How Sherrod Brown Lost Ohio

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Manu Raju and Clare Foran at CNN:

Sherrod Brown can boil down the loss of his Senate seat to this: Donald Trump and withering GOP attacks.

And the top of his ticket didn’t help him much, either.

As the veteran Ohio Democrat takes stock of the loss in his marquee race, he also has a blunt message for his party: Win back working-class voters or lose more elections.

“I think that we don’t appear to be fighting for them,” Brown said when asked why Trump won the same blue-collar workers whom the Democratic senator has prided himself in courting through the course of his three-plus decades in Congress. “Workers have drifted away from the Democratic Party.”

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, Brown bluntly criticized his party for not addressing voter concerns over rising consumer costs and declining economic conditions. And he accused Republicans — including his foe in the Senate race, Trump-aligned businessman Bernie Moreno — of distorting his record as he battled the headwinds at the top of the ticket.

...

 “I lost, but we ran ahead of the national ticket,” said Brown, who fell to Moreno by 4 points. “When the leader of your ticket runs 12 points behind, almost, you can’t overcome that, even though it was a close race in the end.”

Sixers and the Senate Cycle

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

The six-year cycle of Senate elections is crucial to understanding the chamber's partisan makeup.

A Senate class elected in a midterm will face reelection in a presidential ytors.ear, and vice versa.  The political conditions of the second will be different from the first.  A wave election brings in a set of senators who are vulnerable to defeat six years later.  The GOP took control of the Senate in the Reagan sweep of 1980, and lost it in 1986.  The GOP tied in 2000, suffered a big setback in 2006.  

STEVEN SHEPARD and KATHERINE TULLY-MCMANUS at Politico:

Democratic Sens. Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey have had a lucky streak of election environments since they first came to the chamber in 2006. That luck seems to have run out.

The first elections for Tester (Mont.), Brown (Ohio) and Casey (Pa.) coincided with a Democratic midterm wave after six years of George W. Bush in the White House. In their second campaigns, their party’s presidential nominee won the popular vote by 4 percentage points. The third? Another blue wave repudiating Donald Trump.

But 2024 is a different story. At best, the two parties face a neutral political environment, as evidenced by tied polling from the presidential race down to Senate contests.

...

The first elections for Tester (Mont.), Brown (Ohio) and Casey (Pa.) coincided with a Democratic midterm wave after six years of George W. Bush in the White House. In their second campaigns, their party’s presidential nominee won the popular vote by 4 percentage points. The third? Another blue wave repudiating Donald Trump.

House Race Tea Leaves

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  Democrats have  tended to do well in special elections during the past two years.

Politico Playbook:

If last night’s election returns were going to provide any surprises, they weren’t supposed to come out of Ohio’s 6th Congressional District.

In a special election race that got basically zero national attention, Republican state Sen. MICHAEL RULLI was thought certain to rout Democrat MICHAEL KRIPCHAK, a former Air Force officer and once-aspiring actor who quit a Youngstown-area restaurant job to run for Congress.

DONALD TRUMP, after all, had won the blue-collar, mostly rural district previously represented by GOP Rep. BILL JOHNSON by 29 points in 2022. Furthermore, Rulli raised nearly 30 times more than Kripchak’s shoestring budget.

Rulli, in the end, managed only a not-quite-10-point victory over Kripchak — a roughly 20-point swing toward Democrats versus Trump’s 2020 showing. More from AP

SPECIAL ELECTION TRACKER 

Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell at WP:

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) defeated a primary challenger last night who had pledged to join the House Freedom Caucus, dealing a blow to the hard-right group’s efforts to expand its ranks.

More than a thousand miles away, North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak easily beat another Republican who said he would join the Freedom Caucus, Rick Becker, in the race for the seat Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R) gave up to run for governor.

The results are the latest repudiation of hard-right candidates in GOP primaries this year, after Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.) and Mike Bost (R-Ill.) narrowly beat challengers to their right.

Timmons’s and Fedorchak’s victories are also a less than encouraging sign for Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the Freedom Caucus chairman who is facing a tough primary of his own next week.

Good and several other Freedom Caucus members had endorsed state Rep. Adam Morgan — who lost to Timmons 52 percent to 48 percent — and Becker. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who isn’t a member of the caucus but is often aligned with it, also backed them.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) also easily survived her primary, defeating two challengers.

She was the first of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership to face a primary challenger. (One of the others, Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.), resigned in March, and another, Rep. Matt Rosendale (Mont.), isn’t running for reelection.)

Mace said before the results came in that she wanted her victory to embarrass McCarthy.

“I hope I drive Kevin McCarthy crazy,” she told the New York Times.

Ohio Senate

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

As in California, the Akin ploy worked again.

Steven Shepard, Madison Fernandez and Zach Montellaro at Politico

Donald Trump got his man in the Ohio Senate race — but so did Senate Democrats.

Bernie Moreno’s victory Tuesday in the fractious Republican primary demonstrated the former president’s sway: He helped drag Moreno to a runaway win.

It set up what will likely be the premier and potentially decisive race for control of the Senate between Moreno and vulnerable Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. But Moreno is also the candidate for whom Democrats pined — one of the party’s top super PACs meddled in the primary to boost Moreno in the final week of the race, viewing him as the easiest to defeat in November.

Moreno’s win capped a strong night for the former president down the ballot: Trump went three-for-three in competitive primaries, boosting Moreno and two other House candidates who won close races.

But there were also warning signs for Trump as hundreds of thousands of Republicans — particularly in suburban areas where the GOP has struggled in the Trump era — chose Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis on the presidential ballot, despite the fact that neither is an active candidate anymore.

The Moreno spot 

Trump Rhetoric

 Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display yesterday in Ohio.  Marisa Iati at WP:

Former president Donald Trump ratcheted up his dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants Saturday by saying that some who are accused of crimes are “not people.”

“I don’t know if you call them people,” he said at a rally near Dayton, Ohio. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was in Ohio to stump for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is in a tight three-way race for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Moreno, a businessman, is facing Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s primary.

...
Later in the rally, Trump warned it will be a “bloodbath for the country” if he is not elected. The comment came as he was promising to hike tariffs on foreign-made cars, and it was not clear exactly what Trump was referring to with his admonition.

“Now we’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across [the] line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys — if I get elected,” he said. “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
...

Immigration is shaping up to be an explosive issue in the presidential campaign. Trump and President Biden staged dueling visits to Texas border towns last month, castigating each other for a recent surge in illegal immigration.

Trump said the influx of migrants was “a Joe Biden invasion.” Biden blamed Trump for the death of a $20 billion bipartisan bill to increase detention capacity and hire thousands of Border Patrol officers.

Trump’s comments Saturday represent an escalation of his long-harsh language on the topic. Since beginning his 2016 campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists,” Trump has made inflammatory attacks on migrants a theme of all of his campaigns. He accused immigrants in October of “poisoning the blood of our country” — a remark some likened to the “contamination of the blood” concept that Adolf Hitler laid out in “Mein Kampf.” Trump has rejected that comparison and has continued to use similar language.

 Trump has been referring to nonwhite people as "animals" for a very long time.

Trump began attacking DeSantis again right after DeSantis signed legislation to allow the release of grand jury documents in the Epstein case. https://t.co/LQ04FSD9M1

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) March 16, 2024

Abortion and a Ballot Measure in Ohio

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. Abortion was a big issue in the 2022 midterm. It will probably be a big issue in 2024.

 Dennis Aftergut at The Hill:

On Tuesday, Ohio voters handed the state’s Republican legislature, and its Issue 1, a stinging defeat. By an overwhelming margin, they followed a 2022 pro-abortion rights trend set by voters in other states, including red ones like Kansas, Kentucky and Montana.

They also sent a 2024 message for national politicians.

Following the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, voters in the three Republican-majority states named above — like voters in Democratic-majority Vermont, Michigan and California — stood up for their right to be free of government attempts to enter family homes and end women’s bodily freedom. More on that in a moment.

In Ohio, Issue 1 was an anti-abortion wolf in constitutional process clothing. Everyone knew the Ohio legislators’ cynical anti-choice motive animating the measure. They were changing the rules for amending the state’s constitution in an attempt to accomplish their aims by stealth.

Fervent GOP opponents of abortion rights sponsored Issue 1 to raise the threshold on citizens’ ability to establish those rights through the ballot box. If voters had approved it, Issue 1 would have raised the minimum required to adopt new constitutional provisions by popular vote, like one set for abortion rights in November, from a simple majority to 60 percent of voters. The current requirement, 50 percent plus one vote, has been in place since 1912.

Buckeye Scamster

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

David A. Fahrenthold at NYT:

J.D. Vance was not running for office. He said it irked him when people assumed that. Instead, in 2017, he said he had come back to Ohio to start a nonprofit organization.

Mr. Vance gave that organization a lofty name — Our Ohio Renewal — and an even loftier mission: to “make it easier for disadvantaged children to achieve their dreams.” He said it would dispense with empty talk and get to work fighting Ohio’s toughest problems: opioids, joblessness and broken families.

“I actually care about solving some of these things,” Mr. Vance said.

Within two years, it had fizzled.

Mr. Vance’s nonprofit group raised only about $220,000, hired only a handful of staff members, shrank drastically in 2018 and died for good in 2021. It left only the faintest mark on the state it had been meant to change, leaving behind a pair of op-eds and two tweets. (Mr. Vance also started a sister charity, which paid for a psychiatrist to spend a year in a small-town Ohio clinic. Then it shuttered, too.)

Mr. Vance is now the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, running on a promise to tackle some of the same issues his defunct organization was supposed to have. On the campaign trail, he has said his group stalled because a key staff member was diagnosed with cancer.

...

During its brief life, Mr. Vance’s organization paid a political consultant who also advised Mr. Vance about entering the 2018 Senate race. It paid an assistant who helped schedule Mr. Vance’s political speeches. And it paid for a survey of “Ohio citizens” that several of the staff members said they had never seen.

The collapse of Mr. Vance’s nonprofit group was first reported last year in Insider. Now, Ohio Democrats use the group as an attack line. “J.D. Vance was in a position to really help people, but he only helped himself,” says an ad created by Mr. Vance’s opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan.

Ohio Throwaway

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Sometimes parties throw away easily-winnable seats by nominating bad candidates.

Ally Mutnick at Politico:

The House GOP campaign arm is slashing a near-$1 million ad buy meant to target Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) — essentially walking away from what could have been an easy pickup for the party.

The move comes a day after an Associated Press report that Kaptur’s opponent, JR Majewski, lied about his resume, including claiming that he deployed to Afghanistan. Majewski beat out two state legislators in a May primary contest for the northwest Ohio district.

The National Republican Congressional Committee booked $960,000 in the Toledo, Ohio market to help boost Majewski. It cut that buy entirely on Thursday, according to two sources familiar with the committee’s media purchasing.

Kaptur, one of the longest-serving women in the House, was redrawn into a district that President Donald Trump would have carried narrowly, making her one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents. National Republicans were not initially enthused about Majewski’s primary win — he is closely aligned with the MAGA wing of the party and gained fame for painting his lawn into a giant Trump shrine.

But they still booked TV time in the district and were set to begin airing ads to help him next week. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, meanwhile, traveled to the district to campaign with him over the summer.

House Democrats have been heartened that GOP primary voters in several districts have chosen more conservative candidates over moderates who would perhaps have more appeal in a swing seat. Ohio was one example: House Majority PAC, Democrats’ flagship congressional super PAC, and Kaptur have been airing ads hammering Majewski for traveling to D.C. for the Jan. 6 riots and painting him as anti-police.

Abortion and the Midterm

 Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses how polarization has affected American life.  Abortion is a central issue in our national divide.

Arrest made in rape of 10-year-old #Ohio girl who was barred from getting an abortion in her home state. https://t.co/CEegNKXPgj Many had considered the child's story a "hoax." Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan has deleted his tweet calling it "another lie." https://t.co/3e8aKbO311

— Patt Morrison (@pattmlatimes) July 14, 2022

David Siders, Adam Wren, and Megan Messerly at Politico:

In the three weeks since the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe, Republicans poised for a winning midterm election have strained to keep public attention squarely on President Joe Biden’s weak job approval ratings and on inflation, fearful that abortion — a deeply felt issue that polls poorly for conservatives — could lift Democratic turnout and push moderates away from the GOP.

The case has become an instant flashpoint in the nation’s abortion wars, alarming Republicans as they try to use abortion to rally base voters without alienating the majority of Americans who say abortion should remain legal in at least some circumstances.

But the case of the pregnant 10-year-old has laid bare how uncontrollable GOP messaging around abortion may be. Not only were right-wing media outlets and Republican politicians who cast doubt on the story forced to backtrack once the facts of the case were confirmed, but the hits to Republicans appear likely to keep coming.

On Thursday, Jim Bopp, the National Right to Life Committee’s general counsel, inflamed the issue when he told POLITICO that the 10-year-old girl should have carried her pregnancy to term – a statement he later said resulted in him receiving death threats.

Despite what GOP leaders and strategists would prefer, the story is unlikely to fade quickly. Later this month, Indiana’s state legislature plans to convene a special session explicitly to pass new curbs on abortion, likely becoming the first state to do so in the wake of the Dobbs decision that reversed the national right to abortion enshrined by Roe in 1973.

Vance Wins Ohio Primary

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Jonathan Swan and Lachlan Markay at Axios:

If J.D. Vance follows his Tuesday night victory in Ohio's Senate primary with a general election win in November he'll arrive in a Washington filled with enemies and be seen as arguably the hardest-edged populist nationalist in the Senate GOP.

Why it matters: The Republican establishment privately regards Vance with the same disgust many felt toward Donald Trump when he entered the White House on Jan. 20, 2017.

The big picture: Vance's victory deals a body blow to a small but noticeable resurgence of anti-Trump — or post-Trump — sentiment in the GOP.Republican Trump critics staked their hopes on state senator Matt Dolan, who accused Trump of peddling "lies" about fraud in the 2020 election and blamed him for the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

But even with four solidly pro-Trump candidates in the race — Vance, Josh Mandel, Mike Gibbons and former Ohio GOP chair Jane Timken — Dolan was unable to marshal a plurality.

 ...

Between the lines: Amid a wave of retirements by more traditional Republican Senators such as Ohio's Rob Portman, Alabama's Richard Shelby and Missouri's Roy Blunt, Vance could be one of a handful of Republicans reshaping the ideological makeup of McConnell's conference.Vance has made statements on the campaign trail that have repulsed establishment Republicans, including members of Senate leadership. Major Republican donors — including the powerful Club for Growth — spent millions trying to defeat him.

He won a crowded GOP primary running on a position that directly opposes most Senate Republicans — including Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) — on one of the major issues of the day: the Russia-Ukraine war.

Details: McConnell has pushed President Biden to do more to help Ukraine win the war — more weapons, more money. Vance has said Ukraine is not America's problem. He said on Steve Bannon's podcast shortly before Russia invaded its neighbor: "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another."

"J.D. Mandell"

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

.@JDVance1 completely abandoned everything he said he believed in to secure Trump's endorsement and Trump can't even remember his name https://t.co/4iyPCK6aAn

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) May 1, 2022

New from me: In 2018 @JDVance1⁩ attended the E2 summit where Romney hosted an elite group of RINOs and globalists.

Guess his MAGA pivot was later than he says!

“J.D. Vance Cavorted With Romney Resistance During Second Year of Trump Presidency” https://t.co/ATj9g6gD20

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) April 29, 2022

Odd Comments by Senate Candidates, Continued

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.   

Alex Rogers and Michael Warren, CNN

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is seeking the Republican nomination for US Senate in Pennsylvania, said Wednesday that he would renounce his Turkish citizenship if elected, after one of his top primary rivals questioned his allegiance to the United States.

"My dual citizenship has become a distraction in this campaign," the former daytime TV personality said in a statement. "I maintained it to care for my ailing mother, but after several weeks of discussions with my family, I'm committing that before I am sworn in as the next U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania, I will only be a U.S. citizen."

On Tuesday, the website PoliticsPA reported that Oz had said he would keep his Turkish citizenship, even if it forced him to forgo security clearances as a senator. The Oz campaign denies that the candidate said that but did not provide CNN with audio of the exchange, which took place during a news conference in Harrisburg. There appears to be no requirement that elected members of Congress renounce their citizenship of other countries in order to attend classified briefings.

ICYMI: Gibbons also seemed to imply in a different interview that American jobs moving to China would ultimately benefit Americans https://t.co/ZSKj7RzmPv

— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) March 16, 2022

Odd Comments by Senate Candidates

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.   

Felicia Sonmez at WP:

Herschel Walker, the leading candidate for the Republican Senate nomination in Georgia, questioned evolution at an event over the weekend, asking why apes still exist if humans have evolved from them.

Walker made the remark Sunday during an appearance at Sugar Hill Church in Sugar Hill, Ga.

Polls show that Walker, who has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump, is the overwhelming favorite in the race for the GOP nomination to face freshman Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) in the fall.

“At one time, science said man came from apes. Did it not?” Walker asked Chuck Allen, lead pastor of Sugar Hill Church, during Sunday’s event

 “Every time I read or hear that, I think to myself, ‘You just didn’t read the same Bible I did,' ” Allen replied.

Walker continued: “Well, this is what’s interesting, though. If that is true, why are there still apes? Think about it.”

Steve Ulrich at PoliticsPA: 

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz said today that he would forego certain security clearances that are provided to all U.S. Senators to keep his dual citizenship with Turkey.

Oz was speaking to a group of reporters about the role David McCormick and his former hedge fund – Bridgewater Associates – played in the management of the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS).

When asked about his dual citizenship with the United States and Turkey, Oz explained that he keeps his Turkish citizenship to care for his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. When queried what he would do if this would disqualify him from security clearances, Oz agreed that he would forego them in this situation, noting “I can love my country and love my mom.”

 

Since this is now a thing: members of congress do NOT get security clearances; clearances are an Executive branch function and Members don't need it by virtue of their offices. Members do have to take an oath they won't disclose classified info, but that's a different matter. pic.twitter.com/jEgVXmR0Ac

— Daniel Schuman (@danielschuman) March 16, 2022

The New York Times dug up a 2013 podcast when Mike Gibbons offered some offensive stereotypes about Asian people.
Who knows how this will play in the #ohsen GOP primary, which is sort of a competition of outrageousness. https://t.co/6UvfAJWiqK

— Laura Hancock (@laurahancock) March 16, 2022

Vote Fraud Is Rare in Ohio

 

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  Voter fraud is extremely rare.

From Ohio's Republican Secretary of State:

Today, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose transmitted 62 referrals of potential election fraud to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost or local county prosecutors for further investigation and potential prosecution. Of these, 31 are non-citizens who registered to vote but did not cast a ballot. The other 31 may have cast a ballot in the 2020 general election or illegally in an earlier election.

Included in the 31 potentially illegally cast ballots are 27 that were cast in the 2020 general election. Of the record-breaking nearly 6 million votes cast in that election, the 27 votes account for 0.0005 percent of the total.

“Here are the facts: Ohio smashed voter turnout records in 2020 while providing Ohioans a secure election,” said LaRose. “Our state is proof positive you don’t have to choose between secure or convenient elections -- we have both. In Ohio, easy to vote and hard to cheat aren’t mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, these referrals are all about accountability. Lawbreakers should know we take election security seriously, and we won’t tolerate even one unlawful vote to go unpunished on my watch.”

The referred cases are divided into three different areas: 1) non-citizen voter registration or voting; 2) voting on behalf of the deceased; or 3) double voting in Ohio.

Gonzalez to Retire at 36

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties.

The state of the GOP is not good. 

Jonathan Martin at NYT:

Calling former President Donald J. Trump “a cancer for the country,” Representative Anthony Gonzalez, Republican of Ohio, said in an interview on Thursday that he would not run for re-election in 2022, ceding his seat after just two terms in Congress rather than compete against a Trump-backed primary opponent.

Mr. Gonzalez is the first, but perhaps not the last, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to retire rather than face ferocious primaries next year in a party still in thrall to the former president.
...

Mr. Gonzalez said that quality-of-life issues had been paramount in his decision. He recounted an “eye-opening” moment this year: when he and his family were greeted at the Cleveland airport by two uniformed police officers, part of extra security precautions taken after the impeachment vote.

“That’s one of those moments where you say, ‘Is this really what I want for my family when they travel, to have my wife and kids escorted through the airport?’” he said.

Mr. Gonzalez, who turns 37 on Saturday, was the sort of Republican recruit the party once prized. A Cuban American who starred as an Ohio State wide receiver, he was selected in the first round of the N.F.L. draft and then earned an M.B.A. at Stanford after his football career was cut short by injuries. He claimed his Northeast Ohio seat in his first bid for political office.

Mr. Gonzalez, a conservative, largely supported the former president’s agenda. Yet he started breaking with Mr. Trump and House Republican leaders when they sought to block the certification of last year’s presidential vote, and he was horrified by Jan. 6 and its implications.

Still, he insisted he could have prevailed in what he acknowledged would have been a “brutally hard primary” against Max Miller, a former Trump White House aide who was endorsed by the former president in February.

Yet as Mr. Gonzalez sat on a couch in his House office, most of his colleagues still at home for the prolonged summer recess, he acknowledged that he could not bear the prospect of winning if it meant returning to a Trump-dominated House Republican caucus.

J.D. Vance

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  

A few years ago, I went to a book party to support Vance’s book... in NYC.

He was there.

In NYC.

Regaling the “elites” with his Appalachia stories over cocktails & hors d’oeuvres.

He was all smiles, toasted the crowd, and warmly embraced those he now attacks for cheap points. https://t.co/RWoD6yIP1p

— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) July 11, 2021

J.D. Vance in April 2016:

"Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office."https://t.co/srthCN2w4W pic.twitter.com/x4dsYS4nJx

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) July 6, 2021

Suburban Blues

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update -- recently published -- looks at political and demographic trends through the 2018 midterm.  Suburbs are an important part of the story.

At CalMatters, Ben Christopher writes of the suburban collapse of the California GOP.

Your average suburban voter has clearly soured on President Trump. But the definition of “average suburban voter” has changed over the last two decades, as the suburbs swelled. Much of that population growth has been driven by immigrants and lower-income migrants from nearby cities.

The electoral flipping of the suburbs has been particularly dramatic in Southern California’s inland regions.

The most dramatic example: California’s 60th Assembly district, centered around the City of Corona in the western Inland Empire. When Republican Eric Linder won the seat six years ago by 23 percentage points, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 5 points.

But in 2016, the district swung. Democrats now topped Republicans — and voters replaced Linder with the current Democratic Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes. At last count, district Democrats hold at 11 percentage point lead over Republicans.

The trend away from the GOP may have been supercharged by the state’s housing crunch as younger people, renters, Black and brown Californians — in other words, the Democratic Party’s base — have fled inland seeking cheaper shelter.

Thomas Beaumont and Julia Carr Smyth at AP:

Republican lawmakers and strategists in Ohio say they are seeing research that shows a near-uniform drop in support from his 2016 totals across every suburban region of the state.

They say that Trump, who won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2016, maintains a yawning advantage in more rural areas and small towns. Still, Republicans are concerned that if he is losing badly in suburban areas in Ohio, it is a signal that Trump’s hold on other states in the industrial heartland that delivered him the presidency may be in peril.

“The million-dollar question becomes, how does that translate in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?” said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist who managed Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s 2016 reelection campaign. “It translates into probably not a very good night.”

Ohio has long been a bellwether. No Republican has won the White House without carrying the state since the advent of the modern two-party system, and no Democrat has since 1960.

Trump is faring worse than four years ago in communities in essentially all suburban areas around Ohio, from its major cities to its several mid-size metro areas, more than a half-dozen Republican operatives tracking races across Ohio say.

Trump has slipped in suburbs to the east and west of Cleveland, where he narrowly edged Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, they say. In the blue-collar suburbs of Youngstown, where Trump won by double digits, the same appears to be true.

In affluent suburbs, such as Dublin northwest of Columbus, 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney won by almost 20 percentage points. Four years later, Trump narrowly lost to Clinton. Less than two months before the 2020 election, Republicans were concerned about signs the trend in Dublin has continued, according to several GOP operatives following legislative and congressional races.

 

 

Pols Who Do Not Help the GOP Brand

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

A number of GOP pols are proving to be problematic for the party brand.

Will Sommer at The Daily Beast:

A believer in a conspiracy theory the FBI classifies as a possible domestic terrorist threat is in a prime position to soon be elected to Congress, after coming in first in a Republican primary in Georgia on Tuesday.

QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has frequently posted messages about the bizarre pro-Trump conspiracy theory on social media, handily leads the primary field of Republicans in Georgia’s heavily Republican 14th District. Greene, who beat her closest opponent by more than 20 percent, will head to an August run-off after receiving 41 percent of the primary vote.

Greene is an outspoken supporter of QAnon, a conspiracy theory based on a series of anonymous messages posted online by a mystery figure named “Q.” QAnon believers think that Donald Trump is engaged in a shadowy war against a cabal of global elites, including the Democratic Party, and will soon arrest or even execute top Democrats in an event they know as “The Storm.”

Despite such ludicrous claims, Greene has praised QAnon. In a video posted online, she called the anonymous “Q” a “patriot” and said that their predictions had been accurate.

“Many of the things that he has given clues about and talked on 4Chan and other forums have really proven to be true,” Greene said.

Greene’s QAnon beliefs haven’t stopped her from winning the backing of at least one high-powered Republican. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) endorsed her bid, calling her “exactly the kind of fighter needed in Washington to stand with me against the radical left.” Greene has also been boosted by $44,000 in spending and $78,000 in earmarked contributions from the House Freedom Fund, a PAC tied to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to campaign finance watchdog group Open Secrets.

Laura Bischoff at The Dayton Daily News:

During a hearing on whether to declare racism a public health crisis, state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, asked if “the colored population” is hit harder by the coronavirus because perhaps they don’t wash their hands as well as other groups.

Huffman, an emergency room physician, asked a witness before the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday why COVID-19 is hitting African Americans harder than white people.

“My point is I understand African Americans have a higher incidence of chronic conditions and it makes them more susceptible to death from COVID. But why it doesn’t make them more susceptible to just get COVID. Could it just be that African Americans or the colored population do not wash their hands as well as other groups or wear a mask or do not socially distance themselves? That could be the explanation of the higher incidence?” he said.

Ohio Commission on Minority Health Director Angela Dawson responded to Huffman: “That is not the opinion of leading medical experts in this country.” COVID-19 impacts the respiratory system so those with chronic conditions are more vulnerable, she said.

Ohio Legislative Black Caucus President Stephanie Howse, D-Cleveland, said Huffman’s word choice and question represent systemic racism.

Delay in Ohio Primary

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under way.  Coronavirus presents unprecedented challenges to the electoral process.

Zach Montellaro and Alice Miranda Ollstein at Politico:

Polls will not open for Ohio's primary election Tuesday after a late-night decision from Gov. Mike DeWine, effectively upheld by the state Supreme Court, to delay in-person voting until June in an effort to protect voters and poll workers from the coronavirus outbreak.

"During this time when we face an unprecedented public health crisis, to conduct an election tomorrow would force poll workers and voters to place themselves at an unacceptable health risk of contracting coronavirus," DeWine said in a statement.

The election was in limbo for several hours Monday night after a state judge in Columbus denied a last-minute attempt by the state to postpone the primary election. But DeWine responded with an unprecedented order closing physical polling places as the legal battle moved up to the Ohio Supreme Court. Early Tuesday morning, four judges on that court issued a unanimous, unsigned ruling declining to stop the state from shuttering polls. Three other judges on the court recused — two because they're currently running for reelection and the other because he is DeWine's son.

The ruling effectively overturns the Monday ruling from Franklin County Judge Richard Frye that the primary had to continue as scheduled. Frye said it was too late to move back the primary and that doing so would confuse and suppress voters.

Cautions for Republicans and Democrats

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House.

At The Guardian, Lloyd Green writes:

Donald Trump recast the Republican party in his own image, and on election day the Republican party paid a price. Despite low unemployment and a booming stock market, Team Trump lost control of the House of Representatives. America’s voters said: “It’s not just the economy, stupid.”

Rather, they made the election about the president, his persona, and Republican indifference to working Americans and hostility to the world around them. Pre-existing conditions became a Democratic rallying cry.

Sometimes cultural resentments can provide a path to victory. In other instances, they can go too far. Without Hillary Clinton on the ballot as a target and a distraction, enough of the US focused on Trump and did not like what they saw staring back when it came time to vote. 

The same authors also has cautions for Democrats, too.

At The Guardian, he writes of a new book about Luzerne County, Pennsylvania:

In The Forgotten – subtitled How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America – Ben Bradlee Jr, a former editor at the Boston Globe and the son of the Washington Post legend, chronicles his interviews with Luzerne residents. It is essential and disturbing reading.

...
Kim Woodrosky, a successful real-estate investor, a “flashy, attractive blond and self-described bigmouth”, according to Bradlee, is upset by the region’s “bleak” economic outlook and the bureaucratic burdens imposed by the Affordable Care Act. She voted for Obama in 2008, passed in 2012 and then backed Trump.

Woodrosky attributes Trump’s rise to his ability to voice understanding of their problems. As she put it: “Trump told the working class what they wanted to hear. ‘You’re the forgotten ones. You’re the ones Washington doesn’t care about.’”

...
Bradlee counsels Democrats to pay greater heed to white working-class voters, particularly on cultural issues. The party “will need to make more room for centrist voices if it wants to reach voters who now feel culturally alienated from its prevailing liberal orthodoxy,” he writes.

The bottom line is that political correctness is a turn-off. Slagging on so-called “deplorables” and lamenting attachments to God and guns is self-defeating. Like it or not, flyover country will continue to play an outsized and determinative role in presidential elections.

Yes, the Democrats flipped the House and consolidated their hold on college graduates and suburbanites. In the absence of a recession, however, the party stands to face the same electoral map it did in 2016. In fact, Ohio now looks an even tougher nut to crack. Much as the Democratic base loathes the president, reality cannot be wished away. Luzerne would be a good place for the party to start addressing this reality.