Democrats are feeling good about an overperformance in a special election for a Republican-dominated Ohio congressional district, but Republicans are not seeing the result as a reason to panic.
Republican Michael Rulli defeated Democrat Michael Kripchak for former Republican Rep. Bill Johnson’s seat after the ex-congressman resigned in January to become the president of Youngstown State University.
The GOP candidate won the election by less than 10% in a district former President Donald Trump won by 28 points in 2020. Ohio’s 6th Congressional District has a partisan voting index of Republican +16, according to the Cook Political Report, and Johnson won reelection to the seat in 2022 by roughly 35%, meaning Rulli fell significantly short of typical margins for the district.
The race was closer than expected in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, despite Rulli having a massive fundraising advantage in the district. The latest Federal Election Commission filings from the end of May show that Rulli reported having $76,146.50 cash on hand, compared to Kripchak, who only reported $14,681.25 cash on hand.
National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jack Pandol told Politico the GOP is “not sweating it” and pointed out how it was a special election not aligned with any other major contests in Ohio.
“It’s a special election. It’s off-calendar. Turnout is really low,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s useful or instructive to try to read into this too much. … We will eviscerate the Democrat with presidential-level turnout, as Republicans have in the past several cycles.”
The primary for the House seats in Ohio was held in March, while the general election for all House seats nationwide will be held on Nov. 5, alongside the presidential election. The election for a full term in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District will be held in November.
While the special election on Tuesday saw a wider discrepancy between previous results than other special contests to fill seats for the 118th Congress, many have not lined up with the prior election in terms of margins.
The special election for New York’s 26th Congressional District earlier this year saw Democrat Tim Kennedy win the contest over Republican Gary Dickson by more than 36%, which was a larger margin than the nearly 28% victory by Democrat Brian Higgins in the regular election in 2022. Another special election contest in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District in October 2023 saw Republican Celeste Maloy win by more than 23%, while in the regular 2022 election, Republican Chris Stewart won by more than 25%.
While special elections are typically not clear indicators of future elections, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told Politico that he thinks the Ohio result is a pattern of Democrats overperforming the polls.
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“There has been a fairly consistent pattern where Democrats have overperformed expectations, overperformed public polling,” he said. “The single most powerful force in our politics is fear and opposition to MAGA. When the choice of MAGA and other alternatives are presented to voters, MAGA underperforms public polling.”
President Joe Biden has trailed in most recent polls behind Trump nationally and in key swing states. In Ohio, Biden is far behind Trump in most recent polls — with a Marist poll released earlier this month showing Trump leading by 7%.