President Trump is headlining the Ohio Republican Party’s annual dinner tonight, the biggest fundraising event of the year.
The event is being held at the Columbus Convention Center, where an anime convention is also underway. As guests arrived in suits and dresses, anime vistors entered in costumes of superheroes and characters from Japanese animation.
Trump is expected to speak at 6, after visiting Nationwide Children’s Hospital with the First Lady and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. He also attended a fundraiser with US Senate candidate Jim Renacci.
Every Republican candidate on the fall ballot is expected to be at the dinner, along with several hundred party officials, volunteers and would-be candidates.
One Republican who won't be here is Gov. John Kasich, who hasn’t attended a state GOP dinner since Trump was elected and helped install party chair Jane Timken.
The state dinner has been planned for months, but it wasn’t known till last week that Trump would speak. Party chair Jane Timken says her pre dinner VIP reception - featuring a table of 10 guests for $10,000 - is a sell out.
