Despite facing four criminal indictments, former President Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president this year.

Trump remains very popular in Ohio — which he handily won in 2016 and 2020, taking away its longtime swing-state status in presidential politics.

So, it was a huge victory for Cleveland-area businessman Bernie Moreno to get Trump’s endorsement in the three-man Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

Trump’s endorsement played the most significant factor in J.D. Vance’s 2022 emergence from a crowded Republican field for the state’s other U.S. Senate seat, propelling him to victory in his first run for elected office.

Moreno, who withdrew two years ago from the Senate race at the request of Trump, is hoping the former president’s coattails can help him emerge as victor in the GOP’s March 19 primary. The winner faces a formidable challenge in Democrat Sherrod Brown, seeking his fourth six-year Senate term.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, seeking the Republican Senate nomination, desperately tried to get Trump’s endorsement while state Sen. Matt Dolan, the third GOP candidate, was critical of the former president’s rhetoric, particularly about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, and had no chance to get Trump’s backing. Trump went after Dolan when the latter ran for Senate two years ago, finishing third in a seven-person race.

But Dolan is careful to say he supports Trump’s policies while not criticizing him, so as not to alienate the former president’s loyalists.

All these dynamics played out when the three Republican Senate candidates participated in this week’s debate.

“The reality is I’m the only one on this stage who’s enacted Trump policies,” Dolan said. “These two have spent a great deal of time deleting all of their past comments — hateful comments — on Trump. Now, again, because it’s in their political best interests, they’re now saying something completely different.”

Dolan said Ohio Republicans “know the only thing you can trust about my two opponents is that when the political winds change, they will change with it. I will not.”

The day before Trump’s Dec. 19 endorsement of Moreno, LaRose said the former president wouldn’t likely support anyone in the race.

Asked about that, LaRose deflected, saying, “What matters is action. What matters is a proven record. What we need is a senator who’s going to stand with President Trump. I’ve proven that’s exactly who I am because we have a country to save.”

LaRose said of Trump: “I stand with him on the policies that are going to save this country,” and “I will be an ally of President Trump in the United States Senate.”

Moreno, who frequently mentioned Trump’s endorsement throughout the debate, was asked if he would refute the backing if Trump is convicted of a felony — and he currently faces 91 of them in four different courts.

“All of those charges are completely trumped up,” Moreno said. “It’s election interference. They’re completely illegitimate. These are insane judges. We have a county right now where the current president (Democrat Joe Biden) is using the justice system against his top opponent.”

Moreno said Trump endorsed him because “he knows who Frank LaRose is and he doesn’t think Frank will have his back and understands that dynamic. I think it’s extremely horrific that Frank would have lied and said President Trump told him something that he obviously did not tell him” regarding not endorsing in this Senate race.

LaRose said he wasn’t a liar.

“What Ohioans don’t care about is a bunch of bickering from a couple of corporate elitists,” LaRose said, regarding Moreno and Dolan.

Moreno again said of LaRose: “He just called President Trump a liar, to be clear.”

Moreno also went after Dolan, saying while the state senator says he supports Trump’s policies and not his rhetoric, “that’s how he gets these pathological Trumpers to support his campaign. The reality is he does not support President Trump’s policies.”

Dolan said he is the only candidate who has cut taxes, reduced regulations, helped small businesses and backed school choice like Trump.

“Bernie, I’m not going to sit here and lecture you,” Dolan said. “You don’t even understand what we’ve been able to accomplish in Ohio mirrors what Trump was able to do in Washington.”