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.
So thanks for this update. Sounds like good things could happen in Dayton in a change year election.
This district is definitely winnable for the Dems. From what I hear Turner isn’t the smartest guy on the block.
Dayton was consistently used for marketing tests of new products in the 60s and 70s because it was the typical metro area. In fact, the place actually got a taste for new products and styles that might be helpful.
Delphi, the giant GM spinoff, was IIRC, particularly screwed. Delphi is the old Delco (and Delco stood for Dayton Electric Company, so you know where those jobs are).
The DCCC poured $700,000 into Nancy Boyda’s district and it got her parity and a win against a long time incumbent. Maybe that will be a model. Just have to hioe it is used wisely and not dumped into safe D districts.
Mitakides is listed on the house ranking from election Inspection.
http://electioninspection.word…
I think the rating of this only as a 4th tier “watch” race is wrong. Are there any other seats where there is a massive Dem registration advantage not rated at least “likely GOP”? That are in the Midwest and 17% black with a heavy union presence?
Even a near-miss loss here would weaken Turner and might drive him to retirement after redistricting.
Ohio was gerrymandered to have a lot of slightly GOP districts. This can and does blow up in the gerrymandering party’s face. In Washington state the Dems lost 4 of their 6 seats in 1994. I think we could see the same thing happen in Ohio. Already we have one of the gerrymandered lean GOP seats (Zack Space’s) and he is as safe as a tank for reelection right now. The fact that there are a few even better races for us in Ohio doesn’t mean this isn’t a good one.
The Dayton TV market covers the entire district. I’d like to see the DCCC conduct a poll, a short $200,000 TV ad barrage (that buys a lot in this market), and then another poll to see how soft Turner is and how much there is to be gained boosting Jane’s name rec.
While on the surface all this seems to be true for the most part, upon closer examination, one finds the author of this article to have left out a lot of crucial information.
You portray Mitakides as one who will come in and fix the current predicament which the people of OH-3 are in, yet on the other hand, she continues to mislead them with her campaign ads. Recently, she said that 70% of her total campaign contributions came from inside her district, but failed to explain that 45% of that came from her own wallet ( http://politickeroh.com/intern… ). Also, her FEC filings report a paltry 13% of her itemized receipts come from OH-3 voters.
In all, I don’t think that Mitakides is a bad person, but her lack of honesty here does not impress me. If anyone else wants to do some digging for themselves, please be my guest ( http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b… ).