker office signs to be “larger and more regal,” but he lost his bid to more moderate Rep. Jason Stephens, although Merrin has since declared himself the rightful leader of state House Republicans and has sued the speaker over control of campaign finance accounts.

Democrats, meanwhile, are watching the "juicy" infighting with delight as Kaptur seeks her 22nd term in office in a district that carried Trump by 3 points in 2020.

“They’ve put themselves in a very difficult position that they’re having a hard time figuring out how to get out of it,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Rusnak. “They trapped themselves.”