Ohio’s 2nd congressional district

August 3, 2005

By now, everyone has probably heard that Democrat Paul Hackett came up just short in yesterday’s special election in Ohio’s 2nd congressional district, losing to Jean Schmidt (R) 52% to 48%. It’s worth taking a moment, however, to consider what an accomplishment this was.

When Rob Portman was tapped to be Bush’s top representative, 12 Republicans jumped into the race to replace him. It made sense — it’s a solidly GOP district and the winner of the Republican primary assumed that they were on their way to victory.

This was supposed to be a no-brainer. It was an automatic win for the GOP. In 2004, the Dem candidate lost in this district by 44 points. In 2002, it was 48 points. Indeed, no Dem has even been competitive in this district in decades. And yet, Paul Hackett lost by four points. It’s tantamount to a Republican candidate almost winning a congressional race in Cambridge or Berkley.

Charlie Cook, a non-partisan election analyst for National Journal, wrote before yesterday’s election:

If Schmidt’s victory margin is in double digits, this tells us that there is not much of an anti-GOP wind in Ohio right now. If the margin is say six to nine points for Schmidt, then there is a wind, but certainly no hurricane. A Schmidt win of less than five points should be a very serious warning sign for Ohio Republicans that something is very, very wrong, while a Hackett victory would be a devastating blow to the Ohio GOP.

If Dems can compete in Ohio’s 2nd, Dems can compete literally anywhere. As the DCCC’s Rahm Emmanuel said last night, “There’s no safe Republican district. You can run, but you cannot hide.”

Remember, literally just a few days ago, the GOP machine announced that they were investing heavily in the race because, as NRCC spokesman Carl Forti said, “We decided to bury [Hackett].” Instead they beat him by four points in one of the reddest districts in this red state.

What does this tell us about the immediate future? Time will tell, but in May 1993, less than a year after the presidential election, there was a special election in Wisconsin — in a blue district in a blue state — to replace a House member Clinton had tapped for his cabinet. The Dem, Peter Barca, eked out a victory against Republican Mark Neumann in a race Barca was supposed to win easily. A year later, Neumann beat Barca and the GOP took over the Congress.

Something to think about.

Two thoughts. First, I pray that you are right, along with Charlie Cook and all of the “independent” political prognosticators, that this is the start of a Dem takeover of Congress and other elective offices arcross the country.

Thought number two, and an admittedly more pessimistic one, has several parts: (A) Hackett is a unique candidate — an Iraq war combat vet who is rather blunt speaking and unafraid of who he is and what he stands for — a decidedly atypical Dem in that regard. (B) Schmidt was a uniquely awful, “stand-by-your-(Bush)man” candidate that was all negative. (C) Maybe this race was unique, being out-of-cycle for elections, one that ALL of the netroots could get involved with as there were no other races to take away our focus, and ALL Ohio Tryhugs are tainted as “corrupt” right now thanks to Taft and “Coingate.”

Maybe this race will be a “blueprint” of what we can expect in November 2006 and 2008; maybe it will just be the another of the “close calls” in losing elections that Dems have experienced since 1994. I hope for the former; I fear it may be the latter.

  • At this moment Steve Chabot, Mike Turner and Bob Ney are probably pissing in their pants right now. All three of them represent far less Republican than OH-2.

    Something else about Les Aspin’s district–since he left, it’s turned DEEEEEEP red. We came within 2 points of retaking that district in ’96, but ever since then we’ve usually lost by 30 points or more.

  • I’ve been wondering for about a week now, if Diebold was a factor here. If any precincts were ‘fixing the facts’ with Diebold technology. If I recall correctly; where Diebold was used the R margin of victory was usually pretty narrow and Ds never prevailed.

    Just wondering.

  • What AL said, though I would add that the GOP would be unwise take AL’s analysis for the events in OH-02 for granted. The reason is that the GOP doesn’t know who’ll be running against them in many cases. It could be a typical loser Democrat facing them, but the Dems might also find a rottweiler capable of leaving the GOP incumbent bleeding on the sidewalk.

    In the short-term, at least, one may well see GOP legislators getting their bells rung by this and realizing that they had better start separating themselves from the WH. OH-02 was supposed to be a safe district & it damn near went to the Democrats in spite of the worst the GOP could do.

  • Here’s hoping the dems recruit more candidates who are “rather blunt speaking & unafraid of who [they are] and what [they] stand for”. Emmanuel’s comment is encouraging in that regard. I hope the strategy going forward is to be as precise and direct as possible about the many policy and ethical failings of the Bush admin and the Congressional Republicans, instead of some consultant bullshit like “let’s focus on pocketbook issues”.

    Naaah, they’ll just bomb Iran or something in October 06 and pick up extra seats.

  • I think the “rather blunt speaking & unafraid of who [they are] and what [they] stand for”, is the key. On many issues Hackett was conservative on others he was a liberal. In rural areas people respect “straight talkers”, they may not always agree w/ them but they respect them.

    Rural voters have not locked themselves in an ideological microcosm like urban voters. If I used the greater Milwaukee area as an example, I could go for days and never meet a republican, or if I decided to go to some of the republican suburbs I could go for days and never meet a democrat.

    When I grew up in rural Iowa, I could not go a day and avoid someone on purpose. When our neighbor had a party the owner of the bank and the mother on welfare attended. Rural people have to deal with different opinions all the time which is why they respect “straight talkers�.

    I watched Kerry squirm two nights before the election if he was a liberal. I know his handlers and told him “deny, deny, deny�, and part of me understood that “liberal� does not play well in rural Iowa and Ohio and agreed w/ the handlers. But when he answered I knew he was lying. He was a liberal. He just did not have the courage to admit why he was a liberal.

    I completely support Bob Casey in PA and Harry Reid in NV, as much as I love liberals like Jon Corzine and Russ Feingold. I don’t agree with any of them completely and I prefer the voting records of Feingold to Reid. But they all tell you what they believe and don’t run from it. That is why they win.

  • Considering that OH-02 is overwhelmingly single-issue anti-choice, I think it’s amazing Hackett did as well as he did. Part of that success must be his evident frankness, even about choice. Republican slime machines are bad enough; Dem weaseling or waffling will only hurt … especially in rural areas. I know I posted a one-sided rant about the “urban archipelago” a while back, but I grew up in a rural area, too, and WI Liberal is correct.

  • Out of curiosity, how did the media spin the Barca victory? Did it get much play at the time?

    Looking for more evidence of the rightward kowtowing of the media.

  • Unfortunately I have to say your analysis of this race is completely wrong, unless low voter turnout was the reason Schmidt won. I live in the Ohio 2nd and Hackett was the best candidate the Dems have put up in a long time, but didn’t win. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Hacket won all of the eastern counties in the district but lost the portion of Hamilton County and Clermont County (which has a large suburban Cincinnati population). When Portman was winning the district by 40+ points he was doing it by winning the rural eastern counties by larger margins and Hamilton and Clermont Counties were closer (maybe only 30 points). I would like to know how Bush fared in these counties in November. I am a little surprised by the results in Hamilton and Clermont counties.

    • Comments are closed.