As a U.S. senator for less than five months, Republican J.D. Vance is hardly in a position to be a kingmaker.

But he’s giving it a try, endorsing Westlake businessman Bernie Moreno in next year’s Republican primary for Ohio’s other Senate seat held by Democrat Sherrod Brown.

In his Moreno endorsement, Vance said: “It’s time to turn the tides on the establishment insiders who sell out our country to special interests and elect more political outsiders like Bernie, who will always put America first in Washington, D.C.”

Like Vance, Moreno made his fortune in the private sector before looking to run for the Senate without ever holding an elected position and is a loyalist to former President Donald Trump.

Vance probably would not have emerged from last year’s crowded Republican primary without Trump’s endorsement. It was with Trump’s encouragement before that endorsement that Moreno got out of the Senate race. When Trump backed Vance, Moreno also supported him and helped the campaign.

Moreno said he was “honored” to have Vance’s endorsement in the March 2024 primary and he would “stand shoulder to shoulder with J.D. in the Senate.”

Moreno added: “The career politicians and establishment outsiders in both parties have failed us all, and just like J.D., I will be a fighter for Ohio’s workers and families against the corrupt special interests in the swamp.”

With the Republican primary more than nine months away, it is very early in the campaign for an endorsement.

While Vance has been an active senator, he’s only held the job since the beginning of this year.

His endorsement isn’t going to make other candidates rethink entering the Republican race against Brown next year. The idea behind a Vance-endorsed candidate is to clear the field and avoid a messy primary like the one from 2022 that had Vance win, but with only 32.3 percent of the vote. Vance went on to beat Democrat Tim Ryan in the general election by 6.1 percent.

When Republican Rob Portman, the outgoing U.S. senator, backed Jane Timken, a former Ohio Republican Party chairwoman, about three months before the May 2022 primary, no one really reacted and Republican voters didn’t care. Timken finished a distant fifth of seven candidates.

Even if Moreno secures an endorsement from Trump, who remains popular in Ohio and is polling as front-runner for the GOP nomination for president next year, it isn’t likely to scare anyone off.

Trump had kind words for Moreno on April 12, writing that the “highly-respected businessman” would “not be easy to beat, especially against Brown, one of the worst in the Senate!”

State Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, the only other announced Republican candidate for the Senate seat, incurred Trump’s wrath during last year’s Senate campaign for being critical of the former president’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election and for calling the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol a “failure of leadership.”

Dolan wasn’t going to get Trump’s endorsement for the 2024 primary and Vance wasn’t going to back him. Dolan lost last year’s Republican primary to Vance, finishing third while running a largely self-funded campaign including $10.6 million of his personal wealth. During the first three months of this year, Dolan gave $3 million to his campaign.

Moreno gave $3.81 million of his own money to his last Senate campaign, dropping out two days after the filing deadline in 2022.

Moreno has said self-funded candidates for Senate is “fundamentally bad for democracy” and he wouldn’t “buy a Senate seat.”

Moreno’s campaign said he raised $500,000 in the first week as a candidate. He’s going to need considerably more than that.’

Two other current Republican officeholders are looking at the Senate seat.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose told me last month he definitely would be a Senate candidate if he believed he could raise the money for a strong campaign. He said he will announce this summer, but LaRose is essentially a lock to seek the position.

LaRose recently told a group of Republicans that Trump’s endorsement matters, but it’s not vital to winning a Senate seat.

Also, U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, is strongly considering a run with the backing of the Club for Growth, a well-funded conservative organization that backed ex-Treasurer Josh Mandel in last year’s primary ä he finished second ä and has distanced itself from Trump after a close association.