YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Matt Dolan is something of an outlier in the GOP Senate race, but not based on any particular policy position.

Rather, Dolan has stood out as the lone GOP candidate who is not actively courting favor with former President Donald Trump.

That's not to say Dolan has any particular disagreement with Trump or his policies, but rather that he's made it a point to make policy central to his message, regardless of the national Republican conversation.

Dolan, who's resume includes his current role as a state Senator, which he's held since 2016. Prior to that, he also served as Assistant State Attorney General and a prosecutor in Geauga county, along with a private law office and part ownership of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team.

Dolan says his experience is what's convinced him that his best path to the United States Senate is to focus on issues.

“The problems that we're gonna face in Washington? I can solve them. I can be part of the solution, rather than just being a bomb-thrower and saying all the problems,” Dolan said on the 21 News Podcast.

When he begins discussing what those problems are in his view, he wastes no time laying blame.

“The Biden administration is destroying our economy, our education and our way of life,” Dolan said.

Dolans' campaign website lists a litany of issues and despite his garnering the ire of the former president, who has called Dolan the one candidate he would never endorse, his positions actually fall pretty much in line with all of the other candidates in the race.

In addition to longstanding conservative positions such as cutting taxes, opposition to abortion and increasing border enforcement, Dolan is also no stranger to the current culture war issues stoked in many right-wing spheres, such as fighting against “cancel culture,” opposition to teaching “critical race theory,” a collegiate-level school of thought regarding systemic racism that is not taught in K-12 schools in Ohio, and “election integrity,” although Dolan stops short of embracing lies about the outcome of the 2020 election touted by some other candidates in the race.

In a debate featuring all of the candidates put on by the Ohio Debate Commission, Dolan called President Joe Biden a legitimate, but failed, President.

Dolan does create a distinction on his opposition to teaching racism in Ohio schools, saying he is not necessarily opposed to teaching historic facts about racism, but rather simply wants to codify that teaching that any one race is superior than another should be prohibited, which is already not a part of any Ohio curriculum.

Dolan prefers a more pragmatic approach to politics, which sometimes includes pointing out the failures of his own party to achieve it's stated goals.

“I'm the only one in the race who has said 'ya know, when the Republicans controlled everything, the House and the Senate, and had Donald Trump, guess what? We didn't pass immigration laws,'” Dolan said as a means of arguing his track record of being able to achieve results.

When asked what his top three issues would be and how he'd get them accomplished, he said number one is the economy. Dolan said his economic policy is based on the five pillars of low taxes, less regulation, proper utilities, good infrastructure and better workforce development and education.

Second on his priority list is national security, which he sees largely through the lens of border enforcement. Dolan said there needs to be better distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration.

Dolan draws a stark contrast between himself and whoever the eventual Democratic nominee may be by saying that they are in support of taxing the rich to pay for social programs and Dolan sees that as stifling to job creation.

That's not to say Dolan is opposed to bipartisanship, though, pointing to his time in the Ohio Senate, getting members of both parties to support the state's budget.

“Where there is a line of agreement, you work as hard as you can to focus on that. An example of this would be the infrastructure bill. Rob Portman surgically negotiated the infrastructure bill which is essential to Ohio's growing economy. It was not the big monstrosity of a liberal wish list that everyone else was talking about. So there is an example where as a U.S. Senator, I would say Ohio needs those infrastructure dollars, because when you invest government dollars in infrastructure, you get private sector return almost immediately. That's where you find areas of compromise,” Dolan said.

You can listen to the complete conversation with Dolan here: