YOUNGSTOWN — Mike Gibbons, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, said “endorsements don’t mean a lot” but acknowledged his campaign was hurt when former President Donald Trump decided to support J.D. Vance.

Gibbons was in the Mahoning Valley on Monday, the day before today’s primary, to campaign and tout the endorsement of Bo Pelini, the former Youngstown State University football coach.

“Frankly most voters don’t remember an endorsement after it happens and luckily they’ll be voting” today, Gibbons said Monday.

Gibbons said he never asked Trump for his endorsement, but the former president made a “mistake” when he backed Vance, an author and venture capitalist.

“I’m not sure what the reasons are,” Gibbons said. “I can tell you this: if you are a conservative — and most people who are going to vote in the Republican primary are conservative — you have to doubt whether J.D. Vance is conservative.”

Gibbons said Vance’s support from Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder who gave $13.5 million to a super political action committee to help Vance’s Senate candidacy, likely played a role in Trump’s decision.

Vance is “backed by a big-tech guy from the West Coast and he put $13.5 million into his campaign,” Gibbons said. “Imagine how much he could put into Donald Trump’s campaign.”

Gibbons, a multimillionaire investment banker, has put more than $17 million of his personal wealth into the campaign.

Gibbons said his self-funding helped him emerge as a little-known candidate into a top contender for the Senate seat.

“I kind of like the way it’s shaping up,” he said. “In polling, I lost a good bit when the J.D. Vance endorsement came through. But I think Ohioans are assessing what that endorsement means. Everyone that I’ve talked to, everyone except for one person that I’ve talked to, has said they still maintain their support for me. They like Donald Trump’s policies, but they think Donald Trump made a mistake.”

At a Sunday rally in Greenwood, Neb., Trump was touting the candidates he was endorsing when he said: “We’ve endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel and he’s doing great.”

Gibbons said: “We have a lot of goodwill of a lot of Ohio voters, and I don’t think they’re going to abandon me because of an endorsement where the president doesn’t even seem to know the name of the guy that he endorsed.”

Gibbons said if he loses today’s primary, he’ll back the Republican nominee because “I’d endorse a door knob rather than the Democrat.”

But if Vance wins, Gibbons said, “I feel bad for Ohio. If somebody can move in from out of state and with outside of the state money come into this state with really abandoning it until it was time to run for the U.S. Senate and the state elects that individual then I feel sorry for the voters in this state. I don’t think the voters of this state are going to be duped into that.”

Gibbons was also critical of the two other Republican front-runners: former state Treasurer Josh Mandel and state Sen. Matt Dolan.

He called Mandel “a career politician.”

Regarding Dolan, he said the state senator is not a “real conservative” and Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians, voted to change the name of the team from the Indians.

Dolan said he had no say in that decision.

Gibbons said of Dolan when “you’re succumbing to a lot of the locust cancel culture, do Republicans want someone who will change the name of their business because 12 people that are insulted by the name of the Indians who probably aren’t even Indians want you to change the name? I think the country is going in the wrong direction, and Mike Dolan just went in the wrong direction.”

Pelini said he supports Gibbons because “he’s not going to do things for political gain.”

Pelini left YSU after the 2019 season to become the Louisiana State University’s defensive coordinator. He was fired after one season at LSU.

Before coming to YSU, Pelini was head coach at the University of Nebraska, fired in 2014 for what the school said was “a pattern of unprofessional, disrespectful behavior.” Nebraska paid Pelini the rest of his $7.65 million contract in 51 monthly payments of $150,000.

Pelini said Monday: “I got criticized sometimes as a coach for not towing the political line. But what I always did was I stood up for my values and did what I believed was right for the places I coached and the kids I coached.”

dskolnick@vindy.com