WASHINGTON — A Republican senator who cast one of seven GOP votes to convict a sitting president during his second impeachment trial was defeated Tuesday in a closely watched primary by a challenger who had the full backing of that former president, according to results tallied by state election officials. The outcome delivered a sharp rebuke to the dwindling faction of Republicans who had broken with their party during a period of intense partisan polarization, and it effectively completes a years-long effort to purge the party’s Senate ranks of those who defied the former leader at the most consequential moment of his post-presidency.
Sen. Margaret Alcott of Ohio, first elected in 2014, lost to state Rep. Daniel Forde by a margin of roughly 58 percent to 38 percent, with a libertarian-leaning independent drawing the remainder. The result was called shortly after 10 p.m. local time, once returns from the state’s suburban counties confirmed an insurmountable gap. Forde’s campaign headquarters in Columbus erupted in sustained applause, with the candidate taking the stage to country music and waving to a crowd of several hundred supporters.
The former president, who endorsed Forde in a social media post last year and held two rallies on his behalf in the closing weeks of the contest, celebrated the outcome in a statement posted to his platform late Tuesday, calling the result a total and complete victory for the movement. Forde, 44, a three-term state legislator known for his work on agricultural policy and rural broadband funding, had largely avoided policy specifics throughout the campaign. Instead he framed the race as a referendum on loyalty to the former president’s agenda, repeatedly replaying footage of Alcott’s impeachment vote at campaign events and in television advertisements that saturated the state’s media markets through March and April.
Alcott, 59, had been considered a reliable mainstream conservative for most of her tenure in Washington, voting with her party on tax cuts, judicial confirmations, regulatory rollbacks and foreign policy matters. Her impeachment vote, cast in February 2021, proved an enduring liability in a state where the former president had won by more than eight percentage points in the most recent presidential election. She acknowledged those dynamics in a concession speech that was notably brief. She said she cast her vote according to her conscience and the evidence before her, that Ohio Republicans had made their decision, and that she respected it. She left the stage without taking questions.
Over the preceding 18 months Alcott had made several attempts to repair relations with the party base, including voting against a bipartisan infrastructure package she had previously championed and publicly distancing herself from a pair of centrist colleagues with whom she had co-sponsored legislation. Those efforts did not appear to move primary voters in a meaningful way. Internal polling released by the Forde campaign in the final week showed the challenger with a lead of more than 20 points among registered Republicans who said they were certain to vote.
Political analysts said the result underscored how thoroughly the party’s primary electorate has realigned around personal fealty as the defining criterion for Republican candidates. Dr. Constance Webb, a professor of political science at Ohio State University who has tracked the state’s Republican politics for two decades, said what voters witnessed Tuesday was the final act of a purge that began the moment those impeachment votes were cast. She said Alcott survived longer than most because of her strong constituent-service record and her work on rural infrastructure, but that was never going to be sufficient against a well-funded challenger with this level of national support and a message that reduced the entire race to a single vote taken five years ago.
Forde is now heavily favored to win the general election in November in a state that has trended Republican at the statewide level for more than a decade. He will face Democratic nominee Priya Chandrasekaran, a first-time candidate and environmental attorney from Cleveland, who raised a competitive sum but confronts a substantial partisan disadvantage in a state the party has not won at the Senate level since the previous decade. National Democratic strategists said they did not plan to make a major financial commitment to the race, preferring to concentrate resources on states considered more competitive.
Alcott was the last of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict still seeking re-election in this cycle. The others have retired, switched parties, declined to seek additional terms, or were previously defeated in their own primary contests. Analysts said attention would now shift to whether any Republican incumbents draw serious primary challengers in future cycles simply for perceived insufficient enthusiasm toward the party’s dominant faction, rather than any specific cross-party vote or public break. Forde, for his part, said he looked forward to arriving in Washington to work on behalf of Ohio families and to support the agenda that the American people had endorsed.