Ohio

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

With a slim lead and votes still being counted, Republicans appear to have skirted outright disaster in a too-close-to-call special election held Tuesday to replace a retired House member in Ohio’s 12th congressional district, which has been consistently red for more than three decades.

The Special Election in Ohio's 12th District Has Flown Under the Radar

Plus, Dinesh D'Souza's new movie.

Both Republicans and Democrats avoided elevating bad candidates in marquee races.

President Trump traveled to Ohio Thursday to give what was supposed to be a speech touting his administration's infrastructure plan, as the White House attempts this week to refocus on infrastructure for the umpteenth time since Trump's inauguration. But that effort ran aground Thursday for the…

For decades, Ohio has been a political bellwether—a quadrennial swing state that often voted for the winning presidential candidate. But in 2016, something odd happened—Ohio jerked sharply to the right, giving now President Trump an eigh-point win despite his two-point national popular vote loss.…

Can a GoFundMe Bring Back a Beloved Theme Park? Probably not. But that’s not stopping a man in my native Cleveland who wants to bring back the famous Geauga Lake theme park. He’s started a GoFundMe to raise $20 million bucks to start bringing the park back. That’s a fraction of price you’d need to…

Nick Meyer, 40, became briefly famous a few weeks ago for allegedly stealing more than $1 million of wine from his banker boss. As Goldman Sachs president David Solomon’s personal assistant from 2008 until 2016, Meyer’s job involved such chores as the transport of hundreds of bottles of extremely…

A man calling himself Nicolas De-Meyer was arrested in Los Angeles last Tuesday. His crime: allegedly stealing $1.2 million worth of wine from his boss, David Solomon, president of Goldman Sachs.

The end of free speech? Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason has an excellent cover story about how "the left eats its own and the right shows its true colors." Here's my favorite part:

It’s not always easy to sympathize with reporters for the New York Times, because so many of them act like .  .  . how to put it? .  .  . like reporters for the New York Times. But there are exceptions, and to their list we may now add the name of Richard Fausset. He writes (especially well) from…

If Richard Cordray runs for governor of Ohio, he would be the only Democratic candidate with a national fundraising base, the potential to send the progressive grassroots into hyperdrive and the only Democratic candidate that has already twice won statewide races.

Must free trade come with social justice? That's what Canada is saying, reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown reports."[A]s we head into NAFTA renegotiations this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his administration want to expand the rules to include sections on gender issues, climate…

A Republican-aligned opposition research group is set to accuse Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray of violating the Hatch Act by positioning himself for a run for governor of Ohio while in office.

In mid-December, Jeb Bush announced his intention to explore a presidential bid. If he runs and wins the Republican nomination and then the election, he will be the third President Bush in 25 years. That unprecedented prospect has left many wondering: In a republic like ours, is it proper for one…

Donald Trump held a rally in Cincinnati Thursday to begin what's been dubbed the president-elect's "Thank You" tour.

The man who attacked several people with a knife at Ohio State University Monday is of Somali descent and is a permanent legal resident of the United States. CNN reports:

In crucial states for Trump's path to the White House, incumbent Republican senators have cruised to victory in what had been previously expected to be close reelection contests.

The latest CNN/ORC polls, released Monday, show bad news for Republican Senate candidates in the battleground states of Nevada and North Carolina, following strong numbers in thoes states for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The latest surveys of swing states in the election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton find the GOP candidate lagging in critical battlegrounds, with both nominees still sitting below 50 percent in expanded three- and four-candidate fields.

Quinnipiac University released several swing state polls on Monday that were, on balance, good news for Hillary Clinton. She had leads in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—which suggests a fairly comfortable Electoral College win. Yet Donald Trump was shown with a five-percentage point lead…

Ulysses S. Grant has been the subject of scores of biographies, but his character has long remained elusive to historians. Even Grant's closest friends found him hard to figure. General William T. Sherman noted that, despite having known Grant for decades, "to me he is a mystery, and I believe he…

A new Bloomberg poll shows Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 5 points in Ohio:

Two recent Quinnipiac University polls have some good news for Senate Republicans.

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon, examines the fate of traditional conservatives in state- and congressional-level primaries—as well as the long-term implications for the Republican party and conservative movement.

Reid Wilson reports at The Hill:

A correspondent calls to my attention a remarkable op-ed in the Plain Dealer in Cleveland by Phil Van Treuren, a Republican member of the Amherst City Council in Lorain County, Ohio.

Former Ohio Governor and Senate hopeful Ted Strickland apologized earlier Wednesday after making a joke about the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.

Ohio Senate candidate Ted Strickland joked about the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday, saying it came "at a good time" for union workers since he was unable to cast the deciding vote in a March case that ended up in a 4-4 deadlock.

CLEVELAND — Walk around the Republican convention and talk to Ohioans, to Republicans from around the country, and to party strategists about the feud between Donald Trump and John Kasich, and here's the short version of what you'll hear: Kasich is being a jerk, but Trump is crazy to fight with him.

Cleveland

Every Fourth of July, my Cleveland suburb of Bay Village has a Norman Rockwell-esque four-day town festival. Called Bay Days, the festival is held at our idyllic Cahoon Park on the shores of Lake Erie. There are carnival rides, a classic midway with the usual games, food booths (funnel cakes,…

Ohio in 2014 launched a searchable database of the state's expenditures, allowing residents to browse how their money was being spent by both the state and participating local governments. Government watchdogs view it as a model for something that could be applied across the nation.

Donald Trump has undeniably brought the issue of trade with China to the national stage. With Trump's good odds at becoming the GOP nominee, down-ballot candidates in the House and the Senate are indeed having to grapple with a changed landscape.

Over the next two weeks, the non-Donald Trump candidates (except for Ben Carson) will stay in the race. That's fine. And the good news (if you're in the anti-Trump camp) is that all they have to do is pursue their enlightened self-interest, and that their interests pretty much coincide.

Rob Portman of Ohio may have one of the toughest Senate reelection campaigns in the country next year, and the Republican isn't wasting time hitting his likely Democratic opponent, former governor Ted Strickland. The Portman campaign has launched a new set of online ads targeting Strickland's…

In Ohio, the State Judicial Conduct Board has ruled that judges can't decline to marry only same-sex couples because of their personal religious beliefs. But the Judicial Conduct Board's ruling went much further than that:

The political action committee headed by Ohio governor John Kasich has a new advertisement as the Republican prepares to run for president. The 60-second ad features Kasich speaking directly to the camera about his experience both as governor and as a longtime member of the House of…

The Chamber of Commerce has launched two new ads focusing on what are expected to be some of the closest Senate races of the 2016 cycle: the seats up in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Both Florida Republicans running for president are tied for first among registered voters in their party, according to a new poll of the Sunshine State from Quinnipiac.

In high courts across America, judges are rendering their spring-term decisions. And in Ohio, the City of Cleveland has tacked another loss onto its growing pile of collective losses.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made clear that he's seriously considering running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. If he formally announces, it will be important for conservative voters to punish him for his expansion of President Obama's healthcare law in his state.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the week that was for Hillary in Washington, Ohio, Iowa, and around the world.

With more than a year and a half until Election Day 2016, things are already gearing up for high-profile political contests, and not just on the presidential level. In Ohio, the quintessential presidential battleground state, first-term Republican senator Rob Portman is one of the Democrats’ top…

A new report, Understanding the Federal Government’s ‘IT Insecurity’ Crisis, released today by the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM), has the group claiming that "half or more of the $70-$80 billion the U.S. government spends each year on Information…

If I sported a hairpiece, I’d be wearing it at half-mast right about now, upon hearing that the world just grew a little less interesting.  For the most colorful man who ever inhabited Congress, former Ohio Democratic Rep. James A . Traficant Jr., expired today at the age of 73.  Traficant—he of…

The other day a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that a First Amendment challenge to an Ohio law should be heard in the lower courts. While the decision may have seemed a minor one, it represents an important advance for freedom of speech.

The Scrapbook hesitates to kick a football town when it’s in the dumps, but we are baffled by the crazy news coming out of Cleveland. And no, we’re not talking about the Cleveland Browns coaching drama.

An Ohio company is scrapping health care for 1,000 employees due to Obamacare, WEWS-OH reports:

How is Obamacare hurting businesses in Ohio? Here's a report from a local affiliate detailing the increased costs and how Obamacare might be making America less competitive globally:

You are governor of a mid-Western state with substantial union membership and voters who are generally disgruntled and feeling no love for your Republican party.  You are down in the polls and friendless in the media.  What to do?

Gordon Gee's peripatetic and colorful academic career – president of West Virginia University, University of Colorado, Vanderbilt, Brown, and Ohio State – has come to a self-inflicted end. Mr. Gee was an able fundraiser, which seems to be what those charge of civilizing and educating the next…

Ohio senator Rob Portman, a Republican, expressed his disappointment in President Obama choosing Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense in a statement released to the press:

Earlier today at an Obama rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, former President Bill Clinton said that American can't export Jeeps to China:

Mitt Romney, speaking just now in Ohio:

There is a peculiar divergence between various public opinion polls at the moment. On the one hand, Mitt Romney has built a narrow but durable lead in the national polls, averaging around a 1 percent advantage over the last three weeks. This has cheered the hearts of conservatives everywhere.

The latest polling of likely voters from Rasmussen Reports shows that Mitt Romney has now moved ahead of President Obama in Ohio.  The poll shows Romney leading by 2 percentage points — 50 to 48 percent.  This is the fourth poll listed by RealClearPolitics that has shown Romney ahead in Ohio this…

On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume highlighted Mitt Romney’s clear advantage in Gallup, Rasmussen, and other national polling, and said, “Now…if those polls are generally correct, it is difficult to imagine that Ohio would be all that different.  Ohio has pretty closely tracked the national…

Cincinnati

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are tied at 49 percent in Ohio, according to a new poll from the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Ohio News Organization. Here's more from the Enquirer:

Cleveland

Rasmussen Reports, the first polling outfit to release a survey from Ohio taken after the third and final presidential debate, shows that Mitt Romney has now pulled even with President Obama among the state’s likely voters — at 48 percent support apiece.  This is the first time since the summer…

At a campaign stop today, an Ohio man told Vice President Joe Biden to "enjoy his last couple of months" as vice president of the United States, according to the pool report. The man told Biden, "Just because you're a good guy doesn't mean you're a good vice president."

Several left-wing news outlets are reporting on a financial relationship between one of Mitt Romney's sons and a voting machine company--with some even implying that the relationship could lead to tampering with votes on Election Day to benefit the Republican. The only problem? There doesn't seem…

Mitt Romney won a focus group of undecided voters in Ohio by a vote of 6-2, according to a local CBS affiliate:

Less than a year ago, voters went to the polls in Ohio and resoundingly rejected Obamacare’s individual mandate. Actually, that’s an understatement.  Voters in all 88 counties of Ohio rejected it, and in all but seven of those counties they did so by a margin of at least 20 percentage points.  Even…

President Obama had another hard-hitting interview today--with Cleveland's 92.3 The Fan. The topic of conversation? Sports.

A local Ohio newscast says that the Buckeye state is now "a statistical dead heat":

Last night, President Barack Obama's reelection campaign announced the winners of their latest contest, "Meet Two Presidents" (Obama and former President Bill Clinton). The winners? Two women, both from swing states. Their reason for supporting Obama's reelection effort? Obamacare.

Newly released polls from Rasmussen Reports and WeAskAmerica show that Mitt Romney has overtaken President Obama in Florida in the wake of the first presidential debate.  Three weeks ago, Rasmussen showed Obama with a 2-point lead in the Sunshine State (48 to 46 percent).  That margin has…

An Ohio man at the market told President Obama that business has been "Terrible since you got here," according to the White House pool report. Via the pool report:

President Barack Obama is far ahead of Mitt Romney in three important swing states, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac. Obama leads Romney by 12 points in Pennsylvania (54 percent to 42 percent), by 10 points in Ohio (53 percent to 43 percent), and by 9 points in Florida (53 percent to 44…

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan completed the initial leg of their bus tour across battleground Ohio. The GOP forces added an element of celebrity that may help shore up their base, and they encountered voting blocs that Romney must attract to win the state. Based on recent poll numbers here in the…

Cincinnati

President Barack Obama's reelection campaign paid nearly $93k to hold a kick-off event at the Ohio State University in May. And, at the time, photos of the event showed large sections of the arena unoccupied, causing the New York Times to write that the kick-off event "had the feeling of a concert…

I know those of you masochistic enough to pay close attention to media fact checkers aren't going to be surprised by this, but Media Trackers, a nonpartisan watchdog, combed through the personal Twitter feed of PolitiFact Ohio writer Tom Feran and found he's a pretty vocal liberal. You can review…

According to a poll from Rasmussen, Paul Ryan as 51 percent favorability with likely voters in Ohio, a crucial Midwestern swing state Mitt Romney may need to pick up to win the White House. Ryan, a Midwesterner himself from Wisconsin, has 39 percent unfavorability among likely voters in the Buckeye…

The Obama campaign is known for leveraging its robust online following for all it's worth -- even when it appears to cross the line, such as in 2008 when the campaign accepted untraceable donations over the internet. More recently, the campaign released a mobile app that allows you to see which of…

In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Florida congressman Allen West calls President Obama's decision "to unleash his campaign cronies against our Military ... unconscionable."

Someone fainted at an event for President Obama in Ohio:

President Obama cited an "independent, non-partisan study" in Mansfield, Ohio earlier today: 

The first ad released today by the Romney campaign is called "Dream." Here it is:

White House press secretary Jay Carney said he was unaware about defense cuts that will close an Air Force base in Ohio--where President Obama will be landing tomorrow aboard Air Force One. Here's the video, from the White House press briefing:

Of the ten swing states, unemployment dropped in only one--Ohio--in the month of June. And things got worse in 6 of the ten swing states, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to disclosure forms with the Federal Election Commission, President Obama's reelection team appears to have paid $92,751.50 to rent the Ohio State University's Jerome Schottenstein Center, the site of the campaign's much touted kick-off event in May.

Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown holds a small lead over his Republican challenger, Josh Mandel, in Ohio's U.S. Senate race, a new poll from Rasmussen shows. According to the survey, 46 percent support Brown, who was first elected in 2006, while 42 percent support Mandel, the state treasurer.

The Akron Beacon Journal reports: 

A new Rasmussen poll shows Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel has tied incumbent Democratic senator Sherrod Brown with 43 percent support apiece. That's a change from a poll in early February, when Brown held a four-point lead over Mandel in a head-to-head match-up. Here's more from Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen poll of likely general election voters in the “core four” swing states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and North Carolina shows Rick Santorum leading President Obama by 4 percentage points (48 to 44 percent), while Mitt Romney trails Obama by 4 points (46 to 42 percent) — an…

The Hill reports that Florida senator Marco Rubio will today be making his first Senate endorsement for Josh Mandel, a Republican challenging Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown:

Mitt Romney didn’t achieve the knockout punch he wanted on Super Tuesday, but winning five of the 10 contests was no small feat. With his haul of delegates, he continued his march to the Republican presidential nomination.

In what appears to have been the closest contest of the night, Mitt Romney was able to prevail over his Republican rivals in Ohio, according to the Associated Press. 

Ricochet: "Newt Explains the Facts to David Gregory"

As BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski reports, USA Today published a health care op-ed by Mitt Romney on July 30, 2009 — just days before the start of the August recess that quickly became the August uprising against Obamacare. In his op-ed, Romney seems to encourage President Obama to move in a slower…

Washington Free Beacon: "Veteran of the Charlie Sheen media campaign joins Team Obama"

Sean Trende: "Odds of a Brokered Convention Are Increasing"

The latest Ohio poll of the Republican presidential primary from the University of Cincinnati:

Why did Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican attorney general and a former U.S. senator, shift his endorsement from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum? “When I endorsed Governor Romney, I thought he was the best candidate to beat Barack Obama. As this campaign has played out, it is abundantly clear he is not,…

Former Ohio senator Mike DeWine, a Republican, is shifting his support from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum. Nearly two weeks before the Ohio primary on March 6, DeWine's change of endorsement came as a surprise to the Romney campaign, BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins reports:

When the boss called in late yesterday from Columbus, Ohio, where he gave a speech and had a couple meetings, he said he was struck how light support seemed to be for Mitt Romney—and how receptive people seemed to be toward Rick Santorum. Rasmussen's latest poll seems to confirm the boss's general…

Restore Our Future, the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC, has released a new ad that will air in Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio. The ad portrays Santorum as a "big spender" and a "Washington insider," citing his voting record when he represented Pennsylvania in the Senate. Watch the ad below:

A new Rasmussen poll of likely voters in Ohio shows Rick Santorum tied with Barack Obama in a hypothetical November match-up at 44 percent. In the Midwestern swing state, which will be critical for a Republican presidential victory in the fall, Mitt Romney falls 4 points behind Obama in that…

Starting in March 2011, a series of microearthquakes hit Ohio. The first few registered just above 2.0 on the Richter scale and were not felt by residents. But on New Year’s Eve, a tremor hit Youngstown that measured 4.0—still very mild, but noticed. It was the second quake to hit the area in a…

The Hill reports: “Requiring people to have health insurance is ‘conservative,’ GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told MSNBC on Wednesday, but only if states do it.” The Hill adds: “The argument aims to improve Romney’s appeal to Republican voters concerned about the healthcare reform plan he…

A new Quinnipiac poll shows that President Obama is now trailing both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney among independents in the crucial swing states of Florida and Ohio. The poll shows that, among independents, Gingrich leads Obama by 4 percentage points (45 to 41 percent) in Florida and by 1…

Last week’s election indicates that the GOP marriage with the white working class is on the rocks. That’s bad news, since the epic Republican landslide in 2010 was fueled by record-high margins among these voters. It’s doubly bad for the GOP frontrunner, multimillionaire Mitt Romney, who is already…

A new national CBS News poll shows a close three-man race for the Republican nomination for president among Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Cain received 18 percent support, while Romney and Gingrich are both tied at 15 percent. That shows a decrease in support for Cain and Romney, who…

A newly released Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey of “usual Republican primary voters” in Ohio shows that Herman Cain is still leading — and by a fairly wide margin. Perhaps the survey’s most eye-catching result, however, is that Newt Gingrich has now moved into 2nd place in the Buckeye State. 

A ballot measure that StateImpact Ohio (a creation of local public media and NPR) describes as “a referendum on a constitutional amendment…aimed at keeping the national health care reform law from taking [e]ffect” won in all 88 counties in Ohio. In 81 of the counties, it won by a margin of at least…

The Associated Press reports:

Ohio voters go to the polls tomorrow to vote on approving a recently passed public sector labor law, and a new survey from Public Policy Polling finds that 59 percent of those voters are against the law. Senate bill 5, passed by the Ohio legislature and signed by Republican governor John Kasich,…

Speaking in Virginia this morning, Mitt Romney tried to clarify what he called “confusion” over his comments yesterday in Ohio.

Public Policy Polling (PPP) has a new survey showing Barack Obama may be in real trouble in Ohio, the perennial swing state that he won by just over 260,000 votes in 2008. According to PPP, Obama's approval rating in Ohio is at 43 percent, with only 39 percent of independents approving of his job.

A new Public Policy Polling survey shows Mitt Romney with a six-point lead, at 30 percent, among Florida primary voters. Rick Perry is in second with 24 percent--the first time the Texas governor has not lead in a PPP poll in a Southern state since he entered the race.

In the Los Angeles Times, Andrew Malcolm highlights another underreported gaffe by President Obama. During his recent quasi-campaign speech in support of his jobs bill, theatrically set next to a bridge on the Ohio-Kentucky border, Obama said, “We’re the country that built the Intercontinental…

President Obama arrived in Cincinnati Thursday afternoon to tout his newest bill meant to stimulate the economy with billions of dollars in infrastructure investment for job creation. The Obama team chose the “functionally obsolete” Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio, and the still…

No, Rupert Murdoch does not pay negative income taxes: "Oh David Cay Johnston, You’ve Done It Again! Reuters Nixes Serial Misreporter’s Debut Column"

"Global race on to match U.S. drone capabilities"

Ohio's congressional delegation is shrinking; Washington state's is growing. So with the prospect of losing his congressional seat to redistricting, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich is exploring a House run in Washington, far away from Cleveland, the city he was once the mayor of. “My district…

Proposals to enact so-called "parent trigger" laws, where parents can choose to convert their failing school into a charter school, are gaining traction, and the teachers' unions and some liberal groups are unsurprisingly up in arms. In Ohio for instance, Republican governor John Kasich has…

Libyan rebels calling for international help.

Florida governor Rick Scott has rejected federal funds for high-speed rail connecting Orlando and Tampa, a decision that could send up to $2.4 billion in stimulus money back to the federal government. In a statement, Scott says that the red ink in President Obama’s budget – and the higher taxes the…

Former seven-term congressman Steve Chabot is poised to represent Ohio’s first district again after his 2008 loss to Democrat Steve Driehaus. Chabot’s comfortable lead in the polls reflects the district’s disgust with fiscal irresponsibility and the federal government’s sharp left turn.

As Bill Kristol previously noted, voters in Ohio's Tenth Congressional District just might vote out long-time Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich. It's close: Kucinich's Republican challenger, Peter Corrigan, is behind by only 4 points, well within the margin of error in the latest poll.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained the results of a private poll conducted last night in Ohio-10, the Cleveland-area district held for seven terms by Democrat Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich has been widely viewed as safe—even though he fell short of 60 percent of the vote in 2008, and the district has a…

Democratic representative Steve Driehaus has filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission against the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List to stop the group from putting up four billboards claiming that Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funding of abortion (see the ad here).

Youngstown, Ohio

1. Obama’s Best Pick.  Yesterday, Gallup found that Barack Obama has just a 15-point lead over Hillary Clinton for the 2012 Democratic nomination, with 10 percent undecided.  Yikes.  Gallup accurately notes:

It may be a big year for the GOP, but even the expected anti-Democratic tide can’t unseat an entrenched liberal like Dennis Kucinich -- or can it? Peter J. Corrigan says he’s the one to do it, and a recent poll shows the idea may not be too outrageous.

John Kasich, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the primary architect of this spring's federal budget agreement, wants to talk off the record for a while. We're sitting in the living room of his small clapboard bungalow on a leafy street in Westerville, just outside Columbus, Ohio, and…