OH-3, with a Cook PVI of just R+3 and centered in Dayton, was represented for a long time by a moderate Democrat Tony Hall. Next to the Detroit/Flint area, no metro area has suffered more from auto industry job losses than Dayton.
OH-3 was redrawn for the 2002 election in exclude some black and working-class white inner suburbs of Dayton, and include some rural and exurban areas. Hall decided to accept a position at the UN rather than run in the new district, and Republican Mayor of Dayton Mike Turner won the district.
Despite the redistricting, OH-3 nonetheless still has a black population of 17% and the white population is heavily unionized or in union households.
The economy of the area is in free-fall, with multiple auto plants employing several thousand people either shut down or scheduled to shut down. White collar workers also are suffering massive job losses as Mead Corporation recently moved its headquarters and several thousand jobs to Virginia after its merger with another company.
What were once upper-middle class suburbs in this district are now several years into a deep recession that is rapidly getting worse.
The Dem candidate, Jane Mitakides, is credible and has decent fundraising. Neither candidate has actually raised all that much, but they don’t need to given the very cheap price of TV time on Dayton TV.
Right now Turner leads COH 976K to 271K, but Mitakides has been beating or at parity with Turner’s fundraising for 3 straight quarters. The DCCC would only have to spend 1.5% of its current COH to bring Mitakides into fundraising parity with Turner.
Jane will also benefit from massive spending and organization efforts by Obama and the DNC and from union-funded 527 organizations.
This district voted for Dem Senate challanger Brown over incumbent Republican Mike DeWine in 2006, despite the fact that DeWine is from the Dayton area. Jane’s blog notes that
The balance of registrations went from 58,178 Democratic vs. 78,799 GOP before the 2008 primary to a whopping advantage of 128,793 registered Democrats vs. 80,932 GOP as of the end of May.
In other words, the district went from a 20,000 voter GOP registration advantage to a 48,000 Dem advantage.
While this is not as “sexy” like some races that feature telegenic Dem candidates, are near big media centers, or which feature especially odious Republican incumbents, it certainly is not a “safe GOP” district and probably belongs in Lean GOP.
One other wild-card here is that two Ohioans are repeatedly mentioned in possible Obama VP choices: Gov. Strickland and Sen. Brown. The choice of either of these two proven winners would probably be good for an down-ticket bump for down-ticket Dems in Ohio of 3 or 4 points.
During the 1990-2005 period, when the auto industry boomed, the Ohio that once repeatedly sent a Sanders/Wellstone-style progressive like Howard Metzenbaum to the Senate drifted right under popular moderate Republican governors. Now socially conservative/economically progressive voters that make up a big part of Ohio’s population are swinging back left at breakneck speed, with multiple impressive victories in 2006.