Senate Strategy: How Wide Of A Map?

Should Democrats Seriously Target Ohio In 2022?

What is the right number of GOP-held Senate seats up in 2022 that Democrats should seriously target?

It's a hard question, in some ways, but in others it is very easy. Your answer can't be less than 3 - Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina are indisputable - but the upper band is more debatable. You can say it's three, that those three states should be the be all, end all, and I'll respect the opinion. Alaska and Ohio are the next obvious states, Ohio because Tim Ryan versus whichever clusrerfuck the Ohio GOP nominate could get interesting and Alaska because of both RCV weirdness and then also because it is trending left anyways. After that, you're at the Missouri/Iowa tier of "maybe in a landslide." So what's the right answer?

I think Alaska needs to be put aside, because the case for investment in Alaska is not about winning it in 2022, it's about trying to beat Sullivan in 2026. Democrats should run a serious, credible candidate there this year, and use the opportunity to try and build up an infrastructure for the future, but it's not a credible target. Neither are Iowa or Missouri, both working class states where Democrats would need massive amounts of cultural conservative reversion to even make competitive, and there is no reason to believe that will occur. Even with Greitens, even without Chuck Grassley, neither state is competitive. So, the number is really 3 or 4, and the actual question is should Democrats play in Ohio.

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If this were a Presidential cycle, the answer would be an easy no. Whatever Tim Ryan's qualities as a candidate, if this were 2024, it would be Safe R, no questions asked, no matter what chucklefuck the Ohio GOP put up. I'm already on the record saying Sherrod Brown is in a lot of trouble in 2024 in the state for much the same reason - basically, Presidential year turnout is deadly for a Democrat in Ohio, even one as good as Sherrod. But again, I don't think Sherrod is that good, which means I don't think Tim Ryan is that far off Sherrod in terms of candidate quality. And if that's the case, then should Democrats spend in Ohio?

The case for an Ohio investment is that whoever the GOP nominee is, none of them will be even Mike DeWine in terms of strengths, and DeWine only beat a mediocre Democratic candidate by 4% in 2018. If Ryan manages to get some of that white working class vote that Cordray couldn't get in 2018, the share of the electorate that's white and non-degree holding falls as it always does in a midterm, and rural turnout south of the I-71 falls much more sharply than turnout in the trio of cities on the I-71 - Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland - then you could stitch together a coalition that could get you a 2% victory, if everything broke right.

The counterpoint to that, of course, is that this is a Trump +8 state and even if it won't be that red with GOP turnout falling in the rurals more than in the cities and suburbs, you're still in a Trumpian, and trending right, state, and all of that is correct. Let's be very, very clear - the race is Likely R. The GOP are sizable, clear, indisputable favourites in Ohio. But what they aren't is safe. Whether they win going away or whether it's a race - as much as a Likely R race they probably win by 5% can be a race - comes down to whether or not Democrats try there or not.

I'm pretty sure, for what it's worth, that Lak disagrees with Ohio being on the list, because of his stated preference for not "lighting money on fire" in Ohio (and Iowa, where I agree it would be lit on fire). I say this not to criticize him or to validate my opinion, I merely say this to say that smart people can come at this question in many different ways. The failures of 2020 were in playing too wide of a Senate map, with Iowa, South Carolina, Kansas, Montana, and Alaska taking away from the focus and efforts on North Carolina and Maine - mostly because the polls said we had both of those races, in fairness. Could spending in Ohio make us think the race is close, and take money and effort and energy away from genuinely close races? It's a risk.

Ohio 2022 is also a risk for Democrats of being what Virginia 2021 is becoming for the GOP - a race where people talk about the chance the out party has because, basically, there's nothing else to talk about. We get bored of going over the same terrain time and time again, so we talk ourselves into edge cases in a probabilistic sense actually being bigger proportions of the bell curve than they are. We get ourselves twisted on the axis of interestingness, because people have tweets to send and columns to write, and TV segments to fill. I get how this works, as someone who has done (mostly) daily content for a year and a half now. My failures in 2020 fell victim of this - I got sick of writing the same column about the core 7 targets (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia) that I talked myself into Texas and South Carolina as the cycle went on. That risk - of talking oneself into an overly broad map again - really scares me, especially given I have fallen for this trap once before.

All that said, I think Ohio is worth a serious punch. Democrats need to win at least 3 of these 8 Senate races to keep the barest of majorities after 2024 even if they win the Presidency - Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio (all 2022), Montana, West Virginia, Ohio, Texas (all 2024). Manchin's gone, Tester's probably gone, Brown's almost assuredly dead because '24 is a Presidential year, so you need 3 wins of the five that are left, and I think you have to give all five of those serious runs. Ohio is Likely R, and it would take one hell of a perfect campaign for me to think that the race was a tossup. But I just don't think Democrats have the luxury of sitting this race out, because if they have a better night than people expect and we lose this race by 3% with minimal effort, it could cost us the majority in 2024, and I'd rather spend in Ohio and lose than sit it out and see it turn out to have been winnable.

The offensive Democratic Senate map in 2022 should go 4 deep. Tim Ryan, go run the race of your life, and national Democrats, back him. It's a puncher's chance in a Likely R race, but it's worth the punch.