This midterm year, in which many states have to choose between non-entities and the certifiably insane, Ohio is blessed by a real political dogfight. The Senate battle between representative Tim Ryan and Hillbilly Elegy author, JD Vance, is becoming one for the ages.
At issue is the very nature of populism. The 38-year-old Vance, a Republican who emerged from Appalachian poverty to serve in the Marines and attend Yale Law School, epitomises the grassroots radicalism of the Scots-Irish in America: anti-elitist, culturally conservative, sceptical toward draconian climate policies and hostile toward China. Ryan, after 20 years as the Democratic representative from the former industrial stronghold of Northeast Ohio, touts a more traditional, pro-union, but also firmly anti-globalist politics.
The state’s size, and its location in the politically volatile Midwest, render it a critical battleground. Ohio is home to 11 million people, making it the seventh largest state in the union. It has all the basic components of 21st-century America: challenged, largely minority cities such as Cleveland and Toledo, relatively prosperous Cincinnati, an emerging boom town in Columbus (the university town that also serves as state capital), and a vast array of rural towns and villages.
Ohio may no longer be the decisive “bellwether” of America — it has been trending Republican for over a decade — but it is still a competitive state. Veteran political scientist Herb Asher notes that despite its GOP leanings, Ohio remains open for Democratic challengers in a way that is hard to imagine in deep-red states such as Texas. In Ohio, successful Democrats are not gentry types like California Governor Gavin Newsom, but hard-bitten, pro-working class New Dealers like Senator Sherrod Brown. Ryan is cut from much the same cloth. At a time of heated polarisation, he has cast himself as a folksy, open-minded family man who puts country over party.
To his credit, Ryan has been willing, at least on the campaign trail, to declare his independence from Democratic orthodoxy. He has supported fracking and opposed Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness scheme. He has praised Trump’s protectionism and opposition to China. He does not much appeal to the tech-and-finance elites who now dominate the Democratic Party — one reason, suggests Midwest scholar John Russo, that he has been slow to attract big donor money.
Vance, by contrast, is not a great candidate. On stage, the hillbilly turned intellectual and venture capitalist is rigid and off-putting — you would rather sink a couple of bourbons with Ryan. Even Vance’s populism seems less people-friendly than Ryan’s. Vance’s biggest blessing, and greatest curse, is Donald Trump, who carried Ohio twice, and whose endorsement saved Vance in a hard-fought Republican primary. Like many conservative intellectuals, Vance opposed Trump at first but then quickly cosied up to him after he won. Ryan has not hesitated to make hay of this about-face, saying that Ohio needs “an ass-kicker not an ass-kisser”.
The outcome of the race will depend on two swing demographics: working-class whites and suburbanites. According to Russo, the fall-out from the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, combined with the increasingly rancid stench of Trumpism, could alienate affluent suburban voters, particularly in burgeoning cities such as Columbus. “The middle-class suburban moderate voter is the key for Ryan,” Russo notes.
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SubscribeThis nonsense analysis comes from the sort of political writer who uses incendiary language like;
”combined with the increasingly rancid stench of Trumpism,”
I mean, come on…..
MAGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and now
Ultra MAGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
are going to take the Midterms and save America from certain Destruction at the hands of Biden’s Puppet Masters – the Globalist Psychopathic Overlords of Davos.
It’s just another Kotkin article.
To me, Mr Kotkin presents as an equal opportunity incendiary. On this site he’s often scorched the Democrats et al with hot words for presiding over the decline of cities.
And I could warm!!!!! my office!!!!! if it were possible to harness the white heat!!!! from some comments!!!!!
I agree. Here on Unherd, Mr Kotkin has been highly critical of how the Democrats run his home state of California. He also published on Unherd what I consider to be one of the most astute articles about the upcoming US midterms.
The Republicans should be able to massively beat the Dems in the midterms but it appears unlikely that will happen mainly because of poor campaigning and even worse Republican senate candidates. As Mr. Kotkin noted, a beating in the midterms might be exactly what the Republicans need to focus their minds on a winning political platform in time for the 2024 election. I’d love to see the Dems take a beating in November but I’m not sure it’s going to happen.
Kotkin might be critical of how the Dems have run California into the ground, but would he jump parties and vote against them? Not a chance. He bleats continually about “pragmatic,” moderate Republicans as the necessary foil to the dread ‘MAGA” wing, yet I strongly suspect he means Republicans who can be counted on to lose graciously to Democrats when necessary, and who have served as the ineffective flip side of the UniParty coin for waaaay too long. And I believe that Ryan is the “inon-orthodox” Dem who has called more than once for killing and confronting “MAGA” Republicans. There’s some unifying rhetoric there!
Interesting idea – attach those with more trenchant views to a hamster wheel (of appropriate size of course) connected to the grid and then publish – and watch that electricity flow!
Nurse, one has escaped
Care in the community?
Great piece!
Ryan might be the best Democrat running but the anti-working class party of the educated and activists is going to be his undoing.
It’s funny to think the Party of FDR, under a President calling himself the new FDR, is the Party that is so against the drillers and pipeliners and miners they’re losing Senators based on these working class voters leaving.
I would bet most TVA workers will vote Republican and cite the “new FDR” as their primary reason!
‘…combined with the increasingly rancid stench of Trumpism…’
You lost me there, pal. Your mask as an honest commentator fell right off your face. Next time, use better elastic. But no, you Democrats just can’t hep yourselves, can you? Anything to avoid admitting the foul reality staring you in the face.
There is an increasingly rancid stench in US politics, alright, but it’s of corrupt Bidenite-Clintonist neocon warmongering and race-baiting graft – weaponising the MSM, Big Tech and now even the US State against Biden’s political enemies.
*deeeeeep inhale* I loved the “stench” of energy independence.
Hey Joel, what do Democrats have to run on? Their violent, crime-ridden, open toilet cities? Their enthusiastic support for child sexual grooming and surgical mutilation? Their economic incompetence evident at every supermarket and gas pump? The reanimated corpse purported to lead a party with 200 years of racism as a platform? “Flyover country” sees it all and is grateful to remain invisible to your lot.
This points out the problems the Democrats face in middle America. Most of the policies that are championed by Democrats like the Green New Deal, defund the police, LGBTQ proselytizing, revisionist history, open borders, etc. are deeply unpopular to the point the only reliably Democratic states between the Rockies and the Appalachians are Minnesota and Illinois. The Democrats are deeply out of touch and will remain so as long as the party is controlled by Wall Street, Big Tech, and a bunch of Ivy League intellectuals. What the Dems need is someone to defeat the establishment and show them how fragile their control really is in the same way Trump did the Republicans. It will probably take a major defeat, maybe a Trump win in 2024, for that to happen.
“you would rather sink a couple of bourbons with Ryan.”
Speak for yourself!
Vance is intelligent, authentic, and served while Ryan is a lifelong politician ameba and dimwit. He votes 100% with Pelosi but tries with media help to claim he is a moderate.
https://www.breitbart.com/midterm-election/2022/10/10/tim-ryan-voting-100-with-biden-says-politicians-voting-100-with-their-party-huge-threat-to-democracy/
Tucker showed a video last night of Ryan telling an interviewer that he supported getting rid of cash bail (back when that was the Democrat rage).
Ryan will get run over on election day
This is the first time in a long while that anyone has written about Ohio being in contention. The writer seems to be living in a Democrat fantasy parallel universe.
Thanks for this. Reading so often, everywhere, about the extreme options currently available to American voters, this state sounds like it’s an election with relatively middle-ground candidates.
The author is bang-on here. Ohio is a weird state, and neither party can rely on a solid majority. If you really want to hack off Ohioans, run like you’re somehow owed the seat because of your birth or your party – you will be trounced. Vance early on was making exactly that mistake, and now has a hard fight to beat out Ryan. What is saving Vance is that both candidates have significant problems of authenticity, and I don’t know very many Ohioans who are actually enthusiastic about either (yard signs among my neighbors are good barometer of enthusiasm, and only the most partisan of neighbors, who always have signs out, have bothered to put any out). I’m guessing Vance will squeak this one out, as he’s landed some good hits on Ryan’s own record and rhetoric (especially on crime) – but this is more a vote against the Left than for Vance.