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Columbus, OH — After all the leading candidates in the Ohio Republican Senate primary opposed the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Senator Rob Portman – the senator they are vying to replace – helped to negotiate, Portman today took a shot when asked about their stance, saying, “politics… tends to overshadow the substance.” 

In a new interview with Spectrum News, Portman touted the benefits of the bipartisan infrastructure bill for Ohio and chided the GOP Senate field, saying, “unfortunately, some have decided on a political basis that they can’t support it. But they’re not talking about the substance.”

This follows a report last week that only one of the GOP Senate candidates would even think about accepting Portman’s endorsement, which is a far different approach than the field’s single-minded effort to chase Trump’s endorsement. The gap between the GOP Senate candidates and Rob Portman continues to grow and will continue to spotlight just how divided Republicans really are headed into next year’s election. 

“Even Rob Portman has noticed all of the leading GOP Senate candidates to replace him have put politics ahead of creating jobs and building roads and bridges in Ohio. As these out-of-touch millionaires focus on their own petty and short-sighted feuds, it’s clear this out-of-control primary will remain a race to the bottom with Ohioans and their interests getting left behind,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.   

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Ohio Capital Journal slammed Governor Mike DeWine this week for putting his desire to win reelection over doing the job he was elected to do and serve the interests of Ohioans. The editorial released Monday by Marilou Johanek does not mince words, calling DeWine ‘feckless,’ and pointing out the ways DeWine is putting the needs of our state behind the needs of his reelection campaign.

“[T]he 74-year-old multi-millionaire, with a slew of state and federal elected offices behind him, won’t risk a backlash from the red hats in the base. He won’t mount a fortified offense to the extreme, damaging policies being foisted on Ohio. He won’t do something that compromises his relationship with the far right. Ambition trumps courage,” writes Johanek.

“With so many critical issues facing our state right now, Mike DeWine’s partisan pandering is not only wrong, it’s irresponsible. Amid rising numbers of COVID-19, unconstitutional gerrymandering by the Ohio GOP and the biggest public corruption scandal in state history, the consequences of DeWine’s lack of leadership could not be more clear,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

You can read more from the Ohio Capital Journal here and below:

• Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is in trouble. He’s in full reelection mode, and nothing is going as planned.
• We’re still waiting for DeWine to “do something” about the explosion of COVID cases in the state overwhelming our hospitals.
• But as the delta variant rips through Ohio — still ranked near the bottom nationwide in COVID vaccinations — and infected children fill up intensive care units, the governor sits on his hands.
• [T]he 74-year-old multi-millionaire, with a slew of state and federal elected offices behind him, won’t risk a backlash from the red hats in the base. He won’t mount a fortified offense to the extreme, damaging policies being foisted on Ohio. He won’t do something that compromises his relationship with the far right. Ambition trumps courage.
• DeWine picked winning over us. He picked partisan extremism over evenhanded stewardship in the public interest. He chose the same disingenuous posturing he copped on COVID with his vote on gerrymandered legislative districts that give built-in advantage to Republicans. A leader who truly honored the overwhelming will of voters for fair, competitive districts that represent the actual balance of statewide voters, would have rejected the opposite. But DeWine didn’t.
• A “moderate” Republican might balk at signing a bill with an anti-LGBTQ provision slipped in that allows discrimination in health care. But a governor in the extreme camp, like DeWine, was fine with allowing health professionals to refuse service to LGBTQ patients and others.
• He remained squarely in the extreme lane when, instead of following through on his promise to “do something” to curb gun violence after Dayton, he signed expanded gun rights laws vigorously opposed as dangerous by law enforcement but supported by (surprise!) the gun lobby.
• DeWine is knee-deep in the largest bribery scandal in Ohio history that involved the fleecing of Ohio ratepayers by influential utilities with help from Republican friends in high places.
• DeWine couldn’t sign House Bill 6 — the bailout bill written for and by First Energy at the heart of the unparalleled corruption case — fast enough. This won’t end well for the governor, whose top lieutenants with close ties to First Energy have already slunk away.

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, former Republican Governor Bob Taft slammed members of his own party late last week, saying proposed anti-voter legislation would take Ohio backward and deny democracy to Ohio voters. In an op-ed published by the Columbus Dispatch, Taft insists every Ohioan deserves to have their voice heard, and no state lawmaker should support policy allowing election tools to leave any Ohio voters behind.

The editorial, authored by the former governor, shows just how out of touch Ohio’s Republican Party truly is, just as current Secretary of State Frank LaRose continues pushing regressive legislation that directly attacks voting methods that made the 2020 election successful. You can read more from Taft here, and below:

• Unfortunately, some measures introduced in the legislature this year would take us backward when it comes to election policy.
• Creating new hurdles to vote by mail or vote early would impact many often-overlooked communities, including voters with disabilities and voters in rural areas.
• A large majority of voters (60%) in Ohio’s rural areas voted by mail or voted early in-person in the 2020 election.
• Voters in rural areas may live far away from a polling place or need the flexibility to vote early due to work or medical conditions, so it makes sense they would rely on vote by mail and early voting methods.
• Giving voters secure options should not be a partisan issue.
• Instead of trying to make it harder to cast a ballot by mail or early, we should keep Ohio’s mail voting system strong, allow counties to expand early voting opportunities, let voters request a mail ballot online, and give counties more flexibility to provide secure drop boxes.
• We shouldn’t leave any voter behind when we are creating election policy, whether they live in Dayton or Zanesville.
• My hope is that our leaders in Columbus will work together to come up with policies that protect every Ohioan’s ability to participate in our democracy and have their voice heard.

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Ohio Capital Journal’s Marty Schladen took Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to task, highlighting how he refuses to call out Republicans and their false claims of voter fraud. LaRose has consistently remained silent when Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans lie about the election. On Thursday, LaRose once again failed to condemn former President Donald Trump for purporting baseless voter fraud claims, because Frank LaRose is scared of a primary and is only looking out for himself. 

LaRose continues to try to have it both ways as he claims the 2020 election was a success while also pushing regressive legislation that directly attacks the methods of voting that helped make the 2020 election successful. 

“Frank LaRose is a partisan hack who is more concerned about his own political career than doing the job he was elected to do. As his fellow Republicans continue to lie about the 2020 election, LaRose is hiding behind a spokesman who says he doesn’t want to ‘get dragged in.’ If LaRose refuses to grow a spine and call out Republicans when they lie about the election, he doesn’t deserve the job,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

You can read more from the Ohio Capital Journal here and below: 

• A spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said the office didn’t want to get dragged in last week when a fellow Republican echoed former President Donald Trump’s baseless fraud claims and called for an audit of Ohio’s 2020 election.

• But the state’s top election official won’t condemn Trump or say whether he’ll support the former president if he runs again in 2024. And despite his assertion that “it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat in Ohio,” LaRose wouldn’t comment on restrictions that forced large-county voters to wait hours to cast early ballots last year.

• Trump has lied relentlessly about his 7 million-vote loss in the 2020 election. His challenges have failed in more than 60 court proceedings and repeated reviews of the vote in states where the contest was close have upheld the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s win.

• Critics fear that the real purpose of all the “audits” is to delegitimize elections in the eyes of tens of millions of Americans even though actual evidence of substantial voter fraud is vanishingly rare. False fraud claims can also be used to justify restrictions on voting that would benefit Republicans, they say.

• Not to be outdone by other GOP politicians seeking Trump’s approval, Mandel upped the ante last week.

• “Not only should we audit the vote in AZ, WI, MI, PA, GA — we must audit the vote in all 50 states,” he tweeted. “Even in states like OHIO where Trump won by massive margins, he probably actually won by even larger margins were it not for the Democrat cheating.”

• LaRose’s office said it didn’t want to be dragged into the matter when Mandel was asked on Twitter if he was claiming that the secretary of state had a hand in running a crooked election. And, to be clear, there’s been no evidence of substantial fraud in Ohio’s 2020 general election, which Trump won by eight percentage points. 

• Despite all the false claims attacking the integrity of American elections, LaRose’s office wouldn’t say this week whether the secretary of state voted for Trump in 2020. And, after all of Trump’s subsequent lies about how he really won in a landslide, LaRose’s spokesman wouldn’t say if the secretary of state planned to vote for Trump if he runs again in 2024.

• In addition, LaRose limited the number of ballot drop boxes available in 2020, when many were anxious to avoid polling places because of the pandemic. 

• LaRose claimed that he didn’t think he had the legal authority to allow more than one box per county. But earlier this year, after multiple judges said he did have the authority, LaRose maintained the limitation, saying it’s an issue for the legislature to decide.

• The secretary of state has taken other steps that could be seen as thwarting the will of the voters.

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October 1, 2021

Happy Friday and welcome to another edition of “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. Here’s what you may have missed:

NOEM, ON TIMKEN’S BEHALF, CALLED MANDEL A “QUITTER.” Stumping on Timken’s behalf, Noem went after Mandel, saying she doesn’t “want a quitter in the United States Senate” and that “we need leaders that don’t want the job so bad that they don’t do the job.” Noem attacking Mandel continues the Timken trend of enlisting her allies to go directly after Mandel. Last month, Timken ally Bernard Kerik attacked Mandel, tweeting, “Josh Mandel is the definition of a fraud” and didn’t stop there, tweeting, “You [Mandel] were anti-Trump then, and faking it today. You need to stop.” It sure seems like this trend of Timken allies lambasting Mandel isn’t dying any time soon.

MANDEL “LEAVING A TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION.” In a Jewish Insider interview, Dolan took a direct shot at Josh Mandel, saying, “And I have been very successful…without leaving a trail of destruction of personalities behind me.” When asked to clarify if he’s attacking Mandel, he said, “Yeah. I think tone and rhetoric is not a substitute for results and good policy.” Well, then!

FAILING TO PUT OHIO FIRST. In the same Jewish Insider interview, millionaire Matt Dolan took a shot at the rest of the GOP Senate field, saying, “my opponents all failed the very first test — that they’re going to follow politics before they follow what’s in the best interest of Ohio.” Dolan’s comments are just the latest example of Ohio Republicans running for Senate continuing to attack each other at all costs to win this crowded primary.

WHO’S A JOHNNY COME LATELY? On the Ruthless podcast, Timken took a shot at J.D. Vance and Josh Mandel when she said, “I’m not a Johnny come lately, I didn’t just show up.” J.D. Vance had not been involved in politics before his own senate race. And after Josh Mandel questioned Timken’s loyalty to Trump, Timken allies fired back at Mandel saying he “sat on the sidelines throughout the toughest times of Trump’s presidency” and that “like the career politician he is, Mandel only spoke out when it benefited himself – during another run for office.”

MILLIONAIRE FAMILY FEUD, PART TWO. Upon his entry into the Senate primary, Matt Dolan was greeted with a millionaire family feud from Bernie Moreno. Last week, Moreno revealed that he offered $1 billion to Matt Dolan’s family in order to prevent the name change of the family’s baseball team. Dolan fired back and alleged the offer never happened, saying, “It’s not true, so I don’t know why Bernie would decide to say that. You’re going to have to talk to Bernie as to why he thinks he made an offer.” I guess these Republican Senate candidates are so wealthy they forget if they have offered someone $1 billion or not. It’s an honest mistake.

WHO’S REALLY CONSERVATIVE? Mike Gibbons went after J.D. Vance for his showboating Fox News appearance where he called for revoking the tax-exempt status of the Ford Foundation saying, “This isn’t conservative.” Well, as we all know Vance’s political positions change by the day, and this field of Republicans won’t let him get away with it.

THE NEVER TRUMP COASTAL ELITE CANDIDATE. Josh Mandel went after J.D. Vance for his Silicon Valley and Hollywood past, tweeting, “If the election were held today in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street and DC, Never-Trumper JD Vance would run away with it. If the election were held today in Ohio he’d get crushed.” Mandel is keeping up the Never Trump drumbeat, calling out Vance saying, ”CNN and J.D. Vance are Never-Trumpers of the worst kind.”

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!