The Journal. - Red, White and Who? Why Ohio Could Decide the Senate

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Ryan Knutson talks with Molly Ball and Rachel Humphreys about their recent trip to Ohio, where they talked to voters about a tight Senate race and why it might matter so much for both parties. Plus, look at another important Senate race in Montana. Further Listening:  - Red, White and Who? Playlist  - Red, White and Who? A Swing-State Debate  - Red, White, and Who? How Abortion Plays for Trump and Harris  Further Reading: - A Populist Democrat Fights to Survive the Trump-Fueled Populist Wave  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alright, so I had a bit of FOMO recently, Molly, because you and our senior producer Rachel Humphreys got to go on a road trip without me. We snuck out. We did. Yeah. And you know what I learned on that road trip, Ryan? What? Molly Bull loves Ohio.

I do. Really? I do. I love Ohio. My first job in journalism actually Bull loves Ohio. I do. Really? I do. I love Ohio. My first job in journalism actually was in Ohio. I worked for the Toledo Blade in the northwestern corner of the state, but this time we went to the northeastern corner of the state. We flew into Cleveland.

Welcome to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the local time, 823. Did a lot of driving around Eastern Ohio, the Mahoning Valley, Steubenville, even cross the river into West Virginia. So this is actually the Ohio River. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And it is so beautiful this time of year, the rolling green hills and the soaring bridges and I just, I never feel more American than like driving around the heartland in late summer, early fall when it is just gorgeous.

Why did you go to Ohio? Ohio, as we've talked about, is not a swing state, does not seem to be in play for the presidential race. So what's interesting about it? That's right. Ohio is not a swing state, but it has probably the most important Senate race in the country this fall, the race that is one of two that are likely to determine control of the United States Senate. Currently, Democrats have a 51 to 49 advantage in the 100 member United States Senate.

And who controls the Senate is going to have a lot of influence on whoever the next president is, whether they have any chance of advancing their agenda. Who controls the Senate is going to determine whether a President Trump or a President Harris can actually get any of their policy agenda through Congress. All right, well, there's a lot to get into with this trip, so let's get to it. From the Journal, this is Red, White & Who.

Our show about the road to the White House. I'm Ryan Knudsen. And I'm Molly Ball. It's Friday, September 20th. Coming up on the show, an endangered Democrat in Red, Ohio. I'm going back to university for $0 delivery fee, up to 5% off orders and 5% Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student.

Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. So what's the lay of the land in the Senate races in this campaign cycle? Well, senators serve six-year terms. So every two years, about a third of the Senate is up for election. This year, that's 34 seats. The vast majority of those seats are either safe seats that nobody's really contesting, or they are held by Democrats. So Democrats have a lot of territory to defend.

They've got to hold on to these seats in red states, Ohio and Montana. And then there's a bunch of seats in swing states. And so I think most analysts think that Republicans are overwhelmingly likely to take over the Senate again, no matter who wins the presidential election in November. So you said earlier that Ohio has one of the most important Senate races in the country this year.

So let's talk about Ohio. First of all, it used to be a swing state, but it no longer is. How did that happen? You know I'm obsessed with this idea of a political realignment. Well, the reason Ohio used to be a swing state and isn't anymore is because of the way Donald Trump changed the political landscape, changed the political parties and what they stand for. So, you know, Obama won the state twice.

It was a top swing state. And someone like Mitt Romney was very easy to paint as sort of an out of touch rich guy who couldn't relate to the struggles of regular working class people in the heartland. Trump came along and started talking about bad trade deals in China. So when you and Rachel were out on this road trip in Ohio, in what ways did you see that shift in Ohio politics sort of manifest? Like what were people telling you?

You know, we talk a lot in politics about polarization and how few swing voters there are. But what's amazing when you travel across particularly this part of Ohio is how many people have changed their political orientation. Democrats who've become Republicans and Republicans who've become Democrats. And so we went, of course, to the county fair. Love the county fair. Love the county fair. The banshee is pretty popular actually.

It was everything you can imagine. It was, you know, carnival rides and livestock and vintage tractor display and lots of fried dough and grilled meat. Did you go on the ride that spins in circles, the scrambler, whatever it's called? We observed the scrambler. It's a ride enough interviewing voters, Ryan. We didn't need to.

Okay. So who did you talk to at the fair? Well, we went to see the Honing County Republican Party in their tent, which was full of Trump merch and doing a brisk business. And one of the people we met there was a guy named Gino DeFabio, lifelong Democrat who decided to get in politics when Trump came along as a Republican and now is running to be a county commissioner. When Trump ran, I said, you know, what the heck with it? I was a registered Democrat.

I said, this is the vilest guy in the business I work in. I drive a truck for a machine shop. We go to steel mills, coal plants and everything. And every one of those guys always complained. He said, nobody helps us. Nobody helps us. Well, Trump will say, here's what we need to do to fix it. And his message really resonated with me. And I said, you know what? I believe this guy.

I believe in this guy enough to say, I'm going to change parties. What stood out to you about your conversation with him? I believe in this guy enough to say, I'm going to change parties. What stood out to you about your conversation with him? Honestly, what stood out about Gino was how many other people I've met who sounded exactly like him. And for so many of these voters, when Trump came along, the things he started talking about, a switch flipped.

And there was a message that resonated. There was someone who seemed as mad as they were about what had happened to their communities, someone who seemed as mad as they were about trade and about China and about immigration and all the forces outside their control that they feel have changed and devastated their way of life. And I just wanted to add for a second, Molly, Gino isn't just voting for Trump. He also talked about how he was fairly apathetic about politics. And now he's running for a second time to be Mahoning County Commissioner. That's how inspired he says he is by Trump.

That's right. Because he felt like what Trump was saying was we've got to drain the swamp. And he saw that locally. He said, hey, maybe it's time for new blood, like Trump says. All right. So let's talk about the Senate race that's so hotly contested that's happening in Ohio. The state's two senators are JD Vance, Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate,

and then the Democrat, Sherrod Brown, who has been in this seat for a long time. Brown is the senator who's fighting this tough reelection campaign. What's his backstory? Sherrod Brown is a career politician. He's been in office since 1993, and he has been in the Senate since 2007,

so he's running for a fourth term. He is a reliable Democratic vote in the Senate, but he's always been a different kind of Democrat. He's always been, he's described himself as a populist progressive. So, in a lot of ways, he sounds like a Bernie Sanders. He even looks a little bit like Bernie Sanders. He's got the sort of rumpled demeanor and the frizzy hair. And when I interviewed Sherrod Brown, he said, I'm going to get a majority of the vote no matter what happens in the presidential race

because I keep my focus on the workers, because I take on the big corporations and I fight for the little guy. You and your opponent in this race have both been described as populists. Who do you think is the real populist in this race? Politics is not so much left to right, it's really who's side are you on. And you call yourself a lot of things, but my focus has always been the dignity of work. It's working for people, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge or work for tips, or work in an office or serve at McDonald's.

So what's his strategy in this campaign to try and hold onto his seat? Well, it's a couple of things. It's, number one, reminding people that they know him and distancing himself from the National Democratic Party. He didn't attend the Democratic convention last month. In his ads, he's running a lot of ads talking about the Republicans who support him and not really putting the party label on himself. So that's part of it. Clearly, I've endorsed Harris. I want her to win. I'm excited that she's talking about the dignity of work

and means it like I do. So I think that I need a majority vote. I'm going to get a majority of votes no matter what happens in the presidential because I take on those interest groups and because I keep my focus on workers. What he's going to need to win is for people to split their tickets. He needs people who vote for Donald Trump in the presidential to also vote for a Democrat down the ballot in the Senate race. Because if Trump wins the state by eight or ten points, the only way

Sherrod Brown also wins his Senate election is if people are voting for both Trump and Sherrod Brown. So he's got to appeal to a lot of Trump voters. And the interesting thing for me and Rachel going to some of Sherrod Brown's events in Eastern Ohio is we actually met a lot of those voters at Sherrod Brown's events who said that they like Trump but they also like Sherrod Brown. People like Doug Zamborski who we met at a decommissioned tin mill across the river from Steubenville, Ohio.

I vote Republican. I'm not a Trump radical. I like his ideals. I like how he has a backbone. He stands up to China. He stands up to Korea. I think that's important for the infrastructure of our country. What do you think of Senator Sherrod Brown? Jared Brown. Brown has been industrial driven since he started. He's helped us, even in Ohio, keep the jobs there. He's backed us since the beginning. So Brown's got my vote in Ohio for sure. So it sounds like the loyalty to Brown

among these supporters is like his history, and it's sort of personal, rather than sort of like a Democrat-Republican, you know, big picture kind of thing. That is certainly what Sherrod Brown would like you to think. That is what he's counting on. So let's talk about the Republican who's challenging Brown for his seat, Bernie Moreno. What's his story? Bernie Moreno is a Colombian immigrant who started a chain of car dealerships in Ohio. You know, his family sort of came here with very little and he worked his fingers to the

bone and became very successful. So, when I spoke with Bernie Moreno at an event that he held outside Cleveland a few days after we saw Sherrod Brown, he said, you know, Sherrod Brown claims to be a populist, but he's really a faux populist because look at what's happened on his watch. You can't be a populist, which means that you care for the working man, for the working class, building our middle class, if you are for unlimited illegal immigration, because that hurts the actual people who are trying to help. It lowers wages, it massively increases costs. Look at healthcare costs. When you're taking care of 10 million illegals,

20 million illegals, it's going to drive up the cost of healthcare. So you can't be a populist and believe that. Also, how can you be a populist and want to forgive student debt? Think about that. Two-thirds of Ohio never went to college. Two-thirds. But he wants the one-third that went to have a portion of those who haven't paid off their student loans to get the debt forgiven. That makes no sense. — Did you get a sense that Marino's message is resonating with voters in Ohio? — I mean, if you look at the polls, Sherrod Brown is narrowly ahead, In Ohio? I mean, if you look at the polls, Sherrod Brown is narrowly ahead, but it's very close.

And what Moreno is doing is the opposite of what Sherrod Brown is doing strategically. He wants everyone to know he's a Republican because he wants people who vote for Trump to vote for Republicans all the way down the ballot. He's driving around the state in a big red bus that says in giant letters, it's got his face on the side of it and it says Trump endorsed So if you if you're an Ohio voter and you know one thing about Bernie Marino He wants that one thing to be that he's a Republican who supports Trump interesting. So after your trip to Ohio What's your sense of what's gonna happen in this race? Is it who do you think has an edge Brown or Marino?

You know, I never say who's going to win. What do you mean? Because I don't make predictions. No, I really don't know. That's why I come to you. I really don't know who's going to win this race and I think it's going to tell us a lot about the political future of the heartland in this country of whether or not Sherrod Brown is able to hang on. So even though Ohio's not a swing state,

in a lot of ways it's still true that as goes Ohio, so goes the nation. So you mentioned earlier that there is another key Senate race for Democrats in a red state, and that is the state of Montana, which is what we are going to talk about after the break. OK, let's go. [♪ music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, path to stay current and connected to industry? A place where you can be yourself? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies,

where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. OK, so let's talk about Montana, a state with another competitive Senate race. Can you give us a lay of the land of what's happening there? This is another red state with a Democratic senator who is fighting to survive against the political tide. John Tester has been in office for many years, and this is an even a much redder state than Ohio. Montana has been a red state, hasn't been a swing state for as long as I can remember, and went for Trump by 16 points in 2020.

Wow, huge. So it's even more of an uphill battle for John Tester. He's a farmer who lost three fingers in an agricultural accident. He's got a buzz cut. He's kind of a big guy. Another politician who's got a distinctive profile who doesn't sort of code as a conventional Democrat, but it's looking less and less likely that he can survive the way that his state has gone in recent decades, in part just because he's been in Washington for so long.

And I think the longer you've been in office, the harder that incumbent rap is to overcome. Even though it used to be an advantage to be an incumbent, these days maybe not so much anymore, particularly when you're sort of swimming against the tide. Well, I was gonna say, I mean, how is it the testers have been able to hold on for so long? Like, why this year does it seem like he has lower odds?

It's the fact that it's a presidential year, which means that turnout is going to be higher and there's going to be a lot of Trump voters who have to split their tickets. The last time Tester ran, it was a midterm year. Nobody was coming to the polls to vote for Trump because Trump wasn't on the ballot. He's had weak opponents in the past. He has an opponent who is pretty strong this year, Tim Sheehy, who's a local businessman, a military veteran. And in the last couple months of polling, Tester has been falling further and further behind. We actually have a question from a listener about Montana. This is from Jin Chu in Brooklyn.

Hi, Molly. I have a question about the very close Senate race in Montana. Abortion is on the ballot there this November. Will it help Democrat John Tester keep his Senate seat? Well thank you, Jin, for your question. I don't know is the answer. But it's a really interesting factor that you point to because Montana is one of several either swing states or states with important Senate races that also have abortion on the ballot. Something

that's interesting is we've actually already had a statewide ballot initiative in Montana on abortion. In 2022, there was a ballot initiative that would have made late-term abortions illegal and voters rejected it. Voters took the abortion rights side of that initiative. So this time, it's a constitutional amendment that would enshrine a right to abortion up to the point of viability in the Montana Constitution. And what Democrats and abortion rights activists are hoping is that the kind of voters who are likely to come to the polls on this issue, maybe they don't care enough about the presidential election or

they don't think their vote matters or they don't care about the Senate race. But they do really care about abortion rights. And once those voters are in that voting booth, they look at the rest of their options and they're more inclined to vote for Democrats. But this is an X factor. We haven't had a presidential election where this was an issue before. And so I think we really don't know. One of the other big stories this week that I wanted to ask you about is the second attempted

assassination of President Trump while he was playing golf on Sunday. Do you think that this will affect the campaign in any way? The first thing to say about this, of course, is that it's horrible and we're all so glad that the Secret Service caught this guy and that President Trump was unharmed. But I think it's harrowing and it reminds people, I think so much of the country is so on edge about this election, it feels dangerous to a lot of people because of all the heightened rhetoric and because there seems to be this sort of normalization of political violence. I don't think it's going to affect the campaign. And the reason I say that is, after the first assassination attempt, there was this

thought that there might be a sort of outpouring of sympathy that would unify people around him. And he said some things on social media about the need for unity. But he never actually said it in his own voice. And in fact, when he opened his mouth, he actively refuted that notion that he would try to be a more unifying figure, that he would in fact change at all, that he would be nicer as a result of this attempt on his life. So this idea that he could sort of capitalize on it by bringing people together is something that he just hasn't really been interested in doing.

Can I just jump in here? What you're saying, Molly, reminds me actually of something we saw in Ohio when we went to the Republican tent at the fair. And I was looking at the Trump merchandise on sale and the image emblazoned on so much of it is the one taken after he was shot back in July, the one where he's pumping his fist in the air. And we spoke to the local Republican Party chairman there and he told us that it was by far the best selling. And so while this might not be impacting the campaign, it does seem to be having an impact on his supporters. That's absolutely right. The problem for Trump is his base didn't need to be any more galvanized.

They're already very excited to vote for Trump, but it is certainly true. It's galvanized Trump's base. I guess what they would say is it symbolizes the threat he poses to the established order and how far his opponents are willing to go to try to stop him. All right. Well, until next week, Molly, thanks again, as always. Thanks, Ryan. Have a great weekend.

You too. Don't forget, if you have a question for Molly you want answered on a future episode, send us an email or voice message to thejournal at wsj.com. That's thejournal at wsj.com. That's thejournal at wsj.com. Red White and Who is part of The Journal, which is a co-production of Spotify and The

Wall Street Journal. Our senior producer is Rachel Humphries. Our producer is Pierce Singie. Our editor is Catherine Whalen. I'm Ryan Knudson. This episode was engineered by Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley and remixed by Peter Leonard. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Najwa Jamal. Artwork by James Walton. Special thanks to Kate Leinbach, Sarah Platt, Ben Pershing,

and the whole journal team. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with another episode of Red, White, and Who next Friday morning. See you then.