Don’t blame Mandel for the lack of attention. He’s desperately sought the spotlight with outlandish stunts and a willingness to say anything that he thinks might resonate with voters—in fact, that’s been the sole constant throughout his political career. Mandel once ran on bipartisan appeal, but he’s since cycled through other identities—Tea Partier, proto-Trumpist, and now Big Lie true believer—as they serve him. You can accuse Josh Mandel of many things, and I will, but you cannot accuse him of insufficient hustle…

The central question of Josh Mandel’s career at this stage is what happens to a political wunderkind when he is no longer kind and no longer wunder, either. Out of office, with two failed Senate races behind him and his marriage crumbled, Mandel seemed to be in a tough spot, but he received a gift when Senator Rob Portman, a veteran moderate Republican, announced that he would not run for reelection in 2022. Mandel is determined not to let the chance go to waste. The campaign has been rocky, though, and the primary is still months away: He was thrown out of a Republican National Committee donor retreat he tried to crash. He was thrown out of a southwest-Ohio school-board meeting for a disruptive anti-mask stunt. Staffers have quit over the toxic environment of the campaign, including a tumultuous relationship between Mandel and a staffer…

If Vance is a phony, though, Mandel is what we might call a genuine phony: He makes little pretense of being anything other than a craven operator, as his years of changing guises show. This, more than any claims about fraudulent elections, is where Mandel really overlaps with Trump, another genuine phony, whose only authentic characteristic is his sense of grievance. Thanks to the former president, it might finally be Mandel’s turn.