The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has postponed running a new barrage of ads in the Ohio Senate race through its independent expenditure arm, according to a report from the Washington Post.
According to the Post, the DSCC had originally planned to run a new ad campaign during the week of Sept. 13. Now, that roughly $500,000 effort is slated to begin a week later.
While the ad buy delay could merely be a delay, it fuels speculation that Strickland has proven to be far less competitive than the party had hoped in the race against incumbent Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH). As the Washington Post notes, the DSCC is still helping Strickland at the moment as it “is currently funding a Strickland campaign ad through its limited coordinated-spending accounts that seeks to tie Portman to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.”
But, now is the time in the campaign where the DSCC’s independent expenditure arm will have to start making hard decisions about where it’s going to be looking for its majority. The Democrats need to pick up five seats to retake the majority (or four, if there’s a Democratic vice president to break tie votes). This could be one of the early signs that the Democrats are no longer looking to Ohio to be one of its top pickups.
Strickland’s campaign spokesman David Bergstein told the Post that “the DSCC is spending the same amount of money they were slated to spend, it’s just being used to help fund our existing ad instead of through an independent expenditure.”
TPM’s PollTracker Average shows Portman is leading Strickland by 13 points at the moment.
Ok DNC, if Strickland is fading, take those ad dollars and put them into the Nevada Senate race…
Or North Carolina. Or Florida. Or Arizona. Or even Missouri.
Personally, I think Ohio and Iowa are lost causes. I never bought off on the notion that Judge was the best person to go after Grassley because her name is “Judge” (which apparently, was the main driver for why everyone wanted her to the nominee), and Strickland has been a big disappointment for over a year, first in his lackluster fund raising efforts and more lately by his inability to fight back on the barrage that Portman is putting on him.
Ohio is a completely lost cause, unfortunately. I live here and wouldn’t know that Strickland was even running a campaign except for the ads attacking him.
Steickland is dead in the water. He needs to be cut loose. Any money spent on him would be wasted.
Jesus christ DNC, get in the fucking game. Portman is an atrocious senator - if you have to work a bit harder to knock him off, do so.
They haven’t hit Portman hard at all.