Trump last month called Club for Growth President David McIntosh to complain about a TV advertising campaign the conservative organization was running targeting Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, and asked McIntosh to take the ads down. The commercials attacked Vance by using footage of him from 2016, when he described himself as a “Never Trump guy” and called Trump an “idiot,” “noxious” and “offensive.” The message was designed to hurt Vance in a Republican primary centered on fealty toward the former president. Vance, like others in the race, has cast himself as a staunch Trump ally.

But according to three people briefed on the call, Trump told McIntosh the commercials could have the effect of driving down his popularity in Ohio, which he won by 8 percentage points in the 2020 election. Prior to the call, Trump had been stewing over the ads and had complained about them to people in his circle…

Vance allies disputed the Club’s polling showing declining ratings for Vance. And in a statement saying the Club for Growth was “desperate to stop J.D.,” because he doesn’t share the group’s “globalist pro-China trade agenda,” Vance campaign manager Jordan Wiggins noted that the Club for Growth had worked against Trump in the 2016 presidential primaries.