An Ohio special election set to take place Tuesday is demonstrating exactly how desperate Republicans really are to find a way of retaining control of Congress this fall. In a race for Ohio's 12th Congressional district that shouldn't even be close but could fall either way depending on turnout, outside GOP groups have spent five times as much as Democratic groups in advertising, totaling $3.7 million.
But it's not the money where the true desperation takes shape, it's the GOP message they're field testing in this suburban Columbus district in hopes that it can take them through November.
“They’re going to raise your taxes,” Mr. Trump said of Democrats Saturday during his speech in the district. “You’re going to have crime all over the place. You’re going to have people pouring across the border.”
That message was surprisingly on target for Trump, despite the fact that he riddled the entire speech with his petty grievances. But that's it in a nutshell—not, Are you better off than you were two years ago? Rather, it's, Democrats are rampant taxers who aid dangerous criminals and undocumented immigrants who will ruin your life if you let them. Here's how Corry Bliss, chief strategist for the Congressional Leadership Fund, put it to the New York Times.
“We’ve shown in this race the contrast that candidates have to run on,” Mr. Bliss said. “If the choice is, ‘Do you want to raise middle-class taxes? Do you want to abolish ICE? Do you want Nancy Pelosi as speaker?’ that’s a debate we’ll win.”
That's the negative fear-mongering message Republicans are deploying in support of Troy Balderson. Then there's the Democrat, Danny O'Connor, who trailed Balderson by a single point, 44-43 percent, in last last week's Monmouth poll.
Mr. O’Connor, the Democrat, has attempted to channel a nonthreatening kind of indignation, trumpeting broadly appealing themes like protecting government-backed retirement benefits, rejecting corporate donations and promoting “new leadership” in Washington.
The problem for Republicans is that this isn't ruby-red rural America, it's "a highly educated slice of Ohio where two in five residents have college degrees," as the Times notes. That's not exactly the type of district where you deploy a full-scale scare-tactic message unless you've got nothing else up your sleeve. And if it doesn't work in OH-12 on Tuesday, there's a lot more suburban districts that are even less red and more ripe for flipping, such as the one in northeastern Ohio where Democrat Betsy Rader hopes to unseat GOP Rep. David Joyce this fall.
“You’ve got Republicans who are very centrist, very moderate, who are very into international relations and international trade, who are very socially progressive, but they’ve always been conservative on fiscal policy,” Ms. Rader said. “What’s going on now in the Republican Party is the polar opposite of what they believe in.”