Sherrod Starts 2024 As Sizable Underdog
Clear-Eyed Thinking About The Senate Map
What is the case for Sherrod Brown, very very good candidate, such that he can be considered a favourite - or, even, merely a mild underdog - in 2024, when his Senate seat comes up again? Cause I'm stumped.
In 2006, Sherrod got to run in a blue wave, and he won his seat, and did so well, but that was with a coalition that is so anathema to current Ohio, so it's mostly irrelevant now. In 2012, he outran Barack Obama by 3%, which is nice, I guess, but not exactly stuff of legends. So the case really comes down to 2018, where Sherrod outran Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray by 11% on route to Ohio delivering a split ticket in 2018, with Sherrod going back to DC and Mike DeWine winning the Governorship. And, honestly, I'm not that impressed by that result, because that 11% overperformance is a mirage. And that's a disaster for his chances for a 2024 victory again.
Brown spent $27,840,436 (all numbers courtesy of Open Secret's invaluable database) on his reelection campaign, which doesn't sound that gaudy in comparison to some of 2020's hauls until you know how much Jim Renacci did, or more accurately, didn't - $4,624,413. Renacci spent 17% of what Sherrod did, and even beyond that, Renacci also got outspent 5:1 from outside groups, because he got cut off early. Nobody wanted to back him because everyone thought he was dead to rights, which ended up a self fulfilling prophecy. Nobody went there to campaign for him, nobody sent any money there, Renacci was left for dead. And now we're acting like Sherrod massively outran Cordray because of his personal brand. Bullocks - he did it because the GOP decided they had another half dozen priorities on their Senate map.
Now, would he have won? Maybe, even probably, regardless of that decision, given the national environment. But, had the nominee been Josh Mandel - the original preferred choice - they would have given it a real run, and the nearly 7% win would have been closer to 2%. And then, we wouldn't be looking at the narrative of Sherrod as a special candidate, we'd be looking at Sherrod as a decent, but not amazing candidate - because, again, he only outran Obama by 3% in 2012.
Sherrod's specialness is actually just luck - he's gotten the good fortune of running in three good Democratic years. In 2006, he ran as the Democratic Senate nominee with Ted Strickland running at the top of the ticket and winning by over 20%, and then in 2012 he got to run in the one good year for Ohio Dems that decade. And then in 2018, Mandel bailed on his run for some reasons that have never been made clear. What we think of as Sherrod's strengths are actually the product of fortune and luck, and therefore, he's much, much, much more vulnerable than people realize.
So, let's look at this strength, with a singular example - Youngstown, Ohio. This map, from J Miles Coleman of Sabato's Crystal Ball, shows how northeast Ohio's anchor has been sprinting right - unless your name is Sherrod Brown, in which case it stays solidly Democratic. The problem is, this is a huge problem for Democrats in 2024, because if you only win Ohio by 7% while you're winning this area by nearly 20%, then all I see is room to fall next time. In 2024, Brown will be running in a Presidential year with a Republican nominee who will win Ohio, and that nominee has to be considered a favourite to expand their margins in that part of Ohio, and so even if Sherrod manages what would pass for a great result, he'll win it by 10%, at most - and that's not enough to win statewide.
Ohio is racing right because the Global Realignment moves both ways, and there's more room to fall in what you could call the "rest" of Ohio than there is prospects of Democrats racing ahead in the three cities by 2024. There will be a moment when Hamilton snaps left enough to restore the state to a swing state status, but that is highly unlikely to happen this decade. And so, you're stuck, with Sherrod being a better candidate than average and not good to win if the GOP nominee wins Ohio by the high single digits - which, given it voted nearly 13% right of the nation in 2020, and we're not likely to see a D+8 national environment in 2024.
Sherrod has been good, but more importantly he's been lucky. He won't get bailed out again in 2024, because the state is too red, and he finally doesn't get the right combination of environment and candidate. Popular, previously good performing candidates get snapped to death all the time, and when it falls apart, it can very much fall apart. Sherrod's 2018 result is like a false front on the green of a golf hole - sure, you're on the green, but not every green in regulation is worth the same. He has managed to avoid the pitfalls that hurt others, but Sherrod's state doesn't care. He won't get beat as badly as Blanche Lincoln or Mary Landrieu, but he starts the cycle as a sizable underdog.
Why is this important this far out? Because Democrats need to win three of the following 7 Senate seats just to keep their 50 seats - Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina (all 2022), Montana, West Virginia, Texas, and Ohio (all 2024) - and that assumes they don't lose any of their own seats in 2022. I think Montana and West Virginia are gone, so the party needs to find 3 of the other 5, and so we need to think about the maps in totality. If Sherrod is losing, then Texas and North Carolina go from oddities to necessities if Democrats are to win - which I'm not saying they will. But that difference is huge, and so having a clear-eyed understanding of what Ohio is is crucial. And that understanding is clear - Sherrod's a sizable underdog. He might win, I guess, but it would be a very real surprise if he does.