This may be the most unexpected bit of good news to come along for Republicans in a while:

Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel raised an outstanding $2.3 million for his bid against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the Republican’s campaign announced Wednesday.
Mandel raised more in the second quarter of this year than Brown, who announced last week that he collected $1.5 million during the same period.
The Ohio Democrat also reported $3.5 million in the bank at the end of June. Mandel’s campaign did not disclose the candidate’s cash on hand at the end of the quarter.
Brown boasted one of the most impressive hauls of any incumbent Democratic Senator in the past three months. But a release from Mandel’s campaign called his haul “the highest of any Senate challenger in the nation this quarter.”

A challenger outraising an incumbent doesn’t happen all that often. A challenger outraising an incumbent by $800,000 is really rare.

A guy watching the Ohio Senate race closely and a big fan of Mandel observes:

Brown just had a 6 year cash lead basically evaporate in 2 months. Additionally, Mandel is the kind of guy who can not only raise big money in state, he’s the kind of guy to run against a guy like Brown who is a real thorn in conservatives’ side. People wanna give to take out Brown. Mandel’s also got a great story to tell. Two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a marine intel officer. This was just from Ohio. He hasn’t even started scratching the surface of what he can do out of state . . . Not to mention all the battleground implications that always go with Ohio.