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

[ElectionsGuy]

Tim Ryan outperformed Biden in his district by 5.2% (winning by 8.6% vs Biden's 3.4%). If we carry that through the entire state (which is generous) he would've lost to a generic Republican opponent by 2.8% statewide in 2020. Not to mention, this race was thought to be "Safe D" so the Republican didn't receive any national attention. Why does anybody believe with that set of facts that Mandel or anybody would "struggle" against him?

[ElectionsGuy]

Atlas needs to see polls of Ohio, like the ones where Biden was beating Trump in this state which had a 7 point error from its polling average.

And let me guess, this is all because of "good candidate" Tim Ryan and "bad candidate" JD Vance or Josh Mandel?

[ElectionsGuy]

Josh Mande's twitter is pretty cringe.

[ElectionsGuy]

Recently, I caught up with a friend who is a native Ohioan and works for a Republican member from Ohio. FWIW, he's convinced that Ryan would beat either Mandel or Vance.

The amount of Republican consultant types that underestimate their own candidates/performance, particularly in working-class America, continues to amaze me.

[ElectionsGuy]

Vance is the future of the GOP. Economic populism and non-religious/non-preachy cultural conservatism. Vance is heavily underestimated.

Yep. That was the fundamental difference between Trump and Cruz too. That's what Mandel doesn't get.

[ElectionsGuy]

Trump has met with Vance and Mandel recently, while he's deciding on who to endorse. Timken and Gibbons notably didn't meet with Trump, and Dolan not meeting is obvious of course.

Out of these two, the one who needs it most is Vance. Some people are skeptical of his anti-Trump history around 2016. A Trump endorsement would give him lots more trust immediately.

[ElectionsGuy]

Not an endorsement, but perhaps a clue from Trump's son.

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1506319090130067467

If Gibbons really did call for a no-fly zone, then I gotta say Rand Paul made a really poor endorsement. Vance may be the best option for those of us who favor a foreign policy of restraint.

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/isaac_schorr/status/1511340040076640260

> The National Review

The article uses the fact that donors don't like his candidacy as proof that populism isn't popular. Uh, obviously donors wouldn't like populism, populism is inherently anti-elite and pro-"the common guy".
The National Review always comes out with these pieces promoting neo-con ideology. they have a new "The GOP has moved past Trump" article come out every week or so lmao which goes to show how out-of-touch they are. The only people who care about what The National Review says are Republican donors, Republican politicians, Bill Kristol and Ben Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro is in this weird space where he's very socially and culturally conservative and willing to go into the culture war, but is still nominally anti-Trump and probably "respects" people like Jonah Goldberg who care more about respectability from the establishment.

[ElectionsGuy]

Gibbons isn't "the frontrunner" but he is in the top 3 for sure. The dude is also pretty old for a first-term Senator, so that's another knock on him.

That statement is going to be used by Tim Ryan for the next 7 months if he is the nominee. That is how you can make Ohio somewhat close in a red wave year. Meanwhile, Mandel is a blowhard who tries to performatively out right-wing everybody and wants religion forced into schools.

Say what you will about him, I think Vance is the best of the top candidates for the Republicans here. Gibbons and Mandel have shown themselves to be unfit.

[ElectionsGuy]

I don’t know whether Trump is just stupid, has useless advisers, or just naturally gravitates to other frauds. Vance is the most likely to lose a GE & the most likely to be disloyal should they both be in office together. Mandel, Timken actually believe in Trumpist lunacy, and Gibbons is a Rand Paul type who will go along with the isolationist stuff. Vance quite plainly believes in nothing, he’s like Lindsey Graham. There is literally no upside to this for Trump.

Most likely to lose a GE..? It's Safe R either way.

The possibility of a republican losing Ohio in this environment shouldn't even be discussed seriously.

The most recent GCB was D+3, now I expect the Republicans to win both this senate race and the eventual total vote, but acting like this is some R+20 year is ridiculous. It’s more than possible that a guy as unlikeable, inexperienced and impossible to relate to like Vance could lose - even if I don’t personally expect him to. Whilst there’s no chance even a creep like Mandel would lose it.

If anyone in this race has Akin/Moore style skeletons in his closet, it’ll be Vance.

Yes, I don't see Vance relating well with the young white college-educated urban internet forum poster crowd.

Jeez people, y'all act like because YOU can't relate to him, nobody else can. When Vance wins the GE easily, it's going to be another smack to the face to how detached this crowd is from everyone else.

And I don't even want to defend Vance here. But this is absurd.

[ElectionsGuy]

Don't expect Cook or any others out there to move this out of "Lean R" because in their view, Vance is the "weakest" candidate of all. What is attractive to Republicans and right-leaning independents is now antithetical to what professional class liberal pundits view as a "strong candidate" so naturally, they are going to massively underestimate just how Republican Ohio has become.

There's a better case to be made for Oz being a weak candidate, because he actually does have a substantial portion of the R base disliking him, and it's unclear if that'll heal before November.

[ElectionsGuy]

I've noticed this proxy war as well. Cruz endorses Mandel and McCormick, and Trump endorses Oz and Vance.

Trump wants the outsiders and Cruz wants the most "principled" conservative ones. Although given McCormick's history I genuinely wonder what he sees in him now - and if he thinks he's changed and will stick to what he's saying now.

[ElectionsGuy]

https://twitter.com/davecatanese/status/1519849641965244417?t=C-wSaaigryzPLBopR9...

Establishment Republicans have such contempt for their voters. In Josh Mandel's case, his performance art is a projection of what he thinks his base acts like and thinks like. He thinks they're stupid, and I'm guessing most Republicans in Washington would privately agree.

[ElectionsGuy]

Establishment Republicans have such contempt for their voters. In Josh Mandel's case, his performance art is a projection of what he thinks his base acts like and thinks like. He thinks they're stupid, and I'm guessing most Republicans in Washington would privately agree.

Yeah I feel like establishment Republicans are bitter over the trend of non-college whites shifting to them/college-whites shifting to the Dems because they despise them, even though it's an electoral benefit for them.

Yep. They would rather be against the wind (read: trend) to take back the college white Romney/Clinton/Biden or Romney/Trump/Biden voter than continue to pick up working and middle-class people of all races and embrace a more populist future that will come naturally. Part of it I think is they continue losing on fundraising because they've lost lots of rich people who are most of the donations. But most of these people are stuck in a past alignment (many got elected in the mid-2000s when the party was much different) and don't want to acknowledge/embrace this inevitable shift. You tend to notice the Republicans that are newer to the House/Senate represent their voters better on average. But they still probably play pretend on some things.

[ElectionsGuy]

[ ] Matt Dolan
[ ] Mike Gibbons
[ ] Josh Mandel
[ ] Neil Patel
[ ] Mark Pukita
[ ] Jane Timken
[ ] J.D. Vance

• Write-in: J.P. J.D. Mandel

[ElectionsGuy]

Dolan's chances might be destroyed now. He probably needed Democrats who were going to vote for DeWine to push him over the edge on top of the gains he's made with actual Republicans. Presumably, far fewer liberals will be pulling a Republican primary ballot tomorrow.

This is truly the pinnacle of a Talk Elections take.

[ElectionsGuy]

Dolan's chances might be destroyed now. He probably needed Democrats who were going to vote for DeWine to push him over the edge on top of the gains he's made with actual Republicans. Presumably, far fewer liberals will be pulling a Republican primary ballot tomorrow.

This is truly the pinnacle of a Talk Elections take.

Given conservative posters' opinions expressed on Dolan in this thread, I don't see why it is hard to imagine Dolan would need interference from liberals strategically voting in the GOP primary to clear 25%, which he will almost certainly need to do to win. Democrats strategically vote in Republican primaries somewhat frequently in Ohio since we have semi-open primary elections.

The idea that "Dolan's chances might be destroyed now" because of late-night breaking news about a potential supreme court decision is definitely something only an online politically obsessed person would say. What is the Dem planning on voting for Dolan going to do now? Vote in the Dem Primary because abortion is now important? He's the most pro-choice of the R's. None of this makes sense or is reflective of how any large constituency thinks. And odds are most people aren't even aware of this news yet (even if they will be at some point).