Petroleum Politics in Late October

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  In 2024, the book explains, the Democrats' problems involved reality, not just messaging.  Two years later, Republicans own the reality problems, including the Iran quagmire and the resulting economic pain.

 Natassia Paloma at The El Paso Times:

Gas prices remain above $4 a gallon nationwide as crude oil prices hover near $100 a barrel.

As of Friday, Oct. 23, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $4.29, down about 20 cents from a week earlier but still more than $1 higher than the same time last year, according to AAA.

Diesel prices averaged $5.75 a gallon, compared with $3.11 a year ago.

Will Kubzansky at Bloomberg:

Gas prices in two Midwestern battleground states saw further hikes on Thursday as the region's market grapples with a refinery issue in Illinois.

In Michigan, prices rose to $4.74 a gallon on Thursday, up from $4.59 a gallon on Wednesday, according to GasBuddy, a fuel savings app that tracks prices in live time. In Ohio, prices stood at $4.34 a gallon, up from $4.05 a gallon on Wednesday. GasBuddy's prices differ slightly from those released by AAA, which issues nightly updates on prices.

A shut-down of a key unit at ExxonMobil Holdings Corp.'s Joliet, Illinois, refinery had already pushed prices significantly higher on Wednesday in both states.

Giulia Carbonaro at Newsweek:

Millions of homeowners across the Northeast could pay more to heat their homes this winter, as heating oil prices remain high after surging in the months following the start of the Iran war in late February.

While over 90 percent of U.S. households use natural gas and electricity to warm their homes, heating oil is still widely used in the Northeast, a particularly cold-weather region. According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), only four percent of households nationwide used heating oil as their primary heating source, while five percent used propane.

...

Maine has the nation’s highest share of homes relying on heating oil as the main heat source, according to the latest state-level Census Bureau data available on fuels used in homes, which refers to 2022, at around 50 percent. The number was obtained by calculating the proportion of occupied housing units whose main heating fuel was “fuel oil, kerosene, or other.”

New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Alaska and Rhode Island follow with shares between 37 percent and 25 percent. Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania are next with shares between 20 percent and 12 percent.

Peter McGuire at Maine Public Radio:

Maine heating oil has hit a new record high price as the federal government scrambles to stabilize prices ahead of cold winter weather.

The average statewide price was $6.04 per gallon on Oct. 19, according to the Maine Department of Energy Resources, which tracks weekly oil prices. That means it will cost about $750 more to fill a 275-gallon oil tank than it did a year ago, according to the department.

 

Dirty Vivek

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Oppo is part of the story.

First, Senator Eric Schnitt's attack on Jack Smith for alleged perjury blew up in comical fashion.

Second, the false story about Talarico's purported mental treatment blew up when video confirmed that he was at home the whole time.

Now, Ramaswamy hits a now low.

Charles Hilu at National Review Online:

The mother of Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton cut an ad Monday in which she accuses her daughter of lying about her childhood and encourages voters not to make her their next governor, but legal documents obtained by National Review provide 
evidence that Acton faced sexual abuse as a child while in her mother’s custody.

 Donna Arthur, Acton’s estranged mother, says in the ad that life in Ohio “will only get worse” with Acton in the governor’s mansion, and she disputes parts of Acton’s personal history. But Acton has long maintained — even before becoming a political candidate — that she grew up in an unstable home when she lived with her mother following her parents’ divorce, even spending a winter in a tent in a campground outside of Youngstown and enduring sexual abuse by one of her mother’s male partners. Court records confirm many key parts of Acton’s account of her life.

“She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life,” Acton’s mother says in the ad.

While Donna Arthur was married to Cledith Arthur in 1978 when Acton was 12 years old, Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with her, documents show. Evidence against him included a sworn statement from Acton’s biological father, and Acton herself was called to testify as a witness. Following his indictment by a grand jury, Cledith Arthur skipped town.

Donna Arthur also has her own criminal history, including pleading guilty to theft by deception while living in Pennsylvania in the 1990s and being accused of animal abuse as recently as 2021.

Following the ad’s release Acton, who is locked in a tight race with Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy, put out a statement from her brother confirming the candidates’s side of the story.

“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Philip Stearns, the brother, said in a press release from the campaign. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

Let's get into it .. ☕ Acton Mom Attack Ad First of all anyone whose worked on campaigns (me), knows every piece of media must be labeled with "paid for by." Under Ohio Revised Code Section 3517.20, state campaigns must conspicuously use the specific phrase "paid for by" followed by the name of the entity, explicitly banning generic terms like "paid political advertisement". If an outside Political Action Committee (PAC) or individual buys an ad supporting a governor without the campaign's involvement, state laws usually mandate that the ad explicitly state "not authorized by any candidate" alongside who paid for it. Furthermore.... Under Ohio Revised Code Section 3517.105 and Section 3517.20, a political advertisement that is not sponsored or authorized by a candidate's campaign (known as an independent expenditure) must explicitly tell the public that the ad is unauthorized and state exactly who paid for it. The disclaimer must include a clear statement showing a total lack of coordination with the candidate. It must contain the Name and Address of the chairperson, treasurer, or secretary of the organization or PAC responsible for the ad. In Ohio, if an individual is acting completely alone and paying with their own personal funds, they are entirely exempt from the political disclaimer rule. So one or more things can/may be true: This is a rogue actor who paid for by himself (low probability). Vivek's camp funded it, didn't report it as a campaign expense or media, then floated it to an NPC who ran it on X. A PAC, donor, or outside funding source paid for it, didn't reported, and floated it to an NPC. Buckle up.

— The Constitutionalist 🇺🇸 (@WeWillBeFree24) October 20, 2026

Is Trump a Secret Asset of the DSCC?

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November.  The only question is how much.

Jonathan Martin at POLITICO:

As the traditional start of the campaign season draws near, though, Republicans are increasingly worried they may be consumed by a worsening prairie fire.

“He’s in serious trouble in farm country,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told me. “He being Trump — and Trump is us. I’m not very optimistic.”

The triple-whammy of tariffs, expensive diesel and fertilizer and now imported beef has created a crisis for agriculture-state Republicans.

...

The culprits are obvious: the exorbitant cost of living, Trump’s deep unpopularity with the political center and the massive enthusiasm gap Democrats enjoy over Republicans.

The fear, GOP officials tell me, is that these sentiments are increasingly becoming locked in with voters; that the grim political environment — caused by spiking gas prices after the ceasefire with Iran collapsed last month — is close to irreversible. Or to borrow from Haley Barbour, that sage of Mississippi: In politics, good gets better and bad gets worse.

For months, the shorthand conversation among political professionals has not been if this will be a difficult election for Republicans but whether it will be 2018 or 2006.

Which is to say: Will 2026 bring a backlash against the party in power, but one largely confined to House losses because of polarization, limiting Democratic strength in Senate races? Or will there be a greater wave that grows high enough to sweep out Republicans thought to be safe, flipping both chambers of Congress in the process?

Once Iran hostilities restarted and it became clear that there would be no Supreme Court vacancy, as there crucially was in 2018, the answer became clear. Republicans would not be able to get off defense and lacked the court fight that would hand them their best opportunity to go on offense.

 WSJ editorial: 

The November midterm elections will be in part a referendum on President Trump’s border taxes, and most polls show them losing. A new poll by Overton Insights and the Texas Public Policy Foundation finds that tariffs are unpopular in the Lone Star State, especially among Hispanics. Houston, Republicans have a tariff problem.

The survey, which was shared with us exclusively and will be released next Wednesday, shows that Texans overall disapprove of his tariffs, 54% to 46%. Texans who didn’t vote in a party primary—generally independents and folks who are less partisan—disapproved of them, 68% to 32%. Hispanics gave them the thumbs down, 69% to 31%.


The latter is especially notable because Mr. Trump won 55% of the state’s Hispanic vote in 2024, no doubt in part owing to frustration with Democrats’ handling of inflation. But Hispanics also strongly oppose the President’s blunderbuss border taxes targeting trade partners like Mexico and Canada, which raise costs for consumers and businesses.

The Texas economy is heavily exposed to tariffs because of its cross-border trade and integrated supply chains with Mexico. Texas traded $303 billion in goods with Mexico and overall exported $299 billion of manufactured products in 2025. The latter include electronics and computers ($71 billion), chemicals ($55 billion) and transportation equipment ($29 billion).

Because Texas is the largest state exporter of goods, it suffers a bigger brunt from retaliatory tariffs, such as those that Canada plans to levy on the U.S. in response to Mr. Trump’s tariff escalation. In case he hasn’t noticed, the tariffs have become an albatross for Republicans in close races across the country, including Texas.

Trump's Errors Threaten GOP Senate Seats

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November.  The only question is how much.

The beef issue is a classic concentrated-losers/diffuse-gainers situation.  The GOP was in a similar bind in 1986 with oil prices.

Coming soon to a Democratic attack ad near you:

TRUMP: “We'll by Argentinian beef.”

Reporters:' What about the US farmers who are suffering?'

Trump: “Argentina is fighting for its life. Do you understand me? They’re dying.”

He says this as 77 American cattle producers are going out of business in the US per day.…

— ThePatrioticBlonde™🇺🇸 (@ImBreckWorsham) August 23, 2026

Trump has restarted a trade war with Canada.  Bad economics, bad politics.

David Frum at The Atlantic:

More than 30 percent of Ohio’s exports go to Canada, and almost 40 percent of Michigan’s. Both states will this year elect a U.S. senator and fill open governor’s seats. Not only is Trump putting at risk his party’s position in purple Michigan, but suddenly the races in beet-red Ohio look in jeopardy too. These states may turn control of the Senate—and Trump’s chances of facing meaningful accountability next year for his law-breaking and corruption.

Trump’s theory of his trade war, like his theory of his Iran war, is that the bigger bully always wins. Size counts for a lot, but not for everything.

As Trump has declared over and over again, his ultimate goal in this trade war is to add Canada as a 51st state. Why? To make the United States look bigger on the map. For that goal, which excites ultra-MAGA crackpots, Trump is hazarding not only America’s most important trading relationships but very possibly every other political equity he holds, including avoiding investigations and accountability by a Democratic House and Senate after January 2027

The GOP Does Not Have a Lock on the Senate

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

The Iran war and the resulting economic turmoil have made a Democratic House very likely and made Senate Republicans nervous about holding their majority.

Nate Cohn at NYT:

In recent polls, Democrats appear tied or ahead in four Republican-controlled seats — the number they would need to take the Senate. These include Maine and North Carolina, where the likely Democratic nominees hold clear leads, as well as Ohio and Alaska, where Democrats have recruited strong candidates in states Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024. There are also signs that Republicans could be in danger in two more states where Mr. Trump won by double digits: Iowa and Texas.

...

In the Trump era, Democratic Senate candidates haven’t had much success at winning in red states. They failed to flip vigorously contested seats in Texas, Tennessee and Montana in 2018 and 2020. And most Democratic red-state incumbents — including those in Florida, Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri — lost re-election. Today, every Democrat in the Senate represents a state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Looking even further back, no party has managed to flip two states that leaned so much toward the other party since 2008. Only one such seat (Illinois in 2010) was flipped in a regularly scheduled election; two more flipped in memorable special elections (Massachusetts 2010 and Alabama 2017). Most of these victories took extraordinary circumstances, like a criminal conviction, a child molestation allegation or a bank seizure.

This time, Democrats aren’t benefiting from anything as unusual as a criminal conviction.

Instead, they’re counting on a favorable national political environment, strong candidates and the possibility that several of these states may not be quite as Republican-leaning as they seem.

Erin Doherty, Lisa Kashinsky, Liz Crampton, Aaron Pellish and Myah Ward at POLITICO:

Republicans were seeing some cracks in their best-case-scenario map even before the war began.

Party operatives were originally bullish about holding North Carolina and Ohio and flipping Georgia. Then, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his retirement, leaving an open seat in a key battleground state. Republicans nominated former RNC Chair Michael Whatley, and Democrats countered with former Gov. Roy Cooper, who has wide name recognition and strong fundraising chops.

“This is a pretty close state, and it’s a close race,” said a GOP operative in the state. “But with the national environment looking as tough as it is right now for Republicans, and you already have an established governor like Roy Cooper, that’s why I think he’s got the advantage.”

Democrats scored another recruiting win in former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, another prolific fundraiser. Early public polling shows the three-term former senator running neck and neck with GOP Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the vacancy left by JD Vance’s ascension to the vice presidency and suffers from lower name recognition than is typical for an incumbent.

“I think we’re back in 2018 where the headwinds were against Republicans,” said former Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, who unsuccessfully challenged Brown that year. “I mean, I ran against Sherrod Brown in 2018 and the national electorate was about a D plus 6 to 8. I think we’re getting about that same place in Ohio.”

In Georgia, a messy three-way GOP primary has Republicans increasingly uneasy about their prospects against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has amassed a massive war chest.

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.