OH-SEN: Renacci Wins Weak Plurality

[Holmes]

At least Mandel had a record of winning statewide.

[IceSpear]

At least Mandel had a record of winning statewide.

In 2010 and 2014. Yawn. He also vastly underperformed every other statewide Republican in 2014.

[Alabama_Indy10]

At least Mandel had a record of winning statewide.

In 2010 and 2014. Yawn. He also vastly underperformed every other statewide Republican in 2014.

Win = Win

[IceSpear]

At least Mandel had a record of winning statewide.

In 2010 and 2014. Yawn. He also vastly underperformed every other statewide Republican in 2014.

Win = Win

The point is winning as a Republican in Ohio in 2010/2014 is hardly impressive. Underperforming every other statewide Republican showed his weakness as a candidate.

[Alabama_Indy10]

At least Mandel had a record of winning statewide.

In 2010 and 2014. Yawn. He also vastly underperformed every other statewide Republican in 2014.

Win = Win

The point is winning as a Republican in Ohio in 2010/2014 is hardly impressive. Underperforming every other statewide Republican showed his weakness as a candidate.

Not impressive? He was the best performing Republican in 2010.

[publicunofficial]

Vance for Senate talk already up in flames due to 1: being anti-Trump, 2: questionable residency.

I feel like nearly everyone who read his book and liked it would call themselves a moderate to conservative Democrat, I don't see him ever having a future in Republican politics.

[Rjjr77]

Vance for Senate talk already up in flames due to 1: being anti-Trump, 2: questionable residency.

Also he’s no more of an Ohio than Hillary is an Arkansan.

or a new yorker.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Vance for Senate talk already up in flames due to 1: being anti-Trump, 2: questionable residency.

Also he’s no more of an Ohio than Hillary is an Arkansan.

or a new yorker.

Actually, I'd argue Hillary has a far stronger claim to being a New Yorker than Vance does to being an Ohioan at this point.

[RogueBeaver]

Vance out.

[BuckeyeNut]

At least Mandel had a record of winning statewide.

In 2010 and 2014. Yawn. He also vastly underperformed every other statewide Republican in 2014.

Win = Win

The point is winning as a Republican in Ohio in 2010/2014 is hardly impressive. Underperforming every other statewide Republican showed his weakness as a candidate.

Not impressive? He was the best performing Republican in 2010.

Running against a candidate who had never run for office bigger than Columbus City Council...

It would be saying something if he was running against Cordray, who was originally elected to the position.

[Rjjr77]

Vance for Senate talk already up in flames due to 1: being anti-Trump, 2: questionable residency.

Also he’s no more of an Ohio than Hillary is an Arkansan.

or a new yorker.

Actually, I'd argue Hillary has a far stronger claim to being a New Yorker than Vance does to being an Ohioan at this point.

How? Vance at least has lived in Ohio, Clinton had not lived in New York 1 minute prior to running for Senate

[MAINEiac4434]

Vance for Senate talk already up in flames due to 1: being anti-Trump, 2: questionable residency.

Also he’s no more of an Ohio than Hillary is an Arkansan.

or a new yorker.

Actually, I'd argue Hillary has a far stronger claim to being a New Yorker than Vance does to being an Ohioan at this point.

How? Vance at least has lived in Ohio, Clinton had not lived in New York 1 minute prior to running for Senate

Actually she had lived there two months, and New Yorkers literally don’t care. How long had RFK lived in New York?

[BuckeyeNut]

Portman's endorsed Jim Renacci, signaling his further departure from the establishment wing in Ohio.

[The Other Castro]

Rand Paul endorses Mike Gibbons.

https://mobile.twitter.com/davidmdrucker/status/964206767436480513?s=12

[BuckeyeNut]

Rand Paul endorses Mike Gibbons.

https://mobile.twitter.com/davidmdrucker/status/964206767436480513?s=12

lolwut

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Rand Paul endorses Mike Gibbons.

https://mobile.twitter.com/davidmdrucker/status/964206767436480513?s=12

lolwut

LOL

[_]

Rand Paul endorses Mike Gibbons.

https://mobile.twitter.com/davidmdrucker/status/964206767436480513?s=12

lolwut

LOL

Kek

[NevadanAtHeart]

Portman's endorsed Jim Renacci, signaling his further departure from the establishment wing in Ohio.

Kinda a shame, Portman was one of the ones I liked.

[Bismarck]

Portman's endorsed Jim Renacci, signaling his further departure from the establishment wing in Ohio.

Kinda a shame, Portman was one of the ones I liked.

Um, isn’t the establishment backing Renacci? Who is he supposed to endorse?

[BuckeyeNut]

Portman's endorsed Jim Renacci, signaling his further departure from the establishment wing in Ohio.

Kinda a shame, Portman was one of the ones I liked.

Um, isn’t the establishment backing Renacci? Who is he supposed to endorse?

Gibbons, who is the Kasich candidate in the race. The current ORP establishment is not really “establishement” ideologically, but Trumpian.

[Free Bird]

I think we're underestimating Renacci. I still think Sherrod will win in the end at the moment, but Renacci is adopting a very Trumpy message, and that could siphon a fair number of votes away from Brown's blue-collar appeal.

[BuckeyeNut]

I think we're underestimating Renacci. I still think Sherrod will win in the end at the moment, but Renacci is adopting a very Trumpy message, and that could siphon a fair number of votes away from Brown's blue-collar appeal.

Maybe. But Renacci is a huge unknown for the vast majority of the state and he doesn't come across as authentic. Brown's been winning statewide elections since the 1980's.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think we're underestimating Renacci. I still think Sherrod will win in the end at the moment, but Renacci is adopting a very Trumpy message, and that could siphon a fair number of votes away from Brown's blue-collar appeal.

Trump’s schtick only works if the other candidate is more hated than the bubonic plague.  I don’t think folks realize how much many Ohioans hated Hillary; I didn’t even canvass for her campaign b/c I was worried that my contempt for her would come through.  She just did not play well in the cultural Midwest.  Even Franklin County was overflowing with Democrats like me who were only voting for her because of how bad Trump was; don’t let the machine-dominated primary fool you.  Hillary was almost as much of an anathema to cultural Midwesterners as she was to blue-collar WWC folks (the media often mistakenly conflates the two although there is *some* overlap in certain places), but for very different reasons (the percieved insincerity and lack of likability hurt with cultural Midwesterners while with the WWC there was a lot more sexism and redirected anger at Bill Clinton in the mix).  Trump did not play well outside of the blood red rural areas and certain WWC areas, many Republicans held their noses and voted for him while many Democrats didn’t turnout for Hillary (a big overlooked story in Ohio), it’s just that Hillary came off even worse.  Ohio likes its statewide Republicans to *sound* inoffensive, civil, and non-threatening when they’re saying horrible things (think Patton Oswalt’s Starbucks bigot bit).  Kasich (ironically a notoriously nasty individual in private) and Husted are great examples of this.  Renacci - like Mandel - took the wrong lesson away from 2016.  Someone like Biden, Brown, pre-scandal Franken, etc would’ve carried Ohio by high single-digits. 

That said, I think Sanders would’ve only done 1-2 points better than Hillary here at best and could’ve easily done even worse.  Turnout would’ve been much worse in Franklin County, he’d have done much worse in Hamilton County, and I suspect we’d have seen even lower African-American turnout across the country (including in Ohio).  The path to victory in Ohio that year was a straight white guy with blue-collar appeal whose style didn’t offend the cultural sensibilities of affluent, highly-educated suburbanites.  At this point, Berniecrats and educated, affluent suburbanites need each other to get anything done (i.e. take back Congress).  The latter group needs to accept that socially liberal, fiscally conservative corporate attorneys are not gonna play well in places like ME-2 and the former need to stop reflexively opposing anything the “establishment” does.  Sometimes establishment backed candidates really are the best person running (ex: Gil Cisneros and Steve Horsford), but I digress.

The point is that no one really hates Sherrod Brown, not even your average OH Republican.  If I had to summarize how most Ohioans see Sherrod (another thing, how many other Senators are often referred to by their first name by their constituents?) it’d be “he’s one of us, fighting for us.”  He even got endorsed by a Republican County chair in a decently-sized county in 2012.  He has a strong personal brand completely separate from the Democratic Party.  Plus he comes across as a very blue-collar, down-to-earth guy whereas Renacci is basically a rich some dude who bought his way into Congress in a Republican wave year.  He was always a notoriously weak incumbent with poor constituent service and most were surprised the Republicans threw Austria to the wolves rather than him (my guess is that either Gibbs or Renacci was saved by geography, both wasted no time developing reputations for extreme lazyness and general incompetence, respectively). 

Honestly, I don’t even think Renacci has a path to victory given the current environment (although he’s arguably a step up from the boy blunder a.k.a. Josh Mandel and both are “stronger” than Vance would’ve been).  I strongly suspect this will be right on the border between Likely D and Safe D by Labor Day.  Renacci probably would’ve lost even in a Hillary midterm (as would Mandel, but he wouldn’t be the nominee since Kasich would ascendant in such a scenario), but someone like Husted or Stivers would’ve easily won.  As it stands, Husted, DeWine, Kasich, Taylor, Tiberi, Stivers, Faber, Yost, Huffman, etc all chose not to run for Senate b/c Republicans simply weren’t gonna pick this seat up during a Trumpterm and everyone knew it.  Even Renacci initially ran for Governor

TL;DR: The reason the nomination was left to the likes of Mandel and Renacci is that everyone knows there’s no path to victory against Brown this cycle barring some massive unforeseeable scandal which while you never know with these people (exhibit A: Al Franken, exhibit B: Roy Moore, never would’ve guessed either in a million years), is probably a bit less likely with Brown than your average politician.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Portman's endorsed Jim Renacci, signaling his further departure from the establishment wing in Ohio.

Kinda a shame, Portman was one of the ones I liked.

Um, isn’t the establishment backing Renacci? Who is he supposed to endorse?

Gibbons, who is the Kasich candidate in the race. The current ORP establishment is not really “establishement” ideologically, but Trumpian.

wasn't the Kasich team support for Gibbons mainly an anti-Mandel thing, since Renacci was running for Governor not Senate until last month?  Renacci is a Main Street Partnership guy.

[BuckeyeNut]

Portman's endorsed Jim Renacci, signaling his further departure from the establishment wing in Ohio.

Kinda a shame, Portman was one of the ones I liked.

Um, isn’t the establishment backing Renacci? Who is he supposed to endorse?

Gibbons, who is the Kasich candidate in the race. The current ORP establishment is not really “establishement” ideologically, but Trumpian.

wasn't the Kasich team support for Gibbons mainly an anti-Mandel thing, since Renacci was running for Governor not Senate until last month?  Renacci is a Main Street Partnership guy.

Renacci’s membership in the MSP is a joke. He’s very Trumpian.