Gubernatorial Race

  • A recent poll finds the race for governor to be extremely close, with only four percentage points’ difference between Ted Strickland and John Kasich.
  • In fact, Strickland’s starting to get confident, now claiming that he’s running as the moderate alternative to the Tea Party.
  • He has one new piece of evidence to make that argument about his moderation, having just garnered an “A” from the NRA.
  • Meanwhile, Kasich’s endorsement from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce has cost the Chamber some friends who view the endorsement as excessively partisan.
  • And Strickland’s high-speed rail plan is still unpopular.

Senatorial Race

  • With the release of a new poll showing Portman up by 15 points, conventional wisdom is that the race is basically over. Portman is picking up endorsements from the leading press organs.
  • Meanwhile, in an election year dominated by ads, especially in the Senate race (as explained here by the Sunlight Foundation), American Crossroads is taking a disproportionate amount of heat from the left. That old Karl Rove magic never fails.

House Races

  • Obama parrots House Democrat attack line and calls on the GOP to “stop outsourcing jobs.”
  • The Cincinnati Enquirer is inquiring where Rep. Steve Driehaus of OH-1 is getting his money.
  • Marcy Kaptur, incumbent of OH-9 and Rich Iott, her challenger, to debate the issues today. Centerstage, of course, is the economy.
  • And neither one of them has much ground to give, according to this story about the brutal campaign tactics in OH-9.