A special election in Ohio stuns election watchers and politicos with its implications.
There was a special election on Tuesday to fill the vacancy in an Ohio US House district due to the resignation of Republican Bill Johnson in OH-06.
It's not a major surprise that Republican Michael Rulli won. His GOP predecessor Bill Johnson took the district in 2022 by 67.7% to 32.3% for Democrat Louis G. Lyras. Donald Trump won the district by about 29% in 2020.
But it was noteworthy to see Rulli, a state senator, win by just 9.3% over a little-known bartender named Michael Kripchak.
The Republican candidate won, and that’s no surprise. But political observers are frankly shocked that the race was far closer than expected. [ ... ] Ohio continues to surprise us. The statewide votes last year, first to prevent Republicans from raising the threshold to pass constitutional amendments to 60 percent, and second to preserve the right to abortion in the state, showed that Ohio voters are ready to draw the line when it comes to extremist religious or anti-democratic measures. [ ... ] [T]he Democratic challenger was a first-time, unknown candidate named Michael Kripchak, who quit his day job to run against GOP state senator, Michael Rulli. Kripchak is a veteran who spent only around $25K to Rulli’s $700,000, a nearly 30 to 1 cash advantage for the Republican.
Every county in this district had a swing to the Democrats. Two counties were actually carried by Democrat Kripchak; Democrats carried no counties in OH-06 in 2022.
Democrats have overperformed in almost every special House election since the start of 2023.
But we still hear the pundits and pollsters droning on about Democrats allegedly being in big trouble this year. Fox News has even dusted off a dormant conspiracy theory that Biden is going to step down and be replaced by Michelle Obama. Fox News doesn't miss a chance to juice up its racist and misogynistic viewers by hinting a white male would be replaced by a black female.
Democratic voters in OH-06 turned out thanks to Democratic volunteers spreading the word. Persistence, enthusiasm, and hard work produce results. To use a Latin phrase: Vincit qui laborat.
Anybody who is not an outright MAGA supporter is a potential swing voter and should be regarded by us as such. The stakes are too high this year to revert to the slackerism of 2016.