Why the GOP Is now worried about Ohio

This week on shortwave, Chris DePike's botched execution was no surprise to medical experts. The only thing we did not predict is that she would actually survive all of this. Lethal injection is often portrayed as the most humane way to execute people. Because it looks medical and it looks like it's not too brutal but looks are deceiving. What really happens on shortwave, the science podcast from NPR? So this is going to age me a little bit but in 2004, very late on election night, I was stationed at the Ohio Secretary of State's office. It was in a basement and we were waiting for the presidential election results to come in. The whole country was waiting on Ohio and when George W. Bush won Ohio, he won re-election. It was the state to watch one of the nation's most reliable bellweathers election after election until 2016. When it made a hard right turn in the Trump era, Ohio has been reliably Republican. It stopped being a swing state but now it's where President Trump and his party are taking a stand trying to hang on to the U.S. Senate. Vote to put Ohio first and keep Ohio first. Vote to keep America first with Senator John. Use the John. Please come up. Come up. Today on the pod is Ohio back in play. It's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Tamar Keith. I cover politics. And I'm Dominican Montenegro, a senior political editor and correspondent. And Karen Kassler from Ohio's Statehouse News Bureau is with us. You're in Canton right now. Hey, Karen. Hey, great to talk to you guys. So great to have you on the pod and let us start with a Senate race. Incomment Republican John Heustead is in a tough re-election bid against former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. Tell us about the two of them. Well, this is a really interesting race because you have two people who have been in the Senate at some point. You have Sherrod Brown who lost his seat to Bernie Marino in 2024. And then you have John Heustead who was Ohio's lieutenant governor who was appointed to the seat when J.D. Vance became vice president. So these two fairly experienced, fairly well-known politicians in Ohio. And if Sherrod Brown wins, he'd be one of the few former senators to actually go back to the Senate. But obviously Heustead and the Republicans are trying to keep that from happening. Democrats are super excited when they got Sherrod Brown as a recruit to be able to run in this race. And immediately I was getting phone calls from Democratic strategists who were saying, I'm telling you this race is going to become really tight. In fact, we think we got a really good shot at winning this thing with this environment. It's going to be one of those places that's going to be ripe for a flip. And you know, there's so many toss-up races right now in red places. Places that Trump won in 2024. This is one of those and Democrats feel confident that they come election day that this will be one that, you know, they might be able to tip in their favor, which isn't something they might have said certainly six months ago. What are the big issues in this race? I think the biggest issue, just like it is nationally, is the economy and affordability. You're hearing a lot of complaints about gas prices, about electricity prices. Ohio, especially central Ohio, has a lot of data centers. And so they get a lot of the grief over how high electric bills have gotten, grocery prices, all of that. But I think in looking at some recent polling, there's also an issue that's coming up as a threat to democracy. And so that, I think, is kind of an interesting thing to note here as people are talking mostly about the economy and affordability. That seems to be in the background of some voters. Yeah. And Domenico, looking at ads in the state, there's been a lot of talk about data centers as Karen mentions. Yeah, I think this has been one of the most fascinating things that's happened across the country when it comes to messaging around AI, which I think is going to be a huge issue in 2028. We're seeing polling really being against data centers and a lot of the NDAs that we see crop up in local communities to try to get these things greenlit that a lot of people are starting to push back on because they're seeing their utility bills go up. They're seeing their views ruined in some cases. So there's been a real nimbia, not in my backyard aspect of some of what's happened here. You've also seen a lot of rural communities. We've seen it in Virginia and other places where they're upset because you're starting to see power lines that are going to be going in to try to help power these places. And it's created a sort of rural versus urban divide again, where you have a lot of people in these rural areas saying that, you know, this is bad urban planning, right? But what has been notable here is that President Trump doubled down on his support for data centers and for AI saying we have to beat China while the polling has shown public sentiment to be heavily against this. And Shared Brown's campaign quickly picked up on that and made John Houston the face of AI data centers knowing that it was a resonant point in the state. You know, and when you have someone like John Houston, who I don't know that many people even in the state of Ohio could pick out of a lineup and who didn't win election to his seat yet. This is somebody who was appointed to this seat, you know, his name ID is just maybe not even as high as Shared Browns, who served in the Senate for a very long time. Karen, you mentioned threat to democracy. What do you mean by that? How's that coming up on the trail? Polling is showing that apparently it's something that a lot of people are talking about. And again, it's just kind of a surprise because I know Democrats have really wanted to take advantage of that over the years. And it's a message that just hasn't seemed to have landed much in Ohio. I mean, I think this time is different in Ohio in general. I mean, it feels to me a little like 2006, which was when Shared Brown beat Mike DeWine to go to the US Senate. And it was last year Ohio and selected a Democratic governor. There were Democratic wins all down the ballot. It's starting to feel that way. But the polls might be showing something that's not going to happen. Yeah. And Domenico, one thing as you raised that's really fascinating about this race is in one way, there are two incumbents. Another way, there are no incumbents. Well, you know, like it's it's I think that the sort of the normal rules of incumbency might be a little bit scrambled here. Yeah, they definitely are. And the fact is you're probably not seeing the sort of strength of incumbency for Houston because he didn't win election to his seat. He was appointed. But also because it's a midterm year. And you have an unpopular president. And you're already sort of pushing a boulder uphill, just a little bit, unless you have real deep roots and you can separate yourself from the president and say, Hey, you know me, I'm authentically like you. I understand your problems. Maybe you don't like how Washington is doing things, but I get you Ohio. Karen, can you talk about the Trump effect here a little bit because he was campaigning there this week. He'll be back over the coming weekend in in at least this Cincinnati media market. He is focusing a lot of attention on Ohio. This is a place where he's spending a lot of time where he has been very successful in the past. And you're seeing that in other states too that seem to be solidly Republican and yet he's going back again to visit. I mean, he'll be in Ohio three times at least before the election two times and then one coming up. He won Ohio by 11 points in 2024. The vice president is from Ohio. I think that there's a there had been a very strong Trump effect going into this. But I think that when you talk about Sheriff Brown in particular, he has run and won when Trump was in office. The only time that he lost was when Trump was on the ballot the same time he was. But he has run in this environment before and has won. So I think that he kind of crosses over a little bit. But the Trump effect has been really strong over the last couple of years. It remains to be seen whether it's going to pay off this time because the winds are definitely moving in a different direction here. Yeah, and it does seem and I'd be curious what both of you think about how concerned Republicans are about Ohio. But it is definitely getting a lot of attention and a lot of money. I looked it up on ad impact, which is an ad tracking firm. And from September 1 through election day and to this includes reservations for ads, there will be $325 million spent on the Senate race, a $200 million GOP advantage. Well, Ohio loves its football and kicking into the wind requires a really strong leg. And this is a really, really difficult election because the winds are very strongly against Republicans nationally. And we actually have, you know, one of the best football teams in the country. Also, one of the best baseball teams in the country if I may shout out the guardians there. But those are giving opportunities for the campaigns to just do back to back to back ads. And I've heard that it's actually in some areas and some time periods easier and cheaper to run a national ad than it has been to run a local ad because so much of that ad space locally has been taken up. And this goes back. I mean, especially as Ohio has become more competitive, but this does go back to even just a couple of months ago. All right. Let's take a break. And when we come back, the governor's race. American journalist Austin Tyson vanished in Syria over a decade ago. For years, we've been searching for him. And now we finally have some answers. This is the person that Austin was in. Oh my god. We found Austin's file. Listen to where is Austin Tyson from MPR's embedded and BBC Radio 4 on the MPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Terry Gross. Ladies and gentlemen, I can say that now because this administration thinks there's only two genders, and I'm both of them. Then at that. That's actor and drag king Murray Hill. In the series Somebody Somewhere, he played the host of a queer cabaret, which is something he's done plenty of in real life, too. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you listen to fresh air. This message comes from the NPR Wine Club, which is generated over $1.75 million to support NPR, whether buying a few bottles or joining the club. Find more at NPR WineClub.org, must be 21 or older to purchase. Welcome back. And a note before we go on, we are recording this mere hours before you hear it. Because the news is always changing fast. We try to get new episodes out as quickly as possible. And the best way to make sure that you hear those episodes right when they're available is to follow the show wherever you listen. In Apple, that means looking for the big plus sign on our show page, on Spotify, and the NPR app. There's a big follow button you can smash. Do that and make sure you are always up to date on the latest show. So Karen, let's talk about the governor's race. Incomment Republican Mike DeWine is termed out. Running to succeed him, Democrat Amy Acton, and Republican Vivek Ramaswami. One of those names is definitely familiar to our audience. Who are these people? Well, in contrast to the Senate race, where you have two people who have both been in the Senate, on this side, you have two people who have never held elected office before. You have Vivek Ramaswami, the Republican candidate, who came into this race with a fair amount of name recognition because of his association with the Department of Government Efficiency, the Doge cuts that Trump was doing as he was coming into office, Ramaswami ended up leaving that to come to Ohio to run for governor. Leaving it kind of before he started? Yeah, pretty much. He was named as the leader along with Elon Musk, and then all of a sudden he diverted and came to Ohio where he was planning on running for governor, as he did. And then we have Amy Acton on the other side. She's in an interesting position because, as a Democrat, she also was Mike DeWine's health director during COVID. And so that kind of puts her in an interesting space here, Republicans have definitely gone after her for what happened in COVID, but Mike DeWine has actually defended what happened and said that these were his decisions, not Amy Acton's decisions. He has endorsed Ramaswami, but is just kind of in that interesting space there in between. You know, what's interesting is, very early on in this cycle, when I was thinking about the Ohio Senate race, I had a Republican strategist who knows the state very well, say to me, you got to watch the governor's race too, because Ramaswami is going to pull us down. That is what he was saying very early on. You know the crazy thing is, I had a similar conversation and I don't think it was with the same person. And what his point was is that he was saying, you got to watch his favorability readings. They're just not that good. People don't like him all that much. They don't like the idea of a guy coming in and saying, I haven't held office before, but I'm going to pour my millions of dollars in here and feel entitled to be the nominee and entitled to be governor of the state, which he said that he felt like he was open to that criticism, to that vulnerability. And if you look at the latest Maris poll, that certainly shows up. You know, Ramaswami only has a 38% favorability rating compared to 50% of people who have a negative view of him, Amy Acton, 43, 44. So not great, but certainly better for people to be split on you than having half the people say that they don't like you very much. And name ID is very important in politics. It's the thing that costs the most money. You've got to be able to have people know who you are, but sometimes that cuts both ways. Because if people know who you are and they don't like you very much, it's hard to change those views. Ramaswami did, he ran for president in 2024. That's why we know his name because he was a Republican presidential candidate who ultimately dropped out and endorsed President Trump pretty early on in that campaign and then became a surrogate for the president. And Karen, for Amy Acton, it is an interesting challenge to be known for your work during the COVID era because a lot of people have really mixed feelings about the COVID era. Absolutely. I mean, I have heard from Democrats who strongly supported what Mike DeWine and Amy Acton did and Republicans who really pushed back hard on that. And that's the Republican messaging that you've been seeing is really digging her for what happened in COVID, as well as some other really, really negative things. This race has gotten particularly nasty when it comes to personal attacks. And so I think she's in a really difficult position in some respects because she's never run and she has decided, for instance, not to debate, which she's getting hit on for as well. Back in 2022, when Mike DeWine wouldn't debate, there was the question about, well, what do debates do? Who's even watching? Okay. Tell us a little bit more about how this campaign has gotten personal. Yeah. There was a police report that came out that claimed that Acton had been involved in a domestic dispute with her husband, which is what she said. But in the report, there's suggestion that she had had some drinks, that she was on prescription medication. She's really pushed back on that and said that this was a marital dispute. She's not a drug addict. She's not addicted to alcohol. But Republicans have not let this go. They have really, really hit her to the point where they've created AI images of her Jeep that she drives around to various campaign events, with a license plate altered to say drunk mom. So it's got very, very personal and they've really gone after her for her just general competence. On the other side, the Democratic Governors Association especially has gone after Ramaswami. They had an ad called Conman saying that he was basically a snake oil salesman who did some work with an Alzheimer's drug that didn't go well, but he made money. I mean, it's gotten really, really personal and very, very bitter. Yeah. One of the things that you have to do in politics, and this is going to sound cynical, but it's necessary is if you have a negative favorability rating and you're very well known, it's really hard then to get people to like you more. But if the other person might not be as well known and people are split on them, the only pathway to a win is to drag that person down into your territory. And that sure looks like what happens often in politics, yeah. Karen, I wonder about Ramaswami and whether he's a fit for the demographics of the state of Ohio or the, or the electorate of Ohio, and thinking white working class voters, for instance, you know, he's got this sort of like wealthy investor vibe. Does that work? Well, and he's certainly been trying to reach some of these people going to a lot of Lincoln Day dinners and rural county party events and things like that, trying to get out there even during fair season, going to different fairs and everything, really trying to kind of bust that image there. But there really is this undercurrent of racism and discrimination against his faith, because he's Hindu, that just really is just unseemly for any state, especially my state of Ohio. And now he had a opponent in the Republican primary. That opponent didn't do well, but he kept trying to bring that up as an issue. Well, and a big thing that Donald Trump built his brand on was an anti-elidism, which obviously ironic, given he's a billionaire from New York City, right? But we've talked a lot about that, that's separate, you know, anthropological conversation. But the fact is he built his brand on that sort of anti-elidism, that right wing populism, you know, was able to fire up white working class voters, he was able to fire up rural voters. And when you look at the exit polls from 2024, in Ohio specifically, Donald Trump was able to win 72% of white men without college degrees and those who lived in rural areas. The latest Marist poll in Ohio shows Ramaswami only in the 50s with both groups. You know, that's a big change from 2024. And if that's the case, it makes it really hard for him to get over that hump. So I think that we have now established, and this is kind of wild to even say, but that Ohio this year is a toss-up state. These top races are in toss-up territory. Does that represent just this year in American politics, or does that represent some sort of larger shift in a coming post-Trump America, or a post-Trump Ohio? Like, is there a real shift here happening among the electorate? Or is this just like, you know, a really mediocre midterm for Republicans? I think that is a huge question here, because when you look back at 2006, when Democrats did very well in Ohio, in 2008, it carried over where Obama won Ohio and Democrats took the Ohio House, is this something that could potentially go forward another two years, which will get us into the presidential race? I don't know that we know the answer to that, but this certainly could potentially energize the Democratic Party, which has really struggled in Ohio in the last 40 years. I mean, since 1994, 82% of statewide candidate races have been won by Republicans. So Democrats have had a long kind of drought here. This could potentially bring back some of that excitement and some of that competitiveness that we've just really not seen in a while. Yeah, look, I mean, you don't want to read too much into a win in a midterm year and project that out into the future very far, because often midterm elections are really about a protest vote against the party in power, against specifically the president, if the president's on popular. So, you know, parties in power do not do well in midterms. We all know this. So that's really what's at the heart of these things. But if you're the party in power, number one, you don't want to lose too many seats because the next time you come back, it's a lot harder to dig out of that hole. And number two, you don't want to give the opportunity for the opposition party to then govern in a state or be in the public eye and perhaps be seen more positively and seen as leaders, voters can trust. And they're also in a difficult position because there is no Trump come 2028. All right, Karen Kassler from Ohio Statehouse News Bureau. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been fun. Thanks. And come back and join us tomorrow for more. I'm Tamer Keith. I cover politics. I'm Dominic Lamonton. I'm a senior political editor of Encore's Law. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast. Midlife brings a lot of changes. Your turn with Allison Aubrey is a new podcast to help you navigate the twists and turns. From health and relationships to creativity and purpose, we can help steer your next chapter. With your turn with Allison Aubrey, find it on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, I'm Brittany Loose and not to brag, but I host a really fabulous podcast. It's called It's Been a Minute. I love making it and I think you'll love listening to it. Over the last year, hundreds of thousands of listeners have been tuning in. And I gotta say, if you haven't yet, you're missing out. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast from NPR today. 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