OH-9 megathread

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Kaptur quietly ran one of the best and most in-touch Congressional campaigns of the cycle - the only reason I don't call it the best is because key members of her team were ancient and much of her media and online presence looked straight out of 1998. To their great credit, they found a way to make Jan 6 and QAnon (two relatively insulated, beltway-centric topics that a lot of less intuitive politicians could easily get lost in) feel like direct dangers to normal people in a way that no other Democrat really did (or needed to in a Trump-won district). They essentially wrote the playbook that the party now recommends to candidates running against QAnon-aligned candidates. And bear in mind they did it all while successfully avoiding nationalizing the race, without a massive war chest (Kaptur has never been a prolific fundraiser even back when fundraising was not what it is today), and with Ryan barely squeaking by and DeWine romping in the district up the ballot.

Her cartoonish opponent certainly contributed to the margin - it won't be that big against a Republican who actually knows their right hand from their left. And it helps that she is who she is and has been doing and saying what she does consistently for 40 years - that type of brand is rock-solid especially in a region that isn't attracting many new residents and where longtime residents tend to stick around. But underestimate her at your own peril - just because she's been sitting comfortably in a safe seat for decades doesn't mean she's forgotten how to do it.

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Majewski has re-entered the race.

https://twitter.com/JRMajewski/status/1708093360664137952?s=20

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Multiple key Ohio Republicans have withdrawn their endorsements of Craig Riedel - the McCarthy/NRCC-endorsed candidate here - in recent hours after the surfacing of this audio, Max Miller and Bernie Moreno (both of whom are known to have Trump's ear) among them.

https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1733234376362914277?s=20

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https://twitter.com/merica/status/1735390517322502560?s=20

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Really a testament to the strength of the GOP bench in this district that the last-minute, break-glass-in-case-of-emergency candidate is the failed State House Speaker nominee who got rolled by his own party.

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Really a testament to the strength of the GOP bench in this district that the last-minute, break-glass-in-case-of-emergency candidate is the failed State House Speaker nominee who got rolled by his own party.

I don’t think we can praise the strength of the GOP bench too much when they nominated Majewski last time, saw the establishment’s preferred candidate implode right before the filing deadline, and are currently - barring unforeseen drop outs - on track to nominate Majewski a second time in a row given that the anti-Majewski vote is on track to split three ways in the primary.

I hope my post isn't being misunderstood as praise for the GOP bench here!