Hot Spot
All the issues that are key to this fall's elections are on display in Ohio
CHAGRIN FALLS, OHIO--Chatting up constituents at the Blossom Time Parade in late May, Sen. Mike DeWine isn't exactly flaunting his Republican dna. He basks in praise from a young environmentalist for breaking with President Bush to oppose oil drilling in Alaska. He showcases his role helping a Cleveland nasa lab land a contract worth up to $2 billion. Even discussing campaign strategy, DeWine avoids any whiff of partisanship. "Richard Nixon had this theory that campaigns peaked, while John Kennedy's theory was to run flat out," he says before joining the parade in this upscale Cleveland suburb. "I subscribe to Kennedy."
As DeWine tries to distance himself from Bush and the GOP--his first TV ad bills him as an "independent fighter for Ohio families"--Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown, a seven-term congressman, is doing his best to lash him to both. "When George Bush wanted to go to war, Mike DeWine said 'OK,'" Brown says, weaving through supporters at the Fire Mountain Steakhouse in Mansfield, in central Ohio. "When George Bush wanted to let drug companies write the Medicare law and oil companies pass the energy bill, Mike DeWine said 'OK.'"
As Democrats plot their campaign to take back Congress, variations of the DeWine-Brown contest are playing out across the country: Republicans running as independent-minded and focused on local issues while their Democratic challengers portray them as lap dogs to an unpopular president. In the five months until Election Day, U.S. News will be following 18 key House and Senate races, both in the magazine and at usnews.com's Campaign Diary 2006 (www.usnews.com/politics). These contests hold the key to this year's big political question: Which party will hold the balance of power when Congress reconvenes next January?
Nowhere are the forces shaping the midterms in sharper relief than in Ohio, where Republicans control both U.S. Senate seats and 12 of 18 House seats, along with the state legislature and the governor's mansion. Last year, Gov. Bob Taft pleaded no contest to ethics charges for failing to report golf trips and other gifts. Other Republicans are embroiled in a scandal involving the state's shady investments in rare coins, while Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, a Republican, is a target in the federal probe of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. A recent University of Cincinnati poll has Taft's approval rating at 26 percent and Bush's at 35 percent. "The Republicans are in total control in Ohio and in Washington," says Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee for governor here. "The result is the same: We've got a big and growing scandal in Ohio and in D.C."
The environment has fueled the Democrats' most successful Buckeye State recruitment drive in decades, giving DeWine the first real challenge in his 12-year Senate career and feeding speculation that Democrats could unseat up to three House Republicans and win the open-seat gubernatorial race. "Republicans will come out of this election in worse shape, " says University of Akron Prof. John Green. "The question is, how bad will it be?"
All-American. In many ways, Ohio is a microcosm of the nation. Its cities, including Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland, make for large urban and suburban populations, while the state is also home to two of the country's fastest-growing exurban counties. Nearly a quarter of the population is rural. The political topography varies widely, from conservative Cincinnati, across the river from Kentucky, to a culturally conservative but impoverished swath of Appalachia in the southeast, to white-collar Columbus to blue-collar Cleveland. African-Americans constitute just under 11.5 percent of the population, similar to the national demographic picture, though the Latino population is much smaller.
With roughly 1 in 4 residents a white evangelical, Ohio has also been a hotbed of Christian-right activism; the successful effort to put a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot in 2004 helped drive turnout for President Bush, who beat John Kerry here by fewer than 119,000 votes. And as the president and the GOP have redoubled efforts to mollify religious conservatives, DeWine has had to work hard to shore up his right flank. Conservatives were incensed at his role as one of the Senate's "Gang of 14" that struck a deal last year to avert a showdown over Bush's judicial nominees. But the confirmation of two conservative Supreme Court justices left him vindicated, and he was a cosponsor of the marriage protection amendment.
Brown, meanwhile, who opposed the Iraq war from the start and has decried trade deals like 2005's Central American Free Trade Agreement, has been tagged by the Ohio GOP as "way out in left field." But the University of Cincinnati poll shows that more than 60 percent of Ohioans disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq and the economy. The state has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000 and has seen an exodus of young people. State unemployment is at 5.5 percent, but a handful of southern counties have rates above 8 percent. "Our men and women are dying for nothing in Iraq," says Greg Pottersnak, a Steubenville truck driver out of work on disability. "We need to take care of America first. People can't find jobs." Such voters are primed for Brown's populism, which includes his campaign's heavy reliance on organized labor. "Which side are you on?" Brown asks rhetorically in Smithfield, near the West Virginia border. "Working families or drug companies?"
DeWine has already raised upwards of $5.5 million, more than twice as much as Brown, and a recent poll puts DeWine 10 points ahead. So the Democrats may have a better shot at the governor's seat, partly owing to Taft's troubles. A trial set for this summer for a Republican fundraiser charged with pocketing at least $1 million in a scheme involving state pension funds is expected to generate even more bad press for the state GOP.
Bona fides. An ordained Methodist minister and member of the National Rifle Association, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Strickland has, until now, been a congressman from a culturally conservative district that includes a big chunk of Appalachia. "He doesn't need to put on a camouflage suit and go hunting to convince people he shares their values," says Herb Asher, a political scientist at Ohio State University.
Touring the Feast of the Flowering Moon Parade in Chillicothe, an hour south of Columbus, Strickland meets a young Methodist seminarian and breaks into a rendition of the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness." Discussing his support for raising the state minimum wage via a ballot initiative, Strickland says, "Christian values ... call us to care for people who are hungry, who don't have healthcare." A stroll through Chillicothe--known for the gluey aroma of its paper mill--puts Strickland in touch with voters anxious over healthcare. A business owner says she can't afford health insurance; a retired union man says insurance premiums eat up his pension checks. Strickland's plan for lowering costs is murky, but folks aren't asking for specifics. "Our gas prices and everything is going out of sight, while Republicans in Columbus are getting kickbacks," says John Blakeman, a retired paper mill worker. "We need new blood."
Though his party has held the governorship for 16 years, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kenneth Blackwell says he's the new blood that's needed. "I've spent ... the last seven years opposing Bob Taft's tax-and-spend initiatives," he says. Blackwell, the current secretary of state, helped write an amendment to the state Constitution to limit tax and expenditure increases and rode it to victory in a tough primary this spring. But he backed off the amendment after Republicans in the state Assembly passed a watered-down version, prompting Democrats to cry flip-flop. Republicans called it a victory. "The General Assembly just enacted a major Blackwell proposal," says state GOP Political Director Jason Mauk, "and he hasn't even been elected yet."
Either way, Blackwell has managed to portray himself as a Republican outsider by taking the opposite tack from DeWine: burnishing his conservative credentials. Some establishment Republicans have actually been turned off by Blackwell's antitax activism and outspoken social conservatism; he has said he opposes abortion even to save the life of the mother. Yet polls show Blackwell, an African-American, picking up a third of Ohio's black vote, unheard of for a Republican. Strickland, whose district has a tiny black population, "has to go out and work for black votes," says Ohio Wesleyan University political scientist Carl Pinkele. "And I haven't seen evidence that he is."
The closeness of the Senate and gubernatorial races suggests that, for now, the candidates are as much a factor as the adverse political climate for Republicans. There is no clearer indicator than the Democrats' attempt to defeat troubled Bob Ney in the rural hill country of eastern Ohio. Ney's former chief of staff has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe the congressman, and National Journal ranks Ney as the most vulnerable House incumbent. In Ohio, however, even many Democrats say Ney's popularity makes him formidable. "Ney works his district," says Paul Tipps, a Democratic lobbyist in Columbus. "Everybody thinks they saw him over the weekend--every weekend." In a conservative rural district, Ney is playing up his opposition to abortion rights and gay rights and to free-trade deals like CAFTA. "People in Washington constantly come up to me and say, 'Are you surviving?'" Ney says. "But the issue of Abramoff ... less than 10 people have even raised it to me [in the district]."
Ney's challenger is Zack Space, a lawyer with little political experience who raised less than $150,000 through mid-April, the most current figure available. Ney raised $1.2 million in the same period. Marching in Chillicothe's Feast of the Flowering Moon Parade, Space attempts to tie Ney's alleged corruption to the lives of those in the district. "The trips to London, to Scotland," he says while handing out Tootsie Rolls to children. "He's been able to lead this lavish lifestyle that people here only dream about." But many analysts say Space's only real shot at the seat would come if Ney were indicted, as many expect. "We wouldn't mind if the indictment came down sometime in mid-August," when Ohio law would prevent the GOP from replacing Ney on the ballot, says state Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern. Ney tells U.S. News, however, that he will stay in the race even if indicted: " I'm in this race till the end."
In the 15th Congressional District, centered in Columbus, Democrats may have a better shot. Incumbent Deborah Pryce, the fourth ranking Republican in the House, is facing Mary Jo Kilroy, a county commissioner. A proven vote getter and formidable fundraiser, Kilroy will most likely benefit from a decade-long exodus of conservative voters to the exurbs. That has made the increasingly suburban district more moderate. It went to Bush by less than 1 percentage point in 2004. Smelling trouble in such areas, the House GOP leadership unveiled a "suburban agenda" last month that includes plans to run background checks to weed out pedophile teachers and a pledge to tackle gang violence.
But because of the district's economic prosperity, voters there are less worried about jobs and more worried about Iraq. "I would have been more pro-Bush if not for the war," says Susan Parsons, 54, a physician who lives in the district. "I've got three sons, and I don't want them going to war." Pryce stands by her support for the war but says she'll campaign to "make people understand that this is not a referendum on the president." Her position in the House leadership and efforts by outside groups like MoveOn to tie Pryce to GOP scandals will make that difficult. Not just for Pryce, but for Republicans all over the country.
This story appears in the June 19, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.