Ohio in the spotlight again: Special elections expose party fissures, power of outside spending

Aug. 4—Ohio's days as a presidential bellwether may be over, but on Tuesday the state reprised its role in the national spotlight for a pair of congressional primaries for open U.S. House seats that signaled what might be on the horizon for Democrats and Republicans in upcoming elections, including the state's highly anticipated Senate race.

Each contest drew a dozen or so candidates in low turnout special elections in districts whose shapes are changing with 10‑year remapping later this year. Both were local races that exposed bigger fissures within the parties and were heavily influenced by outside spending in their final days and weeks.

In the 15th Congressional District in central Ohio, the candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump, Mike Carey, was the clear winner in an 11‑way race. The energy lobbyist was a virtual unknown on the political scene until Mr. Trump's endorsement, and is now highly favored to win the general election for a safe Republican seat.

"In a very small way it's a preview of the Senate race," said David Niven, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. "You have this wide array of Republican candidate and ultimately the central question that candidates presented was who's the 'Trumpiest' among them."

To observers, Mr. Carey's win signaled that Mr. Trump's backing still holds power, and Mr. Carey hammered the point home in a statement following his victory.

"Tonight, Republicans across Ohio's 15th Congressional District sent a clear message to the nation that President Donald J. Trump is, without a doubt, the leader of our party," he said.

Mr. Carey is positioned to succeed moderate Steve Stivers, who resigned in May to lead the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

The race lacked a consensus candidate from the start. Mr. Stivers backed state Rep. Jeff LaRe, while former state Rep. Ron Hood had the backing of Sen. Rand Paul and his political action committee. Other candidates also secured the endorsements of pro‑Trump figures including former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a one‑time domestic policy adviser to Mr. Trump.

The crowded field and competing factions meant that Mr. Carey wasn't guaranteed a win, which is why the Trump‑aligned Make America Great Again PAC pumped $350,000 into advertising after another Trump‑backed House candidate, Susan Wright, lost her special election last week in Texas.

Mr. Carey's win offers an idea of how far Mr. Trump's endorsement might go in Ohio's GOP Senate primary, which features a similarly crowded field. The prospect of Mr. Trump's blessing looms over that race, but the former president has yet to weigh in with the contest still nine months away. The same is true for Ohio's governor's race after Mr. Trump last year hinted that he wanted to see another Republican run against Mr. DeWine in the primary.

The 15th district spans rural south‑central Ohio counties and also dips into Franklin County. Under new rules for map drawing, its contours are guaranteed to change ahead of the 2022 election.

In northeast Ohio's 11th Congressional District, Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County Councilman and the county Democratic Party chairman, beat Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator and Sen. Bernie Sanders ally. In one of four Ohio U.S. House districts drawn to elect a Democrat, Ms. Brown is all but guaranteed to win the seat, previously held by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge.

The race was largely interpreted as a proxy war between Turner‑aligned progressives and the Brown‑supporting Democratic establishment. In its final weeks, the contest turned into a messy slug‑fest between the two candidates and party wings. Ms. Turner, who entered the race as the frontrunner, saw her projected lead slip away as outside money flooded the district and drowned her in negative ads that sought to remind voters of her sharp elbows, including the time she compared voting for President Biden to eating a bowl of excrement.

A parade of surrogates cycled through the 11th, including Mr. Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez, a member of the progressive "squad" that Ms. Turner would have joined had she won. Mr. Brown, meanwhile, was boosted by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, whose endorsement was crucial to Mr. Biden winning the Democratic nomination in 2020. Since 2020, the caucus has been led by Rep. Joyce Beatty of Columbus.

The criticism on the ground throughout the race was that a progressive vs. establishment lens didn't capture the reality on the ground in Ohio, where the 11th Congressional District spanning Cleveland and Akron is the state's only majority Black district and has a large Jewish population. The Democratic Majority for Israel spent hundreds of thousands of dollars painting Ms. Turner as anti‑Israel for past comments and connection to lawmakers who have been critical of U.S.‑Israel policy.

"I am going to work hard to ensure that something like this never happens to a progressive candidate again," Ms. Turner said in her concession speech.

Democrats quickly coalesced around Ms. Brown, even endorsers who had supported her rival or entities, such as the Ohio Democratic Party, that remained neutral in the primary.

"Northeast Ohioans are known for their toughness, grit and determination. It's no surprise that the election to represent these Ohioans would reflect those same values, especially when the candidates in the race care so deeply about the district and the voters they're fighting for. And northeast Ohioans have a fighter in Shontel Brown, who we look forward to sending to Congress this November," Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Liz Walters said in a statement Tuesday night.

Just before the election, former Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper, who backed Ms. Turner, predicted that all the national attention threatened to sink her.

"I think for 80 percent of the race it wasn't that, and clearly in the last two months there's been effort to nationalize it," Mr. Pepper said. "In the end, it was an effective strategy of making something that had been a local race, a generally positive race, turn into a very tough debate about the national Democratic split."

Others argue a low‑turnout special election that interests political observers more than many voters isn't a great way to measure what's truly resonating.

"Both of these races are special elections and they're going to have ridiculously small turnout, so is it an indicator? Somewhat. With anything that has a small sample size it can be a guide, but I don't think it's necessarily a harbinger of things to come," said Mike Hartley, a GOP strategist in Columbus.

"You get a certain amount of the eyes of the country on these Ohio races while the vast, vast majority of people in these districts are sitting at home with absolutely no interest in this," said Mr. Niven, the political scientist.

But for a time, the country's one‑time bellwether that until 2020 had maintained a decades‑long streak of siding with the winner in presidential elections, was again predicting for the nation what to expect in future elections.

"Even in our post‑battleground state status, we're still grasping to relevance here," he said.