COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Republican Party has hit back at its former chairman who started a super-PAC designed to defeat President Donald Trump.
The party’s central committee approved a censure resolution Friday against former state GOP Chairman Matt Borges, pointing, among other reasons, to his working to support former Vice President Joe Biden’s Democratic bid for president.
Borges recently launched the Right Side PAC to target swing states, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and others, in an effort to persuade voters there to vote for Biden over Trump. The PAC currently is not focusing on Ohio.
He also supported Biden in the primary, saying at the time that the effort was not to stop Trump but rather to keep Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders out of the White House.
After winning election in 2016, though, Trump was instrumental in knocking Borges out of his leadership role with the state party. He backed Chairman Jane Timken, the current party leader.
“The party, and the people in it, are too good to be led by someone like Donald Trump, who is so bad,” Borges said in a prepared statement. “I understand that folks are mad at me today, but when they look back at this years from now, they’ll only be mad at themselves.”
The resolution strips Borges of his chairman emeritus role and “disassociates” the party from its former leader.
“We take this action on account of Mr. Borges’ misconduct and pattern of using his former status as the Ohio Republican chairman to advocate for proposals which had not been endorsed by the Ohio Republic State Central Committee,” the party wrote in its resolution.
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