Trump A 'Mixed Blessing'? Why Ohio's Squeaker Election Is A Win For Democrats Eyeing The House
A win is a win is a win. Unless it's the sort of win Republicans looked like they might eke out on Tuesday night in Ohio. The race remained too close to call Wednesday, with more than 99 per cent of votes tallied.
One way or another, political analysts say, the potentially devastating news for Republicans is this: The solidly red 12th congressional district is no longer dependable for the Grand Old Party, and neither are their chances of holding the House of Representatives in the fall midterm elections.
The squeaker outcome between Democrat Danny O'Connor and Republican candidate Troy Balderson could strengthen Democrats' resolve that they're on the verge of a "blue wave" to win a tsunami of seats and flip the lower chamber. It could also spell trouble when it comes to how closely the Republican party's candidates can afford to align themselves with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Balderson was leading O'Connor for a House seat in the special election by 1,700 votes Wednesday morning. Officials said a final result would only be announced after counting more than 8,000 provisional and absentee ballots.
The margin of victory is tiny enough, analysts say, to send Republicans into a panic over whether they'll lose the House come November, even as Asher predicted Republicans would spin the outcome positively.
"Republicans dodged a bullet tonight, but they have to find a way to match the Democrats' voter intensity going forward if they want to hold the House," Republican strategist Ford O'Connell wrote in an email.
"Some Republicans candidates might want to hold President Trump at arm's length, but running away from the president entirely is a fool's errand."
Trump Breaks With GOP, Sparking New Tensions
President Trump is publicly breaking with congressional Republicans on trade and guns, causing tensions within the party at a time when lawmakers hope to be united ahead of the midterm elections.
Republican strategists and nonpartisan political experts say Trump appears to be looking beyond this fall’s elections, when GOP control of Congress is at stake, to his own bid for a second term in 2020.
The announcement on Thursday of the tariffs, which have yet to formally be put in place, came shortly after Trump said that Brad Parscale, his longtime digital marketing strategist, would be his 2020 reelection campaign manager.
While there have been no significant polls on the tariffs so far, Trump’s populist positions on trade were popular in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, states that sealed his victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“He’s fighting for the industrial Midwest, which is essentially the key for him to win reelection, and this is obviously something where he is putting their interests first while everyone else is pooh-poohing the idea of fighting for the American worker,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign.
After Crucial Win, Kasich Sees Path To Republican Nomination
After a critical win on his home turf, Ohio Governor John Kasich begins a new phase of his long-shot presidential campaign that his aides hope will ultimately propel him past Republican front-runner Donald Trump by triggering a rare contested convention.
Kasich's victory in Ohio's primary on Tuesday, along with the departure from the race of U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, makes him the party establishment's last hope of stopping the New York billionaire businessman from winning the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election.
Trump and his closest rival, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are deeply unpopular among Republican insiders.
With most of the remaining states allocating delegates proportionally, Kasich’s aides believe he could prevail at a convention at which no candidate enters with a majority.
Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who has stayed neutral in this year's nominating fight, said Kasich's victory should earn him more help from party insiders.
"There are really just two options left: Either Trump gets enough delegates, or nobody does," O'Connell said. "Kasich's win in Ohio means Trump must now win roughly 60 percent of the remaining delegates before the convention. I would say we now have a 50-50 chance of a brokered convention."
O'Connell said that under Republican party rules, a candidate must receive a clear majority of primary votes overall to become the nominee.
The history of Republican nominating fights is littered with candidates who received a plurality of the votes, but not a majority, and never became the nominee.
Who Will Be Today's Big Winners? Pundits Weigh In
The Hill asked a number of commentators to predict what happens in today's Republican and Democratic primaries. Here's what they had to say.
Ford O'Connell
Winners: Trump and Kasich
Super Tuesday 2.0 is likely to be a very good day for Trump, and it could be a defining moment in the race. Trump will win Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri, netting his campaign in the neighborhood of 200 delegates out of a possible 367. That said, the main event is Ohio. Fortunately for the anti-Trump forces, Kasich will eke out a win in this winner-take-all state.
That leaves Trump as still the best-positioned candidate to secure the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination, but to accomplish that he will have to win roughly 60 percent of the remaining delegates — a high bar, but certainly not impossible. Taking a step back and looking at the delegate math, a contested convention remains a 50/50 proposition.
O'Connell is the chairman of CivicForumPAC, worked on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign and is author of the book "Hail Mary: The 10-Step Playbook for Republican Recovery."
Inside Kasich's Long-Shot Strategy To Beat Trump To The GOP Nomination
Microphone in hand, Republican John Kasich promised the crowd inside a high-tech Ohio factory Saturday that he’ll never be beholden to Washington insiders if he wins the White House in November.
But as he zigzags across the state before Ohio’s GOP primary on Tuesday - emboldened by polls showing him edging ahead of rival Donald Trump - Kasich may soon need all the Washington insiders he can get.
Behind the scenes, strategists for Kasich, the Ohio governor, are studying arcane party rules that they believe could offer a path to the Republican nomination if he wins his home state, his aides said.
It is a long-shot strategy, both for Kasich and the anti-Trump forces inside the party. But if fellow GOP candidate Marco Rubio loses his own state of Florida on Tuesday - as polls predict - a surge by Kasich may be the only viable strategy for Republicans looking to stop Trump from getting the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
A loss by Rubio, a senator, will almost certainly end his struggling candidacy. If Trump wins both Ohio and Florida, the New York real estate mogul’s march to the nomination will be all but assured.
Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist not affiliated with any presidential candidate, expects Kasich to face a tough battle even if he wins Ohio.
“But for some of these anti-Trump voters, if they can get Kasich to a contested convention, they see that as their best hope of blocking Trump."
GOP's Sleeper Candidate Seeks To Build Off Of Debate Performance
The last candidate to make the prime-time stage made some of the biggest impressions at the first Republican presidential debate in Cleveland on Thursday.
John Kasich barely made the cut for the main event in his home-state, but the Ohio governor got a boost from the friendly crowd and was considered by many to be among the stand-outs in the debate, earning raves from pundits for his folksy style and compassionate conservative message.
Kasich has so far embraced the role of underdog, noting in a post-debate interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that critics doubted he could make the debate stage, stick out among the big field of contenders or compete in fundraising.
Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said Kasich “may not have that immediate appeal to the base” but “he has that establishment appeal, and that’s the majority of primary voters in New Hampshire.”
“He needs to keep emphasizing his blue collar roots and explain how he’s a doer,” O’Connell said. “When he talks about he balanced the federal budget [as a congressman in the 1990s], that’s music to the ears of Republican primary voters.”
Republican Debate 2016: Why Is It In Cleveland? Ohio Could Decide Who Wins White House Race
Ohio voters held the nation in suspense in 2004 as voting officials tallied the state's close results in the contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry that November. Once the count was over, Ohio had decided for the country to give Bush a second term in the White House.
Ohio's key role in determining presidential contests is back in the spotlight Thursday as Republican 2016 contenders gathered in Cleveland for the first primary debate of this election season. Meanwhile, the GOP announced earlier this year that its national Republican convention, where one of the 17 candidates debating this week will likely be named the nominee, will also be held in Cleveland. Ohio is a crucial win for any White House hopeful because of its diverse mix of elderly, black, white, Hispanic, rural and urban voters who have combined in recent elections to create a key battleground for any campaign. Even without going into the numbers associated with the Electoral College system that determines who wins the election, there’s a clear historical precedent: No Republican has ever lost Ohio and won the presidency.
Ohio is a key swing state largely because in most states presidential elections aren't very competitive. Across the nation, the Electoral College voting structure gives Democrats a clear advantage. There are 242 votes almost certain to end up in the hands of Democrats and just 206 for Republicans, according to Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. To win an absolute majority, 270 votes are needed. There are only about seven states that don't lean strongly toward one political party, and Ohio is the second biggest after Florida.
“If you’re a Republican, you have to win Florida and Ohio,” O’Connell said. “If you’re a Democrat, you only have to win Ohio.”
So, what do Ohio voters care about?
“You can bet that one is the economy,” O’Connell said. They are also focused on foreign policy and terrorism. “In a lot of ways, they’re a lot more like the national Republican voter,” O’Connell said.
Read more from Clark Mindock at International Business Times
Does John Kasich Have A Chance? How He Can Catch Up To The GOP 15
John Kasich has his work cut out for him. The Ohio governor officially announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday, stressing his considerable experience in government and his history of overcoming long odds in politics with the repeated refrain, “They said it couldn’t be done and we proved them wrong.”
The latter is an idea Kasich will have to hammer home in the next two weeks because while nobody is saying he can’t possibly win the nomination, he’s facing some very long odds. As the 16th Republican to formally enter the race, Kasich is currently near the bottom of the pack in terms of poll numbers.
According to the Huffington Post average of national polls, Kasich’s support is currently at 1.7 percent, placing him 12th in a field of 16 candidates, many of whom have significant national profiles that Kasich, a relative unknown on the national political scene, will struggle to match.
If he expects to be a viable candidate, political analysts say there are some concrete steps he needs to take.
“He has to get on that debate stage, particularly because it’s in his home state,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “The only way he’s going to ‘prove them wrong’ is to get on that debate stage … There’s no way the news is going to be covering Kasich unless he gets into the top 10.”
O’Connell said that Kasich appears to be gambling on the possibility that his announcement, and the spike in coverage that comes with it, will give him enough of a bump in the polls to break into the top 10, and that once he’s seen as a top tier candidate, he’ll be able to attract both supporters and donors.
In Crucial Ohio, Conservatives Are An Unruly Force For Romney
While they differ with former Massachusetts governor Romney on many policies and suspect his conservative credentials, they are working independently to help him win over undecided voters in swing states such as Ohio.
Fiercely opposed to the reelection of Democratic President Barack Obama, conservatives are trying to employ technology they used successfully earlier this year in a recall vote in Wisconsin to help Romney overcome Obama's narrow Ohio lead in the polls.
"I'm not doing this for Romney or the Republicans," said Chris Littleton, who is training some 50 volunteers to use the app. "I'm doing this because I'm against Obama."
Independent groups wandering around battleground states pose some risks for the Romney campaign. In the age of YouTube and Twitter, some officials worry that a canvasser could be caught on tape saying something too extreme for mainstream voters.
But asked about the Tea Party efforts, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said: "Voters across the political spectrum are supporting Mitt Romney because they understand he is a leader who can deliver real change and a real recovery."
"The Romney campaign shouldn't really worry about why folks are out there trying to fire the other guy," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell. "His campaign should be happy to have all the help it can get."
Poll: Romney Leads By Two In Ohio Among Likely Voters
From Rasmussen Reports (10/29/12):
The race for Ohio’s Electoral College votes remains very close, but now Mitt Romney now has a two-point advantage.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Ohio Voters shows Romney with 50% support to President Obama’s 48%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate, while another one percent (1%) remains undecided.
Nearly one-in-three Ohio voters (32%) have already cast their ballots. Obama leads 62% to 36% among these voters. Romney has a large lead among those who still plan to vote.
Among all Ohio voters, Romney now has a 12-point lead over the president in voter trust – 53% to 41% - when it comes to the economy.
National security has been an area where the president has typically had an advantage over Romney this year. But, the Republican challenger now has a 52% to 42% advantage on the issue.
