LEBANON, Ohio — Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel spoke with a sense of urgency to the small group gathered inside a Sunday school classroom in First Baptist Church in Miamisburg.

“These elections, they’re not just about electing Republicans,” he said. “They’re about electing the right kind of Republicans.”

Mandel said the right kind of Republican is a Donald Trump Republican, and he wants to be known as the Trumpiest Republican in Ohio’s 2022 Senate race.

Back in January, moderate GOP Sen. Rob Portman announced he would not seek a third term.

The result? One of the most closely watched elections in the country that currently features six major Republican candidates, including five who have embraced Trump’s policies in hopes of landing his coveted endorsement.

Over the course of two days on the campaign trail in late October, Mandel clearly mapped out his approach to getting Trump’s attention.

“I believe the election was stolen from Donald J. Trump!” Mandel declared, to applause, at a candidate forum in Westerville.

The following day, he repeated the lie at the church in Miamisburg and at a rally inside a different church in Lebanon where the crowd responded with a standing ovation.

Though there’s no evidence to support the claim, which multiple courts and Trump’s own Justice Department rejected, Mandel is gaining supporters for his Senate bid by relentlessly pushing the 2020 election lie.

At Solid Rock Church in Lebanon, more than 400 people showed up — six months before the primary — to hear Mandel and cheer on the lie.

“I don’t really trust anything that the government says, so I do believe the election was stolen,” Kimberly Harsch, who lives in West Chester, Ohio, said.

“It’s the truth,” Charis Peterson, also of West Chester, echoed. “So, I mean, it’s great to make your campaign based on the truth.”

Mandel, 44, is a career politician and Marine Corps veteran who has served as a city councilman, state representative and Ohio State Treasurer. This is his third campaign for U.S. Senate in the last decade.

While nearly all of Mandel’s Republican opponents have embraced Trump, Mandel stands out not only for repeatedly pushing Trump’s election lie, but for campaigning almost exclusively in churches.

“I believe the only way we’re going to save the country is by electing fighters and the only places in which we’re going to save the country are houses of worship,” Mandel told those gathered at First Baptist Church.

He spends his days meeting small groups of churchgoers for breakfast or lunch and his nights holding what he calls “Faith and Freedom” rallies, all in an effort to appeal to Ohio’s many evangelical voters.

During his events, Mandel rails against abortion, Critical Race Theory and the “Republican Establishment” that he claims is filled with traitors.

“The fight we’re in today is a fight for good over evil,” Mandel said in Miamisburg.

Pastor John Michael LaRue decided to endorse Mandel, on the spot, after hosting him for the first time at First Baptist Church.

He called Mandel’s church strategy “brilliant,” but cautioned him to make sure it doesn’t push some voters away.

“I think there could be a danger of communicating that ‘hey, I’m only a candidate for people that are in church,’” LaRue told Spectrum News. “It’s actually a candidate for everyone in our state, but it’s saying that the best thing for the people in our state would be arising from convictions that they find in the faith community.”

Mandel went viral this summer when he tweeted a video of himself burning a face mask with the caption “FREEDOM.” To date, he won’t disclose if he’s been vaccinated against COVID-19.

He’s also repeatedly called the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters a “peaceful rally” of “patriots.”

This past Monday, Mandel got in the faces of demonstrators who were protesting a symbolic vote to ban abortion by the city council in the southwest Ohio town of Mason.

In an interview with Spectrum News, Mandel said it all shows his commitment to be a disrupter in the Senate and to take on so-called “Republicans-in-name-only,” or “RINOS.”

“These RINO, traitor Republicans like [Utah Sen.] Mitt Romney and [Wyoming Rep.] Liz Cheney and [Ohio Rep.] Anthony Gonzalez, that's not my path,” Mandel said. “My path is the other way. I'm going to Washington to be reinforcements for [Ohio Rep.] Jim Jordan, [Texas Sen.] Ted Cruz, Donald Trump.”

At his rally at Solid Rock Church in Lebanon, Mandel spoke alongside Jenna Ellis, an attorney who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election.

Former State Rep. Candice Keller, who has publicly supported conspiracies about vaccines and mass shootings, also spoke at the event.

“He reminds me of God’s man for the hour,” Keller said of Mandel, comparing him to King David.

Mandel’s bear-hug of everything Trump could help him get the former president’s coveted endorsement and win the crowded GOP primary, but it could then repel the independent and conservative Democratic voters he would need next November.

What’s clear is that although Trump’s name is not on the ballot, he is casting a large shadow over the race.

The five other Republican candidates are former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken, Cleveland investment banker Mike Gibbons, Cleveland entrepreneur Bernie Moreno, author and venture capitalist JD Vance, and State Senator Matt Dolan.

On the Democratic side, Northeast Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and progressive attorney Morgan Harper are running.