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the History-Making primary election of 2022 in Ohio is done an overview of who won and some possible insights into why.

All this week in the State of Ohio I'm Karen Kasler.

Turnout was low, but the four marquee races on the May primary ballot have been cut to two, with decisive wins for Democratic candidates in the US Senate and governor's race.

And a split decision for Republican candidates.

We'll start with the U.S. Senate, already the most expensive race in Ohio history.

Tuesday's vote set the stage for what could be a blockbuster race between Republican J.D.

Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan.

Vance, the venture capitalist and author, won with 32% of the more than a million votes cast.

A huge leap from where somewhat unreliable and internal polls showed him weeks before the endorsement from former President Trump on April 15th.

Former state treasurer Josh Mandel was second eight points behind Vance, with State Senator Matt Dolan.

The only candidate in the race not to campaign specifically for a Trump endorsement was less than a point behind Mandel Cleveland investment banker Mike Gibbons would peak early in polls.

Was it under 12%?

And Jane Timken, the former Ohio Republican Party chairman who had the endorsement of the senator, they all wanted to replace Rob Portman and with just under 6%.

Mark Makita and Neil Patel together got just over 3% on stage at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati.

Vance took aim at his challenger, who'd been named the nominee about a half an hour after the polls closed.

Now, the party that we need to unify to fight.

Tim Ryan.

It's our Republican Party, ladies and gentlemen, is the party of working people all across the state of Ohio.

And it needs to fight and it needs to win.

In a statement, Dolan said he pledged to endorse Vance and said Ohio Republicans have spoken and, quote, It's time to look forward.

Gibbons, Timken and Mandel also made similar statements on election night.

Nearly $68 million in ads were spent by candidates and outside groups forward against them in that Republican US Senate primary.

Vance is the recipient of the largest investment in a single candidate by a single donor ever getting $15 million in backing from Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire and major Trump supporter who thought to be a key reason why Trump endorsed Vance, whose anti-Trump comments before he got into the race had many conservatives suggesting they were angry over the Vance endorsement.

On the other side, Congressman Tim Ryan easily won the Democratic nomination.

He'd raised $13 million and had been supported by the state's leading Democrat, U.S.

Senator Sherrod Brown.

And the opposition to Ryan from the left did not materialize.

Ryan got nearly 70% of the vote from the 510,000 Democratic votes cast.

Columbus activist and attorney Morgan Harper was second with around 18% and Columbus activist Tracy Johnson, who raised and spent no money, was five points behind Harper.

Ryan did not talk about his Republican challenger during his victory speech about 120 miles away from him at a union hall in Columbus.

We're trying to build a future for our kids, and it doesn't come from us hating each other.

It doesn't come from us looking at each other and seeing a Democrat or seeing a Republican.

It comes by us looking at each other and seeing Americans, fellow Americans.

But Ryan took an aggressive stance on Vance from the start, tweeting out his first campaign ad before Vance was even projected to win.

J.D.

Vance left Ohio for San Francisco to make millions and invest in companies that profit from globalization and free trade.

And it's clear that a populist style that both candidates have used will define this race and that Trump will play a role.

Since he won Ohio twice and his influence in the state is undeniable.

It's also clear the race is going to be heated because let's be honest.

Tim Ryan, look at his TV ads.

Look at the things that he's doing.

The guy is running as a Trump Democrat, right?

He really is.

Now, he's he says.

Tim Ryan says he's tough on China and yet he's voted 100% of the time with Joe Biden, the weakest on China president in the history of this country.

He says that he wants to fight inflation.

Yet he has voted 100% of the time with the president who has caused the worst inflation in the past 45 years of American history.

He says that he cares about us here in Ohio.

But he refuses to fight his own party.

When they are flooded, the state of Ohio with illegal drugs and sex traffickers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Ryan needs to go down and we're going to be the party that does it.

Those voters are going to come and they're going to vote for Tim Ryan and we're going to actively go after these people.

Those people who voted for Matt Dolan have nothing in common with J.D.

Vance.

Nothing.

The race for governor is set as well with the incumbent Republican matched up with a Democratic former mayor who worked together on gun legislation.

Nan Whaley made history as the first woman to be nominated for Ohio governor by a major party.

She crushed her opponent, former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, by a two to one margin among the just over half a million Democratic votes cast.

Whaley said from her election night event in Dayton that she and her running mate, colleague, a county council member, Cheryl Stevens, represented need needed change for Ohioans.

Mike DeWine has been on the ballot for 46 years since I've been alive.

They know what they got with him.

And if they they think everything's going great in Ohio, they know that's their vote if they want something different.

I think we're offering that.

Cranley said in a statement that he supports Whaley and that, quote, She ran a great campaign and is a very good person.

Incumbent Governor Mike DeWine easily beat three challengers coming at him from the right.

But it's notable that he and Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted didn't get more than half of the more than a million Republican votes cast.

Former Congressman Jim Rannazzisi was second, but won only two counties.

Central Ohio farmer and businessman Joe Blystone won 22 smaller counties, but came in third and former state representative Ron Hood, who did almost no campaigning.

Got just over 2%.

DeWine is the first sitting governor to face a primary challenger since 1986 when Democrat Richard Celeste had an opponent who received 880 votes at his election night event in Columbus.

DeWine talked about moving forward.

Elections are about the future.

And that's what this election is about.

And my commitment to the people of the state of Ohio as we travel around for the rest of this year in this campaign.

We will continue to articulate a vision for this state about where we intend to take the state.

DeWine and Whaley have a little history.

They appeared at press conferences together after the 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, and Whaley supported DeWine's efforts to increase gun regulations.

DeWine has shifted away from that agenda and has instead signed more bills that lift gun restrictions, which drew strong criticism from Whaley.

And with a leaked draft opinion from the US Supreme Court this week, it says Roe versus Wade will be overturned.

Abortion is likely to be a huge issue as well, with Whaley firmly supporting abortion rights and DeWine saying on this show last week that, quote, no one is more pro-life than he is.

A couple other highlights from Tuesday night.

The lineups are set for the fall election for the Ohio Supreme Court with all candidates running unopposed.

Republican Justice Pat DeWine will face Democratic First District Court of Appeals Judge Marilyn Zayas.

Republican Justice Pat Fisher will run against 10th District Court of Appeals Judge Terry Jamieson and two incumbent justices will battle for the chief seat.

Republican Sharon Kennedy on the court for a decade and first term Democrat Jennifer Brunner.

The loser stays on the bench.

So if Republicans all win, the partizan balance on the court doesn't change.

The Republican current chief justice Moreno Connor has been a critical vote with Democrats against all the Republican approved maps from the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

If Brunner wins, Republican Governor Mike DeWine will appoint a replacement, so the Democrats would have to beat DeWine and Fisher to shift the balance of the court.

This will be the first time the Ohio Supreme Court candidates will run with party labels after their names after a state law was signed last year.

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose easily fended off a challenge from former state Rep John Adams LaRose has been unusually partizan for the state's chief elections officer, campaigning for Republican candidates and suggesting in a tweet that if Democrats win, it could undo the good things Ohio has done on election integrity, which is a major GOP talking point, LaRose told me earlier this week He absolutely has not been too partizan saying the work his office has been doing has nothing to do with party, and that in his private capacity as a candidate and a citizen, he will continue to express his opinions.

Ohio's incumbent members of Congress all won their primaries.

Nine of the ten Republican congressmen on the ballot were endorsed by Trump.

The only one not endorsed was Northeast Ohio's Dave Joyce.

But he still won Trump's back challengers Max Miller and Madison DeSoto.

Gilbert also won, as did J.R. Maduekwe, who was not endorsed but got a shout out from Trump at the Delaware County rally two weeks ago.

Madejski, who was in Washington, DC on January 6th and has promoted Q and on conspiracy theories defeated two sitting state lawmakers, Senator Theresa Gavron and Representative Craig Reidel, to face Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress.

There was no primary for Ohio House and Senate races.

There's still no date for that primary, and the Ohio Redistricting Commission failed to meet a court ordered deadline to adopt new state legislative district maps Thursday evening.

All that and all that is not bad.

In a meeting that was marked by anger from advocates against the Republican drawn maps who were warned not to demonstrate, four of the five Republicans on the commission opted to resubmit maps already ruled unconstitutionally gerrymandered by the Ohio Supreme Court.

The commission had new members in Senator Rob McCauley and Representative Jeff Luray, with Senate President Matt Huffman and House Speaker Bob Kopp removing themselves.

Democrats proposed a plan based on maps created by hired outside mapmakers.

Since the court's majority encouraged the commission to use those maps as a starting point for its fifth attempt at a constitutional plan.

But Republicans rejected that one Republican commission member and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, said that using that plan would make an August 2nd primary impossible.

The maps that were submitted are known as MAP three, which is the unconscious judicial plan.

A federal court says it will order put in place if there aren't constitutional maps approved by May 28th.

The frustration on all sides is becoming more pronounced.

We have a classic situation here where we have elected officials who have decided that they don't have to follow the Ohio Constitution.

There certainly was no issues coming to compromise here.

So if you look at throughout the process, the first map had over 60 Republican seats.

The next map moved to 57 Republican seats that the Republicans proposed.

The third map met a perfect proportionality at 54 45 in the House.

1815 in the Senate.

The fourth map had that exact same perfect proportionality.

We have not seen the other side move to compromise as well.

Well I don't believe this is over because again this is now back into the state Supreme Court's hands.

And as I pointed out before, the order that we were under was to adapt a set of maps regardless of any implementation difficulties or the election cycle.

So I don't think that this is over.

I think we will continue to be back here again and again.

You heard the secretary of State under current law, we didn't have any opportunity to consider another map, so we really weren't left with much choice.

We're kind of in a time lag.

What do you have to say about stopping in and this being the end result?

Well, I mean, we're only talking about the 22 election, so there's more work for the commission to do.

We've got to look at the next election cycle.

So you know, we're not done yet.

If the Federal Court implements MAP three, it's likely to be a two year map for just this election.

But the Ohio Redistricting Commission only has constitutional authority to pass four year or ten year maps, and only the state legislature can set election dates.

And there's no discussion about moving from an August 2nd date.

Speaking of this, primary, State House correspondents Joe Ingles and Andy Chow were in the field on Tuesday chasing down candidates and results.

I want to start with your impressions about what you heard and saw out in the field.

Joe, you were out with some of the Democratic candidates, including Tim Ryan.

Tell me something about what you saw.

Well, I saw people who were starting to really get energized on a different in a different way than they have been in the past.

It seemed like Tim Ryan was was getting some people who had different opinions who were coming in.

I noticed that he had coalesced all the labor folks, but he also had all of these different constituencies that were behind him.

So it gives me an idea that going into the fall, he's going to at least have a wide eyed, wide spread message it's going to be something that will talk to a lot of folks.

Andy, you were out with one candidate and current governor, Mike DeWine.

You actually did a piece for NPR about the governor's race on the Republican side, an impression that you came back with.

Yeah.

So on election night, Governor DeWine took the podium and accepted the party's nomination.

And what you really saw there was a confidence in the message that he brought along the way.

You had three different Republican challengers all coming at him further to the right, saying that they were more conservative.

And DeWine really kind of stood his ground and said, no, I'm the conservative candidate.

I stand by what I did during the COVID 19 pandemic.

And he seemed to have some more reassurance, getting, you know, not getting 50% of the vote or, you know, a simple majority, but still getting 48% of the vote among four candidates.

There seemed to be a lot of confidence in that.

And then going forward and then like we saw with the other candidates, really switching it over to general election mode and quickly saying this is about the future and we think we have a message that can reach out to all Ohioans.

It was hard to keep up with everybody on election night.

We had three US Senate Republican candidates in Northeast Ohio.

The two Democratic candidates for governor were in southwest Ohio and their cities.

It was all over the place but voter turnout was really low 20.64%, which is lower than the already really low average of 24% for midterm primaries.

Going back to 1986.

Joe, you talked about energy that you saw.

Any idea why this turnout was so low to you?

Does anyone you've talked to know?

I think there are a couple of things.

I think one of the things was people were confused.

There was so much being said and so much happening that people were confused.

But I think the other thing is that we have to remember that unaffiliated or independent voters, if they wanted to go to the polls, they might not have had anything to vote for because these were Republican and Democrat ocratic primaries in many cases.

And unless you had because there was no statewide issue.

So unless you had a local issue to vote on, if you were truly an unaffiliated or independent voter, you would have had to pull a ballot for a party and vote in a party's ballot and then become that party member And a lot of people just weren't into doing that, that maybe they'll come out in the general, though, that a lot has been made of the disparity between the more than a million Republican votes cast versus a little over half a million Democratic votes cast.

And there was even some suggestion at one point about whether people might do what was suggested happened in 2016 with John Kasich and Donald Trump on the same ballot.

Maybe Democrats would switch over.

But let me ask you, Andy, do you make anything of this disparity where it was basically half as many Democratic votes as Republican votes?

Not necessarily on on a big level.

But I think if you do look at the races, the biggest, most high profile race was that US Senate Republican race between J.D.

Vance, Josh Mandel, Mike Gibbons, Jane Timken, Matt Dolan.

So you did have all these people really kind of taking up all the oxygen in the room when it came to the races.

So I think when you look at that, there was a lot more energy behind Republicans going to the polls to cast their ballot in that race more than any of the other races that were more low profile.

Staying with Republicans right now.

DeWine has said that he supports J.D.

Vance, suggesting that they might not necessarily campaign together but certainly campaign in a complementary way.

DeWine has not been overly Trumpy, but has certainly talked about he wanted it would be okay with the support from former President Trump.

Does all of this hurt his chances with, say, moderate voters?

I think it just proves to be seen.

I think there is going to be a weird dynamic on the ballot where you do have DeWine who is a longtime traditional conservative in Ohio, and then J.D.

Vance, who is definitely trying to paint himself as the Trump Republican.

So who brings out more voters?

And if somebody goes out because they want to vote for J.D.

Vance, do they still cast their vote for DeWine as well?

Or is there some indecision there?

And I think that's something that's going to be interesting to watch.

J.D.

Vance referred to Tim Ryan as campaigning like a Trump Democrat, which is interesting because it comes from an area that's gotten increasingly Republican.

But Ryan said, as you just heard earlier on the show, that he's really looking at those moderates and disaffected Trump voters, but not necessarily campaigning with Biden or with the progressive wing.

What do you make of all that?

Well, the thing is, he was saying on election night that he wants to embrace the Trump voters who were there for the Trump issues.

He's with Trump on some of those issues and he wants to bring them over and have them voting for him.

He also wants to you know, that he's a traditional Democrat and he's taken a lot of stance on Democratic issues.

He wants to bring that back.

But you got to remember, he's from Youngstown.

They've lost a lot of jobs.

This whole intel situation, you know, Governor DeWine is very fast to say, hey, look, I'm bringing intel in and that's great.

You know, here in the Beltway, what we hear.

But you go out of the Beltway and the other parts of Ohio and some areas are saying, oh, that's great.

Now Columbus got another one.

We need one.

You know, we need something.

And so that's something that Tim Ryan is looking at hitting on.

And it's a message that if he puts that out there, could appeal to some voters who traditionally haven't voted Democratic.

And he's certainly been campaigning a lot like Sherrod Brown, arguably the most popular Democrat in Ohio, and taking a harder stance on things like immigration and some of these other issues.

I want to ask you about a development that happened the day before the primary.

The leaked brief from the Supreme Court on Roe versus Wade.

I wonder if you think or if any of the candidates you've spoken to, Joe, think that Roe versus Wade will play played a role on Tuesday or will play a role this fall.

Well, I spoke with Nan Whaley about that, asked her and she thought that in part that could be the reason that she won.

She felt like she has been of course, you have the same consistent view on abortion since she's been running for office.

And her opponent, John Cranley, even though he's, you know, for choice now or, you know, for abortion rights now, hasn't always been there.

And she hit that home a lot.

And so she thinks that voters who heard that news, that late breaking news were like, oh, boy, we better go with Nan, because we know where she stands on that.

And I think it helped her, too, because she was always consistent on that message.

As soon as she entered the race, she made sure that there was going to be a priority.

And on the flip end of that, that's where Governor DeWine is to or Mike DeWine, where he said that he's always been on the other side of that issue.

So.

And Joe's done great reporting on this, where this is going to be a big issue going into November, because both candidates are staunchly in their own corners on this issue.

I was at the Impact Ohio post-election conference, which is now brought to everyone by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Republican former Congressman Steve Stivers, now the president of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, agreed with exactly that sentiment, that it was potentially the lead opinion on Roe versus Wade that brought so many Democrats out to support it.

And Whaley, it's interesting to to consider that I guess we'll never really know.

This week, I also talked about the primary election results with David Nevin, who worked for some Democratic governors before becoming a professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.

You know, I think Vance would have without Trump would have been in the upper tier.

But the difference between third place and first place is probably that Trump endorsement.

And, you know, you saw with that endorsement out there, it was really hard for Mandel and Gibbons and the like to really state the premise of their campaign because they were already running on pro-Trump terms.

And one of the differences, though, was that JD Vance, as we found out when you first got into the race last year and then again after the Trump endorsement, is that he had said some things about Trump that were not very flattering.

He had called Trump noxious and said he was going to consider voting for Hillary Clinton.

Some other things that came out that specifically spoke to his concerns about Trump.

And yet it didn't matter.

Trump endorsed him and voters went on to vote for him.

Does that really speak to the power of Trump's word over anything else?

Well, I think it speaks to two things.

I think it certainly speaks to Trump's overall sort of persona and approach, but it also speaks to the fact that the one unforgivable in Republican circles right now is to call the 2020 election legitimate is to not participate in election denialism.

And so all the candidates in this race fell in line, with the exception of Matt Dolan.

And if you fall in line, things are forgiven.

If you don't fall in line, like Anthony Gonzalez, the congressman from northeast Ohio, who's literally been pushed out of the party.

If you don't fall in line, you're not a part of the process anymore.

If you do fall in line, an awful lot can be forgiven and let's be clear.

That said, the worst things among these candidates about Trump.

But there were lots of folks, including Josh Mandel, who weren't actually early Trump supporters Josh Mandel was a Ted Cruz guy, you know, in round one.

And a lot of these candidates evolved on the Trump question.

Fans will face Democrat Tim Ryan, the congressman from Youngstown, who won the Democratic nomination.

And Ryan said specifically he's going to chase.

Matt Dolan's voters specifically referenced Matt Dolan as being the one candidate in the field that really didn't carve out a role for himself in the Trump universe, so to speak.

They said they have said Ryan is running as a Trump Democrat.

So it's those voters in the middle I think we're talking about here.

Will they really matter, though, in a state that Trump won by eight points and won twice by eight points?

Well, that's certainly the issue.

And the Republicans certainly go into November with a significant advantage.

But you know what we've seen across the nation, there are lots of examples we saw in Indiana several years ago when Richard Mourdock ran against Joe Donnelly and Richard Mourdock was just too extreme for the state.

And Joe Donnelly pulled an upset win.

We've seen it in other places.

And really, Tim Ryan's job is to be thoroughly acceptable.

And so to work it and to present himself that way.

And if J.D.

Vance stumbles Tim Ryan has to be in a position to take advantage of that.

But, you know, this is at this moment a Republican state.

And you have to look at the Republicans as the favorites going into all of these statewide races.

One final note.

Ohioans may disagree on a lot of things, but apparently agree on libraries for the most part.

There were six library issues on the statewide ballot and all passed by an average of 71%.

That's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please follow us in the show on Facebook and Twitter.

Check out our website at State News dot org and join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

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