OH-Sen 2022: So you’re telling me there’s a chance

[Blair]

What's changed since November when he said he'd run? He's lost his committee chair.

Portman was at his heart a Bush era conservative & was a reliable vote for the leadership; he was generally the type of republican who'd oppose or turn against the excesses of Trumpism when the more moderates members of the caucus had already jumped.

It's a surprise but not a huge surprise considering his age and the fact that he can be pretty sure that he'll get replaced by a republican- like honestly who even is there to run in Ohio for the democrats?

The one point I'd make about Jordan is that he is the ranking member in the House & actually seems to have a lot more influence as he has a larger band of idiots followling him than he would in the Senate.

[Blair]

I know it sounds stupid & I'm not someone who thinks the final race will be close but it's always good to have Senate seats that are easier to win in the event of something insane happening either state wide (see George Allen 2006 etc) or a national environment lifting up people who had no hope at the start of the cycle (see Mark Kirk 2010)

[Blair]

Is Mandel confirmed to be running? IIRC he dropped out of the 2018 race for some reason.

He dropped out for health reasons relating to his wife but the buzzfeed article (earlier in this thread) said that they'd divorced.

[Blair]

Will be the ultimate lol if Democrats are willing to waste £70 million to McGrath but can’t get £10 million the Ohio Democratic Party to enable it to get some field organisers.

[Blair]

Will be the ultimate lol if Democrats are willing to waste £70 million to McGrath but can’t get £10 million the Ohio Democratic Party to enable it to get some field organisers.

Tim Ryan literally just raised $9.1M alone last Q (vs $1M for Vance).... I think he'll be fine.

You’ll see I specified that money needs to go to the state party or people who know how to organise rather than just the campaigns or random super Pacs!

[Blair]

Will be the ultimate lol if Democrats are willing to waste £70 million to McGrath but can’t get £10 million the Ohio Democratic Party to enable it to get some field organisers.

Tim Ryan literally just raised $9.1M alone last Q (vs $1M for Vance).... I think he'll be fine.

You’ll see I specified that money needs to go to the state party or people who know how to organise rather than just the campaigns or random super Pacs!

... and Tim Ryan has served in congress for what, two decades or something? I think his team probably knows how to organize.

Ha I can list a number of long serving politicians who couldn’t run a bath let alone a competent campaign. I think it’s a bit naive to assume because someone is in Congress for X number of years they’re good at running campaigns. But there are exceptions and we’re not disagreeing because I’m sure Tim Ryan is much better than others- my point is that democrats need to invest in state parties and organisers rather than relying on TV ads. The most effective state parties for the democrats in recent years (Georgia, Nevada, NH) understood this and didn’t just rely on state politicians.