Mediaboss Marketing

COLUMBUS, Ohio A new campaign ad from Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longtime Toledo Democrat whos running a tough race for re-election this year, would almost make you think its coming from a Republican.

It kicks off by calling out President Joe Biden for letting Ohios solar manufacturers be undercut by China.

But Marcy Kaptur is fighting back, working with Republican Rob Portman, protecting our jobs. Communist Chinas not happy, says the narrator for the ad, which references the Biden Administrations move in June to bar tariffs for two years on solar panels manufactured in Southeast Asia. The ad flashes a picture of Chinese President Xi Jingping for good measure before pivoting to criticize her Republican opponent, first-time candidate J.R. Majewski.

Kapturs ad is just the latest example of an Ohio Democrat this year, while running in political territory that Donald Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, trying to put daylight between themselves and Biden, as well as other national Democrats. Rep. Tim Ryan, a Niles-area Democrat whos running for Senate, also has taken pains to distance himself from Biden, including conspicuously skipping all three of the presidents visits to Ohio this year.

The strategy underscores Bidens low approval rating here, which polls consistently place in the mid-30s. But it also shows what Ohio Democrats think their best chance to win is in whats become an increasingly right-leaning state persuade some voters that theyre different than other Democrats.

Republicans, meanwhile, have signaled they once again plan to flood Ohio with ads tying the states Democratic candidates to Biden and other national Democratic figures.

Asked about the new ad on Wednesday, Kyle Buda, Kapturs campaign manager, said in a statement that the Toledo Democrat is happy to work with anyone to stick up for state workers.

They saw it when she fought against outsourcing with NAFTA, they saw it when she fought to protect and rebuild the American steel and auto industries, and theyre seeing it again as she leads the fight for an all of the above energy future, Buda said. No matter who is president, Marcy Kaptur will work with anyone Republican or Democrat to put Ohio workers first.

But Ohio Republicans say Kaptur, whos running in a redrawn district that Trump won by 3 points in 2020, is being disingenuous.

Both Kaptur and Ryan voted 100% of the time with Bidens legislative agenda, according to FiveThirtyEight, the data-focused political news website. Ryan ceremonially nominated Biden on behalf of Ohios delegation at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, while Kaptur also enthusiastically hit the campaign trail on Bidens behalf that year.

Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan pretending to be Republican shows you just how toxic the [Ohio Democrats] brand is, Justin Bis, executive director of the Ohio Republican Party, said in a Twitter post on Saturday. My prediction: it wont work! Democrat consultants behind these FAKE ads underestimate the average Ohio voter.

During mid-term elections, its not uncommon for candidates whose party controls the White House to try to distance themselves from the sitting president. Republican candidates did the same thing under ex-President George W. Bush and Trump, while Democrats did the same under then-President Barack Obama, according to Kyle Kondik, an Ohio native whos a political analyst for the University of Virginia.

But theres also a separate history of Democrats from more conservative areas of the country trying to differentiate themselves from their national, more liberal counterparts, with varying degrees of success, Kondik said.

In addition, within Ohios congressional delegation, Kaptur and Ryan are among the Democrats who for years have voted in a bloc against some international free-trade deals supported by Democratic and Republican presidents alike until Trump was elected in 2016. Both also used to support some abortion restrictions, although both have announced changes in their views in recent years.

Kaptur and Ryan are not voting with the Republicans a lot, if at all, whereas a generation or two ago you did have a fair number, Kondik said.

Ryan, a Youngstown Democrat whos tried to package himself to center-right voters as an independent voice, during a campaign stop in Columbus on Tuesday rattled off what he said were points of disagreement with Biden.

He, too, pointed to the solar tariff decision, which the Biden Administration said was meant to give domestic solar manufacturing time to ramp up, but which drew opposition from First Solar, which has three factories in the Toledo area, including an expansion with a planned 500 workers announced in 2021.

Ryan also said he opposed the Biden Administrations plans to end Title 42, a pandemic-era restriction imposed by the Trump administration that allowed the U.S. government to turn away people at the southern border on public-health grounds.

And on Wednesday, a spokesperson for Ryans congressional office told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that Ryan opposes Bidens plan to waive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for qualifying borrowers.

But, Ryan said Tuesday he does plan to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony thats expected in the coming weeks to mark the upcoming construction of a massive Intel factory planned in the Columbus area. The White House has said Biden will be there, and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and other elected officials also are expected to be on hand.

The project will be subsidized by the CHIPS Act, which Congress approved last month with bipartisan support and which Biden quickly signed into law.

Ryan missed the other Biden appearances earlier this year for what his campaign said were scheduling conflicts. In February, Ryan took a tour of a Columbus-area factory the same day Biden appeared in Lorain to tout the bipartisan infrastructure bill. In May, when Biden stopped in Cincinnati to push for Congress to advance the CHIPS Act, Ryan tweeted he had attended a funeral in Akron. And in July, when Biden touted a pension fix provision in Cleveland, Ryan spent time in Southeast Ohio, publicly sharing a photo from a restaurant outside Steubenville, where he met with local business owners, and a video from a brewery in Athens.

But Ryan told reporters he will move heaven and Earth to go to the ribbon-cutting for the Intel plant.

I have some disagreements with Biden, and those remain, but we were able to get this done. And thats a really big deal, Ryan said.

Nan Whaley, the former Dayton mayor whos challenging DeWine in this years governors race, has also skipped Bidens campaign events this year. But Courtney Rice, a campaign spokeswoman, like Ryan cited scheduling conflicts.

Nan is very focused, understandably, on Ohio and the Ohios governors race, Rice said. There is so much at stake, specifically in Ohio this November. And I would say she will welcome anyone who believes in her vision for Ohio.

See the original post here:
Ohio Democrats try to put daylight between themselves and President Joe Biden - cleveland.com