For much of the year, the conventional wisdom has been that Ohio is an increasingly red state that is drifting out of reach for Democrats. In 2018, a really good year for Democrats in the upper midwest, Mike DeWine won by about four percentage points. Trump won the state by about eight percentage points in 2020, suggesting it’s no longer a swing state. The state is currently represented by twelve Republican members of the House and just four Democrats.
And yet . . . since June, J. D. Vance has yet to lead a poll over Tim Ryan*, which is not what you would expect in such a seemingly red-leaning state. Whether we’re talking about big samples or small samples, registered voters or likely voters, Republican pollsters or Democratic pollsters, every pollster has found Ryan ahead so far, by anywhere from three to eleven percentage points.
Maybe the race is about to change; Vance and Republicans are about to launch a new ad campaign. (Ohio readers tell me they see Tim Ryan ads seemingly everywhere, but haven’t seen a Vance ad since the primary way back in May.) Last month, a Cincinnati radio talk-show host complained to the Daily Beast that Vance “is allegedly missing from many of the county fairs, party meetings, and campaign stops where candidates in this state are expected to be.” That too, may be changing:
On the heels of criticism that he hadn’t campaigned as actively as Ryan, Vance has scheduled a spate of in-state appearances over the past couple of weeks — including a Tuesday appearance at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, where he took a tour with the Ohio Farm Bureau after judging a ribs and pulled-pork contest.
Maybe this is just a summer slump, and Vance is about to catch fire. Tim Ryan is attempting to distance himself from the national Democratic Party, and Vance may well gain traction by asking Ohioans if they want a genuine Republican or a pretend one.
But if Vance doesn’t start showing some momentum by autumn, a lot of Republicans will loudly grumble that Mehmet Oz wasn’t the only Trump-endorsed celebrity candidate in the Rust Belt who turned out to be a lemon.
*The Vance campaign writes in, pointing to the Suffolk poll conducted May 22 to 24 had Vance at 42 percent and Ryan at 39 percent. A three-point lead in survey with a margin of error of 4.4 percent, conducted 73 days ago is better than nothing, but it shouldn’t really have Republicans breathing all that easier about this race.