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January 14, 2021

Happy Friday, and welcome to “Buckeye Brawl,” a weekly newsletter from the Ohio Democratic Party highlighting the nasty, chaotic, and expensive Republican primary for Senate. This out-of-control primary is making conservatives “deeply worried” about the prospects of Republicans losing this seat. 

As the Republican Senate primary continues to sink lower and lower, these GOP candidates are injecting even more nasty personal attacks, more chaos, and more money into this race. We’re here to help you keep track of all of it. 

This week, Politico’s Steven Shepard said, “The nation’s wildest, most-wide-open Senate primary gets wilder, more wide open.” 

Here’s what you may have missed:

DEFENDING A RINO. The pro-Josh Mandel Club for Growth is up with a new $750,000 ad buy hitting Jane Timken for her anti-Trump past. The ad says, “Jane Timken knows she wants your vote. But Timken claimed she didn’t know how she would have voted on Trump’s impeachment while passionately defending her RINO congressman after he voted to impeach Trump.” It’s a similar line of attack to what Mandel has been saying for months. This week, Mandel’s campaign was promoting an op-ed attacking Timken titled, “Pro-Impeachment Senate Candidate Jane Timken Desperately Hoping Voters Forget Her Record.” Mandel’s spokesperson also slammed Timken, saying, “I don’t believe any candidate who didn’t back President Trump on Jan 6th deserves his endorsement in 2022.” Yikes. 

BUYING THEIR CONSULTANTS VACATION HOMES. Matt Dolan, the only candidate who Trump explicitly said he would not endorse, announced he put $10.5 million of his own money into his campaign this week. The Big Tech-backed, pro-Vance Protect Ohio Values PAC Executive Director Luke Thompson subtweeted Dolan, saying, “Watching Cleveland self-funders spend a million per point on the ballot while buying their consultants vacation homes.” Or was Thompson subtweeting Bernie Moreno, the other Cleveland self-funder who has put millions of dollars into his campaign? With so many self-funding millionaires, it’s hard to say! 

WHERE OH WHERE IS TIMKEN TIME? Reacting to Timken releasing yet another internal poll and accompanying campaign memo hyping the poll, Mandel campaign manager Scott Guthrie went after Timken, saying, “When they make you write a defensive full page press release saying that people are “coalescing” around your 15% candidate, you are confirming that, in fact, no one is coalescing around your candidate.” Guthrie mocked Vance, retweeting this: “Funny how JD Vance ain’t even running top 4 in Ohio.” Last week, Vance’s allies attacked Timken, calling releasing an internal poll “desperate” and another Vance booster said she is “begging for endorsements.” Seems like the rest of the GOP Senate field agrees it is definitely not Timken Time!

Thanks for reading along – that’s all for the Buckeye Brawl this week. If you have questions, my email is [email protected]. Have a great weekend! 

For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

DeWine Tells Youngstown Vindicator He’ll Blindly Endorse Any GOP Candidate for Senate – Even Those Who Attacked Him 

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Mike DeWine is flailing so badly within his own party that he’s willing to lay down and blindly endorse any single Republican running for Senate – even those who continue to attack him. Echoing Ted Cruz putting his arms around Donald Trump after Trump brutally attacked him and his family, DeWine is doing anything he can to suck up to these Senate candidates and win back support from Republicans, who are increasingly running away from DeWine and putting his primary campaign in even more danger.

As a reminder that Mike DeWine is no moderate and will do anything to advance his own political interests, the candidates that DeWine is enthusiastic about endorsing have attacked Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, called rape “inconvenient,” and have said the January 6 terrorist attack was “blown out of proportion.”

And almost every single Republican candidate in the GOP Senate primary has gone after DeWine, from Josh Mandel calling DeWine “RINO DeWine” and a “squishy Republican governor” to Bernie Moreno calling out the rest of the Senate field for not criticizing DeWine early enough. Yet, DeWine is willing to risk his entire reputation and the reputation of the state of Ohio just to have a shot at reelection.

“Mike DeWine is so desperate to try and remain relevant in the GOP primary that he’s willing to bear hug extreme candidates who seem to find new ways to embarrass our state every single day. By promising to endorse whichever candidate comes out of the nastiest GOP primary in the country, DeWine is endorsing Josh Mandel’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, J.D. Vance’s comments about rape being ‘inconvienent’ and Jane Timken’s attempts to downplay the Jan. 6th terrorist attack. It’s a sad final act of a desperate politician trying to remain relevant after 40 years in office,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Read more here and below:

• Gov. Mike DeWine will back the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate ­even if it’s someone who has harshly criticized him.
• Some of the Republican candidates for Senate —­ particularly ex-state Treasurer Josh Mandel, the current frontrunner ­— have been openly critical of DeWine, a fellow Republican, primarily because of the restrictions he put in place early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
• DeWine said he’d have no issue sharing a campaign rally stage and supporting the winner of the Republican primary for Senate even if that person opposes his re-election bid.

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For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters released the following statement applauding the Ohio Supreme Court decision blocking the GOP-gerrymandered state legislative maps from moving forward. Following the Court’s decision, Chair Walters called on the Republican-controlled commission to finally put politics aside and do the jobs Ohio voters twice overwhelmingly called on them to do – create fair maps reflective of our state.   

“Twice, Ohioans overwhelmingly demanded change and fair representation, and I’m glad that the Ohio Supreme Court listened. The Supreme Court today recognized what Ohioans already knew – GOP politicians tried to ram through an unconstitutional map that further rigs the state in favor of one party over another. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, it’s imperative that the commission actually do their jobs this time and create maps that reflect our state, not a Republican party wish list.” 

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For Immediate Release:

Monday, January 10, 2022

DeWine Dodges Questions on Issues Important to Ohioans as He Continues to Watch his Poll Numbers Plummet

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Mike DeWine’s campaign slogan for this election year is apparently “no comment.” Laura Bischoff from Gannett Ohio asked DeWine about a number of topics that are top of mind for Ohio voters, most of which DeWine refused to answer.

In what’s become an ongoing strategy from DeWine to hide from the truth and avoid accountability – from the HB 6 scandal to GOP-gerrymandered maps to gun safety and healthcare –  DeWine tries to “no comment” himself out of every tough topic that comes his way. But Ohioans deserve answers.

It’s a sign that DeWine is worried about his political future, knows he’s underwater with Ohio voters on both sides of the aisle and is worried about facing accountability that would cause him to lose even more support, especially among the only Ohioans he seems to care about these days: extreme statehouse Republicans.

“If Mike DeWine can’t answer basic questions about where he stands on issues that are important to Ohio voters, he doesn’t deserve the job. Being governor is about showing strong leadership and standing up to your own party when you need to. DeWine has neither the spine nor the political support to be able to do so,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

See more below about the topics DeWine refused to address:

Women’s Healthcare:

• “DeWine, who has signed multiple abortion restrictions into law, declined to say whether Ohio should have a so-called ‘trigger law’ that would immediately ban all abortions if Roe vs. Wade was overturned.”
• “He declined to answer a question about whether women should have access to abortion services under any circumstances.”

LGBTQ Discrimination: 

• “Bills to prohibit that discrimination have been introduced in every legislative session for more than a decade, including the current session
• “I have not spent much time looking at it. I don’t have an opinion,’ DeWine said.”

Keeping Ohioans Safe from Gun Violence:

• “Under current law, Ohioans who want to carry concealed weapons must take an eight hour class and pass a background check. Lawmakers are considering doing away with those requirements.
• “I’m not going to comment today on it,’ DeWine said, noting that two bills are pending in the Legislature.”

Death Penalty: 

• “As a state senator in 1981, DeWine voted in favor of Ohio’s current death penalty statute. Four decades later, DeWine declined to say whether he still supports it.”

Police Reform: 

• “There are reforms that are past due, reforms that I think everyone should be able to embrace,’ DeWine said, without going into detail.”

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  January 10, 2022 

Good Monday afternoon, and welcome back to Mike Check, your weekly source of all the infighting, conspiracy spewing and corruption that’s making headlines in and around the Republican governor’s race and Mike DeWine’s statehouse, courtesy of the Ohio Democratic Party.

As the gubernatorial race heats up, Republicans are in disarray with Mike DeWine’s popularity dropping by the day, facing attacks both inside and outside of the Republican Party, and having to answer for the largest public corruption scandal in state history. It’s hard to keep up with all of the corruption and mess surrounding Mike DeWine and the GOP gubernatorial primary, so here are some stories you may have missed:

NO ENDORSEMENT? While Mike DeWine watches his support hemorrhage by the day within his own party, he’s desperate to remain relevant politically. While we all know that Donald Trump is no fan of Mike DeWine (more here), DeWine is trying to play it cool by pretending the only reason Trump hasn’t endorsed him is that he hasn’t asked for it. The truth: if DeWine asked Trump for his endorsement, he’d probably be laughed out of the room, which may be why, as DeWine admitted, he hasn’t been invited to the Mar-A-Lago resort. Pro tip for Mike: he’s just not that into you.

FAILURE TO ACT. As COVID cases continue to skyrocket and our state continues to set new case records, Mike DeWine is too busy trying to not to upset extremists in his own party to do what’s right for Ohioans. In case you missed it, Ohio now ranks second in the nation for COVID deaths, with caseloads at all-time highs. Yet, there’s still no new action from DeWine who recently admitted he was handling COVID “the Ohio way.” As extreme Republicans play politics with the pandemic, making Ohioans less safe, Mike DeWine seems resigned to stay on the sidelines and just hope no one notices.

NOT TODAY. Mike DeWine continues to try and “no comment” his way out of critical issues impacting hard-working families across the state. During an hour-long interview with the USA Today Network of reporters representing major Ohio newspapers, DeWine failed to take a stance on key issues like keeping Ohioans safe from gun violence, healthcare and LGBTQ+ discrimination (just to name a few). DeWine tried every phrase in the book including “not commenting today,” “I don’t have an opinion” and “Stay tuned.” This goes to show you how scared DeWine really is to stand up to the tough issues impacting the state, and how little respect he has for Ohioans and the media asking questions on their behalf.

Thanks for catching up with us, that’s all the Mike Check we’ve got for this week. If you have questions my email is [email protected]. Have a great week!

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