Uncategorized

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
CONTACT: Cameron Keir, [email protected], 614-506-5413

Jean Schmidt Calls Rape an “Opportunity”

Every Ohio Republican Should Be Forced to Account for Schmidt’s Comments, Asked if They Condemn Them

Columbus, OH — Today, when testifying on Ohio’s version of the trigger ban bill, Republican Jean Schmidt was asked about a lack of an exception for rape in her legislation. Her response: it’s an “opportunity” for the person who was raped. Every single Republican in Ohio should be asked about Schmidt’s comments and whether they agree that rape is an “opportunity.”

“Jean Schmidt’s vile comments today show how far Republicans will go to attack Ohio women in an effort to score political points. Jean Schmidt should apologize to every victim of sexual violence in our state and pull her bill from consideration. And her fellow Republicans – from Mike DeWine on down – who have supported these anti-choice bills should be forced to account for her comments and their ongoing attacks on women,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

See the live coverage below from Ohio Capital Journal’s Susan Tebben:

###

Before he ran for office, J.D. Vance said he feels “out of place” in Ohio. 

J.D. Vance spent much of his adult life trying to run as far away from Ohio as possible – and made a name for himself as a resident of exclusive coastal enclaves. In a 2016 piece for The Atlantic, where he described Donald Trump as “opioid of the masses,” Vance wrote about his San Francisco lifestyle: 

• “A few Saturdays ago, my wife and I spent the morning volunteering at a community garden in our San Francisco neighborhood. After a few hours of casual labor, we and the other volunteers dispersed to our respective destinations: tasty brunches, day trips to wine country, art-gallery tours. It was a perfectly normal day, by San Francisco standards.”

That may be a normal day for a Silicon Valley millionaire, but it’s practically unrecognizable for hardworking Ohioans struggling to make ends meet. The last time J.D. Vance tried to run for U.S. Senate in 2018, he faced scrutiny for his residency in Washington, D.C. At the time, a GOP consultant opined, “Washington seems to be absolutely his primary residence. I don’t know what address he claims in Ohio, but he’s not living there.” And Vance’s financial disclosure still included that D.C. townhome that landed him in residential hot water in the first place. 

Now Vance is looking for another ticket out of Ohio and back to Washington so he doesn’t have to feel “out of place” here any longer. 

“Silicon Valley Vance feels perfectly comfortable on the coasts with his fellow elites and in his own words, feels ‘out of place’ in Ohio. How can you represent Ohioans when living here makes you uncomfortable?” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
CONTACT: Cameron Keir, [email protected], 614-506-5413

ICYMI: Republicans Have Betrayed Ohioans, Now Ohioans Can Hold Them Accountable

“We were naïve to hope for better, for state leaders committed to fair play in redistricting. Instead, they flipped off voters and disobeyed the law.” 

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, a new Ohio Capital Journal column outlines how Republicans have betrayed Ohioans time and time again, and now Ohioans have the opportunity to hold them accountable. OCJ’s Marilou Johanek is encouraging all Ohioans not to be dissuaded by the Republican mess created this primary election, and exercise their constitutional right to cast their ballots. The column highlights what we already know: Republicans are using scandal, corruption, and especially the redistricting mess costing you tens of millions of dollars in an effort to suppress the vote, but Ohioans have the opportunity for a better direction by exercising their right to vote.

“We all have skin in this struggle, which is why, despite the muddled Ohio midterm ballot foisted on us by self-serving Republican leaders, Ohio voters must show up in 2022. Too much is riding on this crucial referendum for state and federal leadership to sit it out,” writes Ohio Capital Journal’s Marilou Johanek. 

Read more from the Ohio Capital Journal here and below:

• What a hot mess. Thanks to Ohio Republicans, enjoying a monopoly of power from the last redistricting sham they engineered after the 2010 Census, a critical election has been turned into a crapshoot. 
• Thanks to one party, impervious to the needless chaos it created for voters, poll workers, and election administrators with lopsided district maps shot down by the state supreme court, Ohioans are confused, disgusted and done with the whole sordid affair.
• Two weeks out of the May 3 primary, early voting by mail and in-person was down nearly 30% compared with the same period four years ago. If the Republican goal was to suppress the vote with protracted gamesmanship to turn redistricting reform on its head for partisan advantage — mission accomplished. 
• We all have skin in this struggle, which is why, despite the muddled Ohio midterm ballot foisted on us by self-serving Republican leaders, Ohio voters must show up in 2022. Too much is riding on this crucial referendum for state and federal leadership to sit it out.
• Let anger over the redistricting charade pulled on statewide voters — who twice amended the Ohio Constitution to inject fairness into the drawing of state district boundaries — motivate you to the polls next Tuesday. 
• There’s plenty to be livid about with this unnecessary distraction of undetermined districts — including the hefty bill taxpayers will have to pay for the hot mess that state Republicans alone created.
• The first primary election (yes, we are forced to have two, thanks to Team Gerrymander) will be missing all the state legislative races. That’s because Republican legislative leaders, and enabling statewide Republican officeholders, defied the law on drawing fair district maps for the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House. An exasperated Ohio Supreme Court rejected their unconstitutional handiwork. Four times. Maybe the fifth will be a charm but don’t bet on it. 
• It’s no secret that state Republicans have been orchestrating a con to run out the clock on complying with the constitution. They brazenly acted above the law.
• But Republican foot-dragging on redistricting was a calculated strategy from the beginning. The idea was to slow walk the mapmaking process until it bumped into 2022 election deadlines. 
• Senate President Matt Huffman and House Speaker Bob Cupp, backed by Gov. Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Auditor Keith Faber, stand to get away with district maps that plainly favor one party over another, a gross injustice manifestly prohibited by law.
• We were naïve to hope for better, for state leaders committed to fair play in redistricting. Instead, they flipped off voters and disobeyed the law.
• When the Republican duplicity on redistricting is a fait accompli, as seems likely, the anti-democratic party in Ohio will have succeeded not only in again rigging election outcomes to win by cheating but wasted $25 million or so of our hard-earned tax dollars on an extra election caused by months of one-sided subterfuge.
• There is your motivation to vote in 2022. For accountability. For equal representation in voting. For candidates— gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and U.S. House — who honor the rule of law and put people over politics. Do it.

###

For Immediate Release:
Monday, April 25, 2022
CONTACT: Matt Keyes, [email protected], 317-460-5788

Frank LaRose Throws Away All Credibility So He Can Lose a Senate Race in Two Years

Columbus, OH — Last week, Ohioans saw Frank LaRose sell out and throw away all credibility as he fully embraced Donald Trump and all of Trump’s election lies – all so he can lose a Senate race in 2024.

Here’s a sampling of what LaRose had to say about Donald Trump in the past:

• “I like the idea of a president that’s a role model for our children. Our current president doesn’t really fall into that category.” [Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/13/18]
•  “LaRose called Trump’s characterization of the media as the enemy of the people a ‘dangerous’ precedent.” [WOSU-Columbus, 2/19/19]
• “‘I’m not responsible for the president’s decision making process or social media strategy. But I will say that nobody’s immune from what I just said, that it is irresponsible to fear monger about elections administration… ‘Doesn’t matter where you are, and certainly if you have the largest megaphone in the world, then you should think very carefully before you say something that would cause people to lose faith in elections.’” [Columbus Dispatch, 2/5/20] 
• “Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that candidates for public office should have faith in the safety, security and accuracy of Ohio’s election process. ‘If a candidate chooses not to accept those results, I think that’ll look ridiculous,’ LaRose said. His comments were in response to a question about President Trump citing ‘fraud’ in the yet-to-come election results, including mail-in voting.” [ABC 6, 9/25/20] 

Now, LaRose is throwing all credibility he has in the trash by repeating Trump’s election lies and embracing Trump’s endorsement because he wants to run for Senate in two years and has faced lots of criticism this cycle from Ohio Republicans – from his name being booed at a Strongsville GOP event to facing threats of being left off the Ohio GOP endorsement slate.

LaRose even went further last week and endorsed J.D. Vance for Senate, who has falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, something LaRose has been critical of in the past. LaRose told the Akron Press Club in 2018: “Nobody should overstate the existence of either fraud or suppression because I think what it does is underminds the confidence that voters have.” 

“Ohioans can’t trust Frank LaRose to care about anything but himself and a Senate race he’ll lose in two years. Rather than do his job and stand up for election integrity or pass fair maps, LaRose is busy falling in line behind Republican politicians who lie about elections being stolen and attack Ohioans’ right to vote. Like Vance, LaRose is just another political phony who will sell out Ohio and do or say anything to advance his own interests,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

 ###

For Immediate Release:
April 25, 2022
CONTACT: Michael Beyer, [email protected], 504-307-7154

ROUNDUP: Trump’s Vance Endorsement “Escalated The Tension And Nastiness” As GOP Voters Vow Not To Support Vance

Columbus, OH — Donald Trump’s endorsement of U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance has “escalated the tension and nastiness” in the Ohio GOP Senate primary. Instead of uniting the party, Trump has only created more vicious infighting with a week left in the primary.

Read more: 

NBC News: Trump’s J.D. Vance endorsement breeds more chaos in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary
Henry Gomez
April 23, 2022

• …it’s clear [Trump] has shaken up what was already the nation’s most chaotic and expensive Senate race in ways that no one — not Vance, not his supporters or his opponents — expected.
• Rather than clearing the field or creating a unified front of GOP support for Vance, Trump’s endorsement has escalated the tension and nastiness that from the start have served as the race’s hallmarks.
• In a letter to the former president this week, several pro-Trump activists in Ohio, including one of his 2016 state directors, called the endorsement a “betrayal,” citing Vance’s past attacks on Trump and his lack of relationships with the party’s grassroots leaders. Until his Senate bid, Vance was known primarily for “Hillbilly Elegy,” his memoir-turned-Netflix movie, and for his ties to Republican mega-donor and tech executive Peter Thiel.
• “I’m livid,” said Ralph King, a 2016 convention delegate for Trump who helped organize the letter. “This endorsement reeks of the swamp. Donald Trump is selling us out.”
• The Club for Growth, a conservative group that supports the early front-runner Josh Mandel but had been friendly with Trump, announced it would continue airing a TV ad that emphasizes Vance’s past criticisms. Trump Jr. retaliated on Twitter by branding Mandel as “establishment,” in part because he supported 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, whom Trump also endorsed that year. Those involved in the race are preparing for more pointed attacks on Mandel from Trump at Saturday’s rally, or from Trump Jr., who is scheduled to campaign with Vance again next week.
• A source close to Trump Jr. who requested anonymity to discuss strategy said that Dave McIntosh, the Club for Growth president, “didn’t do Josh Mandel any favors” with its endorsement.
• “Instead of just trying to push J.D. across the finish line, Don is going to do everything in his power to cut Mandel to pieces.”
• The senior Trump also threatened legal action this week against Winning for Women Action, a PAC that supports Jane Timken and has emphasized her close ties to the former president. A recent ad from the PAC features footage of Trump and Timken embracing, with a narrator telling of how Trump “turned to Jane Timken” when he needed a “conservative fighter” — a reference to her successful 2017 campaign for Ohio GOP chair. In a cease-and-desist letter, Trump’s team asserted that the ad “implies” a Senate race endorsement.

Cleveland.com: Not everyone’s convinced Trump’s nod to J.D. Vance in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary makes the race a layup
Andrew Tobias and Seth Richardson
April 24, 2022

• But it’s also ruffled some feathers, particularly among the more engaged Republicans at the county party and grassroots activist level.
• “A lot of them aren’t happy, to be honest with you,” said Bob Frantz, a longtime conservative talk radio show host in the Cleveland area. 
• Dave Johnson, the influential chairman of the Columbiana County Republican Party, said the last-minute endorsement hasn’t sat well with most people he knows who are closely involved with state Republican politics.
• “Folks who have worked so hard for him and worked so hard for his message sort of felt betrayed because he picked a guy who worked against that message and was against him otherwise in almost every way,” Johnson said.
• In an interview, Michael Biundo, a top adviser to the Gibbons campaign, didn’t strongly contest the new pro-Vance polling that showed Vance jumping out to a lead. But, he said news of the endorsement comes late in the race and could have a hard time breaking through, particularly as other candidates, including Gibbons, try to launch ads and other measures to counteract it.
• “He’s got a lot of questions he has to answer, and that is an anchor on him right now as he tries to take full advantage of the Trump endorsement,” Biundo said.

Washington Examiner: Trump’s Vance endorsement gets mixed reviews, even among supporters
Kate Scanlon
April 24, 2022

• Former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance has been met with mixed reviews among even his most ardent supporters.
• The endorsement sparked criticism from some Republicans in the state who asked Trump to reconsider his choice, arguing in a letter that Vance is a “political chameleon” who called Trump and his supporters “racist” in 2016. In his own remarks at the Saturday rally, Vance offered his full support to Trump, calling him “the best president of my lifetime.”
• But in interviews at Trump’s rally Saturday in Ohio, many attendees who self-identified as Ohio voters and Trump supporters said they were still undecided in the upcoming primary or that they planned to support one of the other candidates, including Josh Mandel or Mike Gibbons.

• But in interviews at Trump’s rally Saturday in Ohio, many attendees who self-identified as Ohio voters and Trump supporters said they were still undecided in the upcoming primary or that they planned to support one of the other candidates, including Josh Mandel or Mike Gibbons.

###