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- GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel posted a wordless, 10-second video of himself setting fire to what appears to be a surgical face mask.
- Standing in a nondescript stairwell, Mandel uses a lighter to set fire to the mask, which he then drops on the floor.
- Mandel is attempting to position himself as the most far-right candidate in the GOP primary for Sen. Rob Portman's seat.
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Josh Mandel, a Republican candidate for the Senate from Ohio, on Tuesday posted a wordless, 10-second video of himself setting fire to what appears to be a surgical face mask.
Standing in a nondescript stairwell, Mandel uses a lighter to set fire to the mask, which he then drops on the floor.
"FREEDOM," he tweeted with two emojis alongside the video.
The far-right candidate, who was formerly Ohio's state treasurer, has focused his campaign on culture war issues and attacking Republicans he believes are insufficiently conservatives, appealing to former President Donald Trump's base. He's called the proposed bipartisan January 6 Capitol riot commission "a sham and waste of taxpayer money," attacked transgender rights, and suggested that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be imprisoned.
"America was better in every single way under President Trump," Mandel recently tweeted.
Mandel and many other Trump-aligned Republicans have used opposition to masks and other COVID-19 mitigation practices to signal their conservatism and appeal to the GOP base.
-Josh Mandel (@JoshMandelOhio) June 2, 2021
The Republican Senate primary to fill retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman is expected to be among the most expensive in the nation. Mandel is competing against former Ohio Republican Party chairwoman Jane Timken, tech executive Bernie Moreno, and financier Mike Gibbons. "Hillbilly Elegy" author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance, GOP Rep. Mike Turner, and Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan are also considering jumping into the primary.