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US Senate race in Ohio between Portman, Strickland deadlocked
On the side
The Ohio House voted 71-26 to legalize certain forms of medical marijuana to treat a variety of illnesses.
Among the no voters was state Rep. John Boccieri of Poland, D-59th. He opposed it because of restrictions on working people that seek treatment.
“Unbelievably, this legislation permits employers to terminate workers who use medical marijuana,” Boccieri said. “To add insult to injury, it also denies employees workers’ compensation if they test positive at work and are fired for seeking treatment. The Legislature cannot have it both ways. Either this is legitimate medicine that improves the quality of life for people, or it’s not.”
The bill is heading to the Senate for a vote there.
Rob Portman has served as a U.S. senator for nearly five and a half years, and plenty of people in Ohio still don’t know him.
A recent Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey of 1,042 Ohioans shows that 42 percent of those asked haven’t heard enough about him to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Republican senator. Portman also served in George W. Bush’s administration and 12 years as a U.S. House member from the Cincinnati area.
It’s better, but not significantly, for Ted Strickland, his Democratic challenger, a former governor who also spent 12 years – including four representing portions of the Mahoning Valley – as a congressman. Of those polled, 31 percent hadn’t heard enough about Strickland to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him.
Poll after poll show a statistical dead heat between Portman and Strickland even though the incumbent has raised considerably more money. Portman has spent some of that money, but his campaign announced a huge financial commitment Thursday.
Portman’s campaign said it’s reserved $15 million for an ad campaign – $14 million on TV, both broadcast and cable, and $1 million on YouTube – that starts next month and runs through Election Day.
And the campaign isn’t just throwing generic commercials on TV.
For more than a year, Portman’s campaign has been contacting voters in person on the phone and online about what issues concern them the most and will use different advertisements on different shows to reach target audiences.
It’s similar to what President Barack Obama’s campaign successfully did on a national scale in 2012.
Portman’s campaign officials also said they are the first Senate campaign in the country to reserve airtime through Election Day.
An added benefit is that the ad rates are less expensive now then they would be in a few months, allowing the campaign to air more commercials.
“Our paid media campaign will detail what is at stake in the Ohio Senate race: Rob’s vision for a brighter future or a return to Ted Strickland’s Ohio when the state lost more than 350,000 jobs and ranked 48th in job creation,” said Corry Bliss, Portman’s campaign manager. “The days of Ted Strickland hiding from his awful record are over. Every Ohio voter will soon learn why Ted is the worst Senate candidate in America.”
And what does the Strickland campaign say?
“Given the fact that 40 percent of voters can’t pick Sen. Portman out of a lineup, it’ll cost him at least $15 million to fix his embarrassing lack of name identification,” said David Bergstein, Strickland’s campaign spokesman.
Bergstein added: “No amount of money can change the fact that Sen. Portman is the ultimate Washington insider with a decadeslong career of backing unfair trade policies that have sent hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs overseas to places like China, or that Portman is running alongside Donald Trump, the most-toxic presidential nominee in modern history.”
Portman met Thursday with Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
It’s “a desperate move that is turning off moderate Republicans, alienating independents and energizing Democrats across Ohio,” Bergstein said.
And what of the “Trump Factor” in Ohio?
Portman told me last week that having Trump lead the Republican ticket would “be a positive in the end” for his re-election campaign. In December, Portman agreed with a Bloomberg reporter that Trump as the party’s nominee would “probably” be a negative for his campaign. However, that statement was before Trump dominated the race for the GOP presidential nomination.
On a conference call a few days ago with Ohio reporters, Portman said he agreed with Trump on trade. That was a stretch as the senator has backed numerous free-trade agreements while Trump has been a vocal opponent of them.
The two oppose China manipulating its currency, but don’t seem to agree on much else related to trade.
Strickland’s campaign has repeatedly tied Portman to Trump, saying the senator would be an excellent vice-presidential running mate and that the two are similar candidates.
One final thing to consider: That same Quinnipiac poll from earlier this week had Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, 43 percent to 39 percent in Ohio with a 3 percent margin of error.