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Johnson gets GOP attention
On the side
Full court press: Mahoning County Democratic Chairman David Betras is pushing hard to pack Mr. Anthony’s on Aug. 12 for the party’s annual big event that features U.S. Rep. Barney Frank as the keynote speaker.
Betras said he sent 2,300 invitations for the Chairman’s Dinner at the Boardman banquet center.
He expects a full house and for the party to make about $200,000 on the dinner with Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a Democrat from Massachusetts.
Tickets for the dinner are $500. A private meet-and-greet with Frank before the dinner is also $500 a ticket.
Those wanting tickets can call party headquarters at 330-799-2959.
Taking a break: I will be on vacation next week so I won’t have a column on July 30.
Bill Johnson is “on the radar” of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Johnson of Poland is the Republican nominee for the 6th Congressional District race.
The NRCC recently announced Johnson made “on the radar” status, the first of three levels of the committee’s “Young Guns” program that identifies those the committee believe are viable candidates. Viability is based on raising money and building “a successful campaign structure.”
U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, a St. Clairsville Democrat, has held the 6th District seat since January 2007 and is seeking his third two-year term. The 12-county district runs along the Ohio River and includes a portion of Mahoning and all of Columbiana. Those two counties make up about one-third of the district’s voting population.
The NRCC took on Wilson when he first ran for the seat in 2006. The district was the NRCC’s No. 1 open House seat priority in the country, particularly after Wilson failed to turn in at least 50 valid signatures on his nominating petition and had to run an expensive write-in campaign.
The seat looked like it would go to then-House Speaker Pro Tempore Chuck Blasdel, a Republican.
But Wilson won the write-in campaign for the Democratic nominee and with strong momentum in his favor, the NRCC backed away and Wilson beat Blasdel in the general election.
This is Johnson’s first run for office and he has the potential to pose a legitimate challenge to Wilson.
Most political experts consider the seat to be either “safe Democrat” or “likely Democrat.” But in this anti-incumbent environment, nothing is safe or likely for several current officeholders.
While Wilson was easily re-elected in 2008, the 6th District narrowly went with the Republican presidential ticket that year.
As of June 30, Johnson raised $305,752 for his campaign, including $53,699 he’s personally given.
He’s going to need a lot more because Wilson is wealthy. In 2006, Wilson gave about 10 times the amount of money Johnson has contributed to his own campaign.
Wilson had $610,181 in his campaign fund as of June 30 compared to $147,612 for Johnson.
As for Johnson’s faults, he didn’t perform well in the Republican primary. In particular, he failed to win any of the district’s upper four counties — Mahoning, Columbiana, Jefferson and Belmont — and captured only 42.5 percent of the vote in the three-man primary.
But Johnson won seven of the other eight counties. The turnout is so small in those areas that Johnson received more than 1,000 votes in only Washington County.
For Johnson to beat Wilson, he’s going to have to convince voters in his home county of Mahoning as well as those in Columbiana County, where he lost the primary by 35 votes, to support him.
Johnson is aggressively campaigning, including an RV tour of the upper half of the district Thursday that ends Saturday.