Part of The power and potential of Latino voters, from The Highlight, Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.

As we’ve covered throughout this edition of The Highlight, Democrats and Republicans recognize the urgency of appealing to the burgeoning Latino electorate. And both are still  grappling with their recent successes and shortcomings with Latinos — even as they scramble to harness their potential in the upcoming midterms.

Some common theories emerged across all of our reporting for this project: Republicans feel they have a solid strategy to keep eating into Democrats’ margins of victory with Latino voters, as they did in the 2020 election. And Democrats have a few ideas on how to course-correct — primarily by working harder to earn the support of a bloc many in the party acknowledge they’ve taken for granted.

We asked politicians, strategists, and political scientists from across the political spectrum for their analysis of what their parties have done right and wrong with those voters, and what they should do next. Below are their theories, as described in interviews and emails with Vox staff. 

What Republicans are doing better than Democrats

Giancarlo Sopo, Republican | @GiancarloSopo
Communications strategist and founder of Visto Media

The Republican National Committee’s Hispanic outreach in recent years has been strong — it made great investments in community centers across the country and they made very smart personnel decisions. 

While Democrats draw Latino talent from liberal organizations, Republicans attract Hispanic staffers and advisers with diverse backgrounds from communities across the country. This dichotomy helps explain why Republicans are demonstrating far greater cultural fluency and sophistication in their Hispanic outreach than the Democrats.

It also helps explain why Republicans have a better grasp of where most Hispanics are at this moment. Positioning the GOP as the party of economic prosperity — while, concurrently, the Democrats were shifting away from Clintonian “pro-growth” messaging to a Piketty-inspired focus on income inequality and racial equity — is smart when you consider that from 2010 to 2019, the Hispanic poverty rate dropped by about 40 percent and Hispanics led the country in the creation of new small businesses.

In politics, you have to meet people where they’re at, not where you want them to be or where you think they are. Hispanics are upwardly mobile, hard-working, and ambitious. We don’t view ourselves as “victims” in this country — on the contrary. Polling shows that Hispanics believe in the American dream and that this is the best country in the world.

To be clear, there is still room for improvement in our Hispanic outreach. The biggest mistake Republicans make with Hispanics is not engaging us. For instance, the GOP was unlikely to ever win the 2021 California recall, but the effort could have made inroads with Hispanic voters with an eye toward the future with modest investments. That was a missed opportunity.

Democrats need to get over their 2020 hangover 

Ruben Gallego, Democrat | @RubenGallego 
U.S. Representative, Arizona’s Seventh District

Democrats get into these loser mentalities. It freaking drives me nuts — just kind of circling the drain like, “Oh, man, we suck. We suck.” No, we won, accept the fact that we won [in 2020]. Governing is hard. We’ll have to govern. Maybe [moderate Democratic Sens.] Sinema and Manchin are screwing us now. But one or two more senators and we’re in a different territory.

Even with this thinking that we’ve lost the Latino vote. Everyone calm the fuck down. We didn’t lose the Latino vote. We didn’t win by as much. That’s the difference. We’re not losing the Latino vote. We’re not winning it by as much as we want to. 

Now, could we do better? Absolutely. So let’s work on it, right? But let’s not doom ourselves into this, “Oh, man, we’re not going to win, and therefore we’re just not gonna invest anymore.” And then we’re just gonna really fail. Because guess what? If you’re not gonna invest in Latinos to get you over the hump and African Americans and Asian Americans, are you going to really go back to white voters that have not voted Democrat? I still think it’s important to talk to them, but you can’t give up on Latino voters. Because if you do, your task only gets harder and harder.

Democrats can win on policy if they invest in telling Latinos where they stand

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, Democrat | @CristinaNextGen
President, NextGen America

People always ask me: “Are Latinos Republicans or Democrats?” and I say, “We’re neither. We’re poor.” And I say that whoever invests in our community and speaks to our pain and power will win our vote. 

We are the ethnic group that is the least likely to go to college. Pre-Covid, 60 percent of us were making under $15 an hour. We are the ethnic group in many states with the highest number of people that are uninsured. The policies and positions that Democrats have taken  address the greatest amount of pain for the greatest number of Latino families, which is why they overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

The shift [toward Republicans] that you have seen is because Democrats take the Latino vote for granted. They need to invest their resources in reaching the Latino population about where they stand on the policies that most Latinos care about. 

The other thing Democrats need to do is invest in young Latinos in particular. The most common age for a white American is 55, for an African American, it’s 27. And for Latinos, it’s 11. So much of our voting power is being realized in young, new voters. That’s a whole population that Democrats can win, but they’ve got to spend the time and money reaching that electorate, and can’t just assume it’s going to come to their side.

The No. 1 reason Latinos say they don’t vote is that no candidate ever contacted them and they didn’t know who to vote for. The data is very clear that there is underinvestment. So there’s a cyclical problem with the Latino population: Campaigns and candidates don’t invest in them because they don’t vote, and round and round we go. 

I’ll give you an example: In South Texas, which is considered to be a very traditional Latino population, Bernie Sanders won the 2020 Democratic primary because he spent millions of dollars and time and energy with volunteers, going out and reaching the Latino population. … Then in the general, Trump did make major gains because the Republican Party spent time and money reaching out to Latino voters. 

I don’t see it as a bad thing that a portion of the population in our community is up for grabs. I think it’s up to elected officials and the parties to make sure that they’re spending the time and money on our community that we deserve. 

Treat Hispanic voters like “normies”

Ruy Teixeira, Democrat 
Nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book, “Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes” 

Democrats would be well-served with this population by moving to the center on a variety of socio-cultural issues, from crime and immigration to ideological approaches to race and gender, assuring voters that, in fact, everyone’s free to believe what they want to believe. … We’re a patriotic party. We believe America is fundamentally good, not a racist country, and just generally do a lot of signaling that, “hey, we get it, we understand you’re normie voters, we understand what you want. We understand what you’re comfortable with.” And we as Democrats are willing to draw some lines in terms of the necessity for public safety, in terms of security for the border, in terms of the necessity to keep ideology out of the schools. We are a tolerant party, but we are not intending to push ideology to the extent that it affects your kids or your community or your safety.  

I think that would be well-received among most Hispanic voters, especially Hispanic working-class voters. That’s really what they want. They want upward mobility, they want safe communities, they want their kids to get a great education, they want good health care. 

Which brings me to another point that the Democrats should be emphasizing: what they’re doing on health care. I think an unfortunate thing about the reconciliation bill is, though it included some health care stuff, that’s getting lost in all the coverage of the climate. Climate is a low-salience issue for voters as a whole, definitely for Hispanics … even though Hispanics, like most other voting groups, are generally supportive of doing something about climate change. But in the real world, when inflation is hitting them as it is, real wages are continuing to go down and health care is even more of a problem, [Democrats should] at least emphasize the things that are a material benefit and solve real problems that Hispanic voters, particularly working-class voters, have.  

3 keys to Republicans’ further gains with Latinos

Lorna Romero Ferguson, Republican | @LornaRomero
Campaign strategist and owner of Elevate Strategies 

For Republicans to continue to make gains with Latinos, I think there are three key strategies moving forward. First, we need to continue to recruit more Republican Latinos to run for office. Representation matters for any minority group. There is a different level of motivation and engagement when someone running for office is from your community, understands your culture and upbringing, and has a similar origin story as you. … 

Second, hire more Latinos as advisers to campaigns and as official staff. Latino staffers provide critical insight and experience for community engagement. A diverse staff can better inform candidates and elected officials about effective messaging strategies and help avoid any cultural missteps (i.e. first lady Jill Biden and breakfast tacos).

Third, Latino outreach should be a consistent strategy deployed in non-election years. In order to build strong and meaningful relationships, Latino outreach cannot be an afterthought during a campaign, or something done just to “check the box.” To gain real traction, outreach efforts and relationship building must be done year-round. 

I believe Republicans will make gains this year in certain states but nothing seismic nationally. It will take time to continue to build support, but Republicans are making a real effort by opening Latino outreach field offices and building a grassroots network to inform voters about the Republican Party platform. It may not yield huge results this election cycle, but the party is investing in the infrastructure, and it will be a game changer for future elections. 

Li Zhou contributed reporting to this story.

The power and potential of Latino voters

Voters in five states — Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington — went to the polls Tuesday to select who will move on to a slew of competitive general election races and, in one case, tell us about the political ramifications of the Supreme Court’s June decision rolling back abortion rights.

Here are four winners and one loser based on what we know from Tuesday’s results so far.

Winner: Abortion rights

Kansas was the first state to put abortion rights on the ballot, in a referendum, since this summer’s Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade. And abortion rights won big.

Kansans rejected an amendment to the state’s constitution that would have removed protections for the right to an abortion, voting to do so by double digits. The Kansas state Supreme Court had previously ruled that the state constitution protected the right to an abortion. This amendment, backed by conservative organizers, would have removed one crucial barrier to the Republican state legislature’s ability to enact more aggressive abortion bans than the 22-week one it currently has.

Tuesday’s outcome is a pretty big statement considering the obstacles abortion rights advocates faced: Confusing wording on the measure (voting “no” meant keeping protections in place), a state where Republicans vastly outnumber Democrats, and a slate of GOP primaries that Republicans hoped would juice their voter turnout relative to Democrats’. 

This calculus, however, was mistaken. Turnout was massive across the political board, far exceeding the previous two primaries. In Johnson County, which contains suburbs of Kansas City, almost four times as many early votes had been cast this year, compared to the same primary in 2018, according to the Kansas City Star. 

For now, abortion rights are preserved in a state that, as Vox’s Rachel Cohen reported, expects a huge influx of women from neighboring states seeking abortion care. And, for Democrats who saw blowback over the Supreme Court decision as a way to mobilize their voters, the first bellwether is a big win.

Winner: ERIC (Schmitt, that is)

After months of lobbying from Missouri’s GOP Senate candidates, former President Donald Trump issued a trollish non-endorsement on the eve of the primary. In a statement on Monday, he said he was “proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” leaving candidates Eric Greitens, Missouri’s disgraced former governor, and Eric Schmitt, the state’s current attorney general, both empty-handed and happy to issue simultaneous tweets touting the “endorsement.”

Schmitt wound up beating both six-term Rep. Vicky Hartzler — who had the backing of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) — and Greitens, by double digits. It’s a notable victory for Schmitt, who won without help from Trump, and who is the favorite going into the general election this fall given the state’s Republican tilt. The prospect of a scandal-plagued Greitens winning had many Republicans concerned — and Democrats hopeful for a pickup opportunity. Schmitt has clearly defined himself as a “Trump Republican,” and previously joined other GOP officials to back unsuccessful lawsuits challenging the 2020 election outcomes in other states. But he has a lot less baggage than Greitens, and his win will dampen the likelihood of a safe Republican seat becoming competitive.

Schmitt will face off against Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, a nurse and scion of the famous Anheuser-Busch family, in the general election. 

Loser: Progressives

Redistricting pitted two Democratic incumbents in Michigan against one another in the state’s 11th District, and incidentally also set up a direct contest between the two wings of the party.  

Progressive Rep. Andy Levin lost that contest to his moderate colleague, Rep. Haley Stevens. The contentious race involved fights over support for Israel (Stevens was backed by the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC) and appeals to Black voters, and drew in hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside contributions. 

In the Missouri Senate primary, veteran Lucas Kunce also lost to Busch Valentine after mounting a populist campaign focused on challenging corporate power, and garnering the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

There were bright spots for progressives in Missouri and Michigan, where Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) easily held off primary challengers.

Winner, at least in the short term: Democratic meddling in GOP races

Democrats got what they wanted in Michigan’s Third District. But there’s a big looming question about whether landing in the winner column is worth it. 

As they have in multiple races this cycle, Democrats spent significant money to boost a more extreme, and they hope, more beatable Republican candidate in Trump-backed election denier John Gibbs. And more than they have in other races this cycle, they faced harsh criticism for the tactic from inside and outside their party over their efforts to take down incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer, a rare Republican who voted to impeach Trump. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in this case spent more than $400,000 in ads linking Gibbs and Trump. Given his massive cash disadvantage to Meijer, it seems the infusion of ads by Democrats was probably decisive. Meijer conceded early Wednesday.

Meijer castigated Democrats as hypocrites for boosting extremists, and plenty of people agree with him. But other Democrats say it’s justified — it’s ultimately Republicans picking between candidates. “It’s clear that, no matter what Republican is nominated, they are going to get pushed to move to where their base is,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold told Vox’s Nicole Narea last month. “So the best path is to do what you can to set up the best environment for Democrats to win.”

Gibbs will face Democrat Hillary Scholten in a seat Democrats now have a chance to flip — it’s rated a toss-up by Cook Political Report. But it’s also possible Democrats put another extreme Republican on the path to a seat in Congress.

Winner: Trump acolytes in Arizona and beyond

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial primary, where Democrats spent to boost election denier Kari Lake, has yet to be called. Lake currently has a narrow lead as of Wednesday morning.

Lake’s race is closer than many Arizonans would have expected earlier this year given Trump’s fervent early backing of her. But his picks dominated other races in the state. His preferred candidates for secretary of state, state Rep. Mark Finchem, and Senate, venture capitalist Blake Masters, successfully beat back candidates who held Trump’s election lies at least at arm’s length. Separately, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers lost a bid for state Senate after previously refusing to challenge the state election results in 2020 and testifying about pressure he faced from Trump before the January 6 committee.

These wins were a decisive victory for Trump in a state where establishment Republicans, including his former Vice President Mike Pence and current GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, backed more establishment picks. All of Trump’s candidates fully embraced the denial in a primary that was largely focused on relitigating the 2020 election.

Trump also saw victories in Michigan and Kansas. Businesswoman and political commentator Tudor Dixon, a Trump-backed candidate for the gubernatorial seat, won a five-person primary. Unlike the Arizona candidates, however, Dixon has more recently skirted questions about the 2020 election despite previously arguing that it was stolen. In Kansas, longtime Trump ally and former state Attorney General Kris Kobach also won his primary for secretary of state, his third attempt to return to state government after losing the governor’s race to Democrat Laura Kelly in 2018.

Update, August 3, 8 am Eastern: This post has been updated to reflect results in Michigan and Arizona.

Pennsylvania’s much-watched Republican Senate primary remains unresolved, with the race between celebrity health adviser Mehmet Oz and businessman David McCormick still too close to call and likely headed for a recount. 

The race for the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania’s governor, though, is set. Its outcome has given establishment Republicans — and pretty much anyone who fears someone who’s embraced Donald Trump’s election lies being in charge of a crucial swing state — major heartburn. 

Doug Mastriano, Republicans’ gubernatorial candidate, is extreme even by modern GOP standards. The first-term state senator championed efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania in 2020 and has been subpoenaed by the House January 6 investigating committee for his participation in the events that led up the insurrection that day. He’ll face Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state’s current attorney general, in the general election. 

Andrew Seidman is a Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer who has been covering the GOP gubernatorial primary and following Mastriano’s candidacy. I spoke to him Thursday after Mastriano’s win to understand how such a figure succeeded in winning the party’s nod to the state’s highest office, and what his candidacy might look like from here. 

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Natalie Jennings

What surprised you about the results Tuesday night?

Andrew Seidman

I was surprised by just how well Doug Mastriano did. A lot of people in campaign and  Republican circles thought he had a ceiling of about 25 percent of the vote. Some polls late in the race were showing maybe 30 percent. He got almost 45 percent. 

He did well pretty much everywhere. He won even in a couple of the collar counties outside Philadelphia, though his support there was not as strong as in some of the more rural parts of the state. 

I think that the fact that Trump came in on Saturday [three days before the election] and endorsed Mastriano gave him a boost there at the end, but he was already in command of the race at that point. 

Natalie Jennings

When did you notice the momentum shift for Mastriano?

Andrew Seidman 

Really from the outset, Mastriano was leading most polls. Sometimes [early Trump backer and former Rep.] Lou Barletta would rise in them. They were the two best-known candidates.

Mastriano gained a lot of attention over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his continued pursuit of investigations into the election. Before that, he was known for his vocal opposition to Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus restrictions — he led rallies outside the state capitol. By May, Mastriano’s lead started to grow a little bit. Some Republicans were holding out hope that Trump would endorse someone else — anyone else — to try to change that dynamic. 

By the time Trump came to do a rally in western Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago, with Oz, there was no endorsement. That was sort of seen as the last chance for Trump to put his thumb on the scale and back someone else. He didn’t do it. Then we got this sort of last ditch effort to stop Mastriano, which didn’t pan out. 

Trump, perhaps fearful that Oz is going to lose his primary, seems to want to pick a winner. And he gets behind Doug, at the last minute on Saturday before the election. I don’t think anyone thinks that that was a decisive factor in the race, but it certainly might have helped him on the margins.

Natalie Jennings

What did voters you talked to say they liked about Mastriano? 

Andrew Seidman

Some people we talked to would say their top issue was election integrity. There were certainly folks attracted to Mastriano on that issue. But the organizing principle of his campaign was more about personal freedom, which he would say is grounded in the Bible. You can’t listen to him for more than five minutes without getting that impression. It’s part of everything he does. His slogan is “to walk as free people.”  That’s even on his 100-day plan in office. 

So there is an element of the election stuff, but also his faith, speaking very directly about that in a way that most candidates do not. Also, continued anger over the pandemic and how the government handled it. Voters have also brought up his military background — he  served in the army for several decades and retired as a colonel a few years ago.

Natalie Jennings

I want to talk more about the role of religion in his campaign. I know it has played a big one, even relative to other GOP campaigns. Can you give me a sense of how much sway that can have in Pennsylvania and in the Republican base?

Andrew Seidman

That’s something I’ve been trying to pinpoint. There was a AP VoteCast survey of the 2018 midterm electorate that showed 17 percent of the Pennsylvania electorate identifies as white evangelical Christian. That’s an influential slice in a Republican primary. Not all white evangelical Christians are going to support someone like Mastriano, but it’s a baseline figure. 

When you watch his rallies, they take on the vibe of a megachurch event. There’s prayer, there are ritual ceremonies. It’s a big part of his pitch. It’s hard to distinguish how many people like him because they agree with him on the election, and they’re sick of Harrisburg, from how many are with him because of his ideas about religion. But that’s certainly an element. 

Natalie Jennings 

Given Mastriano has banned you — along with many other journalists — from his rallies, how do you cover someone who doesn’t let you watch him or attend his campaign events? 

Andrew Seidman

It’s a challenge for sure. You go to these things not just to see the candidate, but to talk to his supporters to get a sense for what’s going on. He does livestream most of his events, so there is a window, but it’s not the best picture. We’re not there. I will be interested to see if the campaign changes its direction in the general election. They did allow some reporters into their election night party in Chambersburg. But we’re not going to cover him any differently — we’re just going to deal with what we have.

It’s not just traditional media outlets. He’s clashed with Breitbart — they’ve challenged Mastriano, and he’s gone on the radio blasting their reporters. He got in a verbal altercation with a conservative podcast host in the Philly region that asked him about January 6 and an event he went to that promoted QAnon, and he abruptly ended the interview. It’s an open question whether he’s now going to engage with even conservative media. I think he relishes the fact that he has something like 100,000 people following him on Facebook and he can communicate directly with his supporters that way.

Natalie Jennings

What are you hearing from Republicans in the state, including operatives who opposed him, since he won?

Andrew Seidman  

Some of the more mainstream Republican consultants and campaign advisers made clear in the last couple of weeks that they see him as sort of uniquely unelectable in Pennsylvania. That’s why they tried to stop him, although it was too late. But I have talked to a couple of folks since the election who, even weeks ago, were saying Mastriano had no shot. Now, they’re saying, look, the political environment for Democrats is so bad with Biden’s low approval ratings and inflation and even the baby formula crisis — everything kind of piling up — perhaps even Mastriano could ride a red wave and win. We also know that more mainstream establishment Republicans have been wrong before about who could win an election. Donald Trump showed that. 

I expect most of the official Republican Party in Pennsylvania to rally behind Mastriano. They might shift resources. They might not invest as much money in the governor’s race as they had planned to, The Republican Governors Association, in their statement [after his win], was pretty lukewarm about Mastriano. They’re not necessarily committed to investing either, but they didn’t rule it out.

Natalie Jennings  

Moving on to the Senate race, how do you expect that to play out from here? 

Andrew Seidman   

We’re still in recount territory, within that half-a-percent margin [which triggers an automatic recount in Pennsylvania]. My colleagues focused on that say it could be a couple of weeks. I know we’re not expecting a resolution by the end of this week, that’s for sure.

Natalie Jennings

What do you expect about how that general election matchup with Democrat John Fetterman is going to play out, if it’s McCormick or Oz? 

Andrew Seidman 

On one hand, Oz and McCormick are pretty different, right? McCormick is the hedge fund CEO, former Bush official. As one of my colleagues put it, he seemed to have the right resume for the Republican Party in 2012, not 2022. But he tried to reinvent himself as this MAGA, “Let’s go Brandon” guy — he had a campaign commercial with that phrase in it. Oz, of course, ran as Trump’s guy, too. 

It’s fair to expect Oz to be more Trumpy, which is also to say more himself, as the reality TV star/celebrity doctor who engages with voters. If you go to his town halls and see him operate, he is very much the emcee, the entertainer, checking people’s blood pressure and stuff. McCormick is just more of that traditional Republican politician. You’re more likely to see McCormick do a stronger pivot away from Trump than Oz.

Natalie Jennings

Yeah, I guess that would be pretty hard to pull off for Oz. What have Democrats you’ve talked to since the primary said, as they assess the GOP results and the general matchups? 

Andrew Seidman

The Democrats that I have spoken to were not surprised, but they, too, thought it was notable that Mastriano won by the margin that he did in the primary. For some Democrats, there is now a “be careful what you wish for” element to [Mastriano’s win].

Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro’s campaign started airing television ads a couple of weeks ago tying Mastriano to Trump and portraying him as deeply conservative, pointing out that he wants to support a “heartbeat bill” banning abortion after around six weeks.  They were hoping for a dual effect, which is to increase Mastriano’s chances of winning the primary, [and] at the same time, they were hoping that this would define Mastriano to the broader electorate as someone who’s out of touch, they think, with the average voter. 

But there were some Democrats who said, “Hey, don’t root for this guy to win. He could curtail abortion rights. He could curtail voting rights.” The governor of Pennsylvania has the power to appoint the secretary of state, who certifies elections, including the 2024 presidential election. Some Democrats are happy that Mastriano’s the winner, and there are certainly Democrats who would prefer someone else had won. 

The Republican primary for Ohio’s open Senate seat has been full of drama as most of the five viable candidates spent months publicly and privately pandering to secure Trump’s endorsement. Because of that, the race is also being viewed as a bellwether for the strength of Donald Trump’s grip on the party.

But Andrew Tobias, a politics and statehouse reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, cautions that the Ohio GOP primary won’t be as clear a referendum on Trump as it may seem. Even after venture capitalist, Hillbilly Elegy author, and former Trump critic JD Vance got Trump’s endorsement less than three weeks before the May 3 primary, “nobody’s really packing it up and going home,” Tobias said. And even though there’s plenty of evidence the endorsement made Vance the favorite, it’s still a fluid, open race.

Former state treasurer Josh Mandel, former state Republican Party chair Jane Timken, businessman Mike Gibbons, and state senator Matt Dolan are fanning out in the closing days. Trump’s endorsement has only put a bigger target on Vance’s back, and his opponents and their boosters are aiming right for it in their closing messages.

To understand how this is playing out in Ohio, I spoke to Tobias on Wednesday. He was in Grove City, a rural suburb of Columbus, where Vance was set to appear at a campaign event. Our conversation, below, has been edited for clarity.

Natalie Jennings

Two significant things have happened in this race in the last 24 hours. One is a Fox News poll out last night showing a big swing for JD Vance since their March poll. What’s your read on the state of the race and the momentum that Vance has picked up since Trump endorsed him?

Andrew Tobias 

Between a lot of internal polling, the Fox News poll, and talking to the campaigns, I think it’s generally correct that Vance has gotten a surge from the endorsement. If you believe the polls, he was maybe last out of the five major candidates, and now he appears to be first. But it’s so tightly clustered that I don’t rule out the possibility that any of the five candidates may win. Obviously it’s not equally probable for all of them. 

There was a lot of national interest in Vance from day one, but it was hard to really see that he was catching on for a lot of that time. Getting the Trump endorsement completely changed the dynamic of the race for him.

Natalie Jennings

How did the endorsement play among influential Republicans in the state? And voters? 

Andrew Tobias

The thing that the endorsement hasn’t done is clear the field. I believe that had Trump issued this endorsement a couple of months ago, you might have seen somebody like Jane Timken or whoever drop out of the race. But the fact that it happened in the middle of early voting and so close to Election Day, a lot of the campaigns looked at the numbers and said, “Hey, we can still win this.”

At the county party chair level, there’s been — it’s almost dismay. Had Trump endorsed Timken or Gibbons or Mandel, they would have accepted it. But Vance, between his past anti-Trump criticism and the lack of involvement he’s had with Ohio politics, they’re kind of scratching their heads. It’s a mixture of confusion and, honestly, some anger and dismay. Whether that actually trickles down to voters really depends on a lot of factors. But if you talk to county chairs and grassroots activists, their response has been mixed at best. 

Natalie Jennings

That brings me to the second big thing this morning, which is that Club for Growth released an ad that doubles down on this feud they’re having with Trump over the race. They’re backing Mandel, and in the ad they directly question Trump’s judgment. What do you make of this?

Andrew Tobias  

What’s interesting is that it isn’t a contrast ad where it’s like, “JD Vance can’t be trusted but Josh Mandel is great.” It is really just hitting JD Vance. I don’t know what result it will have, but it’s very intriguing to me that a major group on the right would not only say Trump got it wrong, but even brought up Mitt Romney, which has to really sting for Trump on a personal level. It’s an escalation, an open break with the former president, just really fascinating.

Natalie Jennings  

The race has been so nationalized in terms of money and media attention, but what is on the mind of the primary voters?

Andrew Tobias

I tend to believe that all races have gotten really heavily nationalized. In the past, you might say trade is really important in Ohio because of the history of manufacturers shutting down, or in Cincinnati, there’s the Brent Spence Bridge that is chronically being closed that goes to connect Cincinnati to Kentucky, and maybe infrastructure is important. But, when you talk to voters, inflation is really high on people’s minds. That’s not rocket science, but also cultural issues like critical race theory or transgender issues, election integrity, just kind of the buzzwords on the right. That’s the kind of stuff that you hear people talking about.

It’s tough to differentiate all the candidates from each other on those issues with the exception of Dolan, who is running the sort of Republican campaign you’d think of somebody running like 10 years ago. It’s like going into a time machine. But absent that, a lot of the candidates have been in lockstep on the types of things they’re talking about. It’s this broader cultural war that’s really not different from state to state, frankly.

Natalie Jennings

Let’s talk a bit about Matt Dolan, who has called himself “the only one moving on” from Trump and who Trump has taken shots at over his family’s decision to rename the Cleveland Guardians. Some internal polls show him as competitive. Is there any reason to think he is still in the mix?

Andrew Tobias

I think he has a path to victory but I would not bet money on it. The endorsement that Trump issued flattens out Gibbons and Mandel and bumps up Vance, but not to an insurmountable lead. Dolan has been running ads that are on issues like being tough on China and inflation, that are the same sort of issues that cross over with everyone else, so there’s a scenario where he squeaks by. I do think that it’s an oversimplification to say that Trump doesn’t like somebody and so that means that person just can’t win, but it just gets a lot more complicated. 

Natalie Jennings

Do you think there are factors that are being under-covered in the national media that are going to affect the race, or anything that is being overplayed? 

Andrew Tobias 

It’s just going to be treated as a binary of whether Trump wins or loses. And like I said earlier, I think that a huge factor is when Trump endorsed. Definitely, if Vance wins, Trump can and will take credit for that. But if he loses, there’s a whole lot of factors that go into it, including that Vance has not really been engaged on a local political level.

This is really trite, but it will come down to turnout. I think a higher-turnout environment probably helps Vance because it means that more casual voters are being dialed in and they would be swayed by that Trump support. If it’s a lower-turnout environment, maybe some of the other candidates, with their networks of grassroots supporters and activists and turnout operations, factor in more. I just think the picture is going to be a lot less clear than that sort of Trump wins/Trump loses binary.

When we actually talked to voters about it before and after the endorsement, they basically said, “It’s important, I’ll consider it, but it’s not going to be the only factor for me.” I’m not sure that anybody is gonna say, “Oh, absolutely, I’ll do whatever that guy says.” 

The best evidence for him having strong sway is from another race. Last August, there was a special election here to fill [former Rep.] Steve Stivers’s old congressional seat. Trump endorsed Mike Carey, who had never run for office before and wasn’t particularly well-known. It’s not like there was a heavyweight candidate against him, but the usual suspects; state senators and people that had their own strengths. Carey won the race very conclusively. That suggests that Trump can have that kind of sway.

Natalie Jennings

My colleague Andrew Prokop earlier this week wrote about the state of the race for the majority and how likely Democrats are to keep the Senate. His assessment was that Ohio is just not likely to be that competitive given the national environment is so difficult for Democrats. Do you think he’s right? And do you see anything that would change that either way?

Andrew Tobias 

With all the disclaimers about external events and predicting the future and stuff like that, I wouldn’t list Ohio as a likely state that Democrats will win. 

Depending on who wins the nomination, you have these wealthy candidates, and their lives and backgrounds will contrast with [likely Democratic nominee] Tim Ryan. He’s like a normal guy — been in Congress for a long time but he lives in a middle-class neighborhood, his wife is a teacher. Democrats have this playbook of treating the Republican nominee like Mitt Romney. [Ohio Democratic Sen.] Sherrod Brown has really perfected this rumpled, everyman image. I expect that they would roll out that playbook.

If Vance makes it through, you’re going to see talk about Silicon Valley, Peter Thiel backing [Vance], his flip-flops on Trump, and what else he might flip-flop on. That kind of stuff. But it’s just going to be a lot, nationally, to swim against when basically Joe Biden is going to be on the ballot. So I think your colleague’s generally right, although maybe there’s some wrinkles there.

Natalie Jennings

Let’s say he is right and you get a Senator Vance or Senator Mandel. That’s a big contrast with Senator Portman, who has been compared to vanilla ice cream. How will those differences show up for Ohioans?

Andrew Tobias

Depends on the extent to which Ohioans follow the Senate and what’s at stake. But Portman was lead negotiator on the infrastructure bill that has tangibly funded a lot of projects here. That gets lost in the shuffle because I don’t think that voters are really thinking about infrastructure right now with everything else that’s going on. But by virtue of not having the experience that Portman had, Ohio will lose influence in the Senate. And then if you get a bomb thrower, like Mandel or Vance … it’s just a total change in personalities. I think you’ll see more messaging bills and cultural issues more front and center. The differences between those guys and Rob Portman are apparent.

If Vance is elected, I think the Ohio Chamber of Commerce probably would drop in influence. They recently hired [former Rep.] Steve Stivers. Vance has bragged about not wanting to “bend the knee to Steve Stivers” and generally been hostile to the GOP’s “business-friendly” wing, while Stivers has said some not-nice things about Vance. That has the potential for a lot of downstream consequences, since the Chamber likely has a moderating effect on legislation related to social issues in Columbus.