Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

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More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online.

At OAG Georg a new project fuels hope for a community that's been hurting for an economic spark.

And the midterm election is little over two weeks away.

An expert weighs in on what he expects will happen in that vote.

All this week in the state of Ohio, Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

Last week's announcement that Honda will build a multibillion dollar electric vehicle battery plant in Fayette County may have come as a surprise to some, but it was what others have been working and sacrificing for.

The announcement was the culmination of decades of work and planning, as statehouse correspondent Joe Ingles reports.

You could call this 1500 acres a field of dreams for Fayette County Commissioner Tony Anderson.

It's not often that I get to see people and look them in the face and say Thank you for bringing in three and a half billion dollar project into Fayette County.

Anderson is just one of those celebrating news that Honda will build its new $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery production facility there.

Honda and LG Energy Solution say the plant will produce 40 gigawatt hours of lithium ion battery packs by the end of 2025.

Enough to power more than 700,000 vehicles and there's expected to be a lot of demand by 2035.

Half of all passenger vehicles sold around the world are expected to be electric.

It's taken about two decades to develop and market the mega site at age 71 and state route 35 near Jeffersonville and the what it is now.

Bruce Johnson was lieutenant governor in the Taft administration when the idea for the site was just a dream.

It started during the Hyundai project in the early 2000 when I was state development director and very frustrated by the fact that we couldn't identify sites immediately that would qualify for a mega investment.

And so the process of gathering enough land for the mega site began.

I remember calling property owners on the telephone, pleading with them, Will you do this for the state of Ohio?

You know, people are attracted to getting top dollar for their property.

That's that's the way the world works.

And that's fine.

If you get too greedy you lose a project.

And if you lose a project like this, you lose billions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands frankly, of impacted people.

So my hope in trying to get people to be willing to sell the family farm is to look at the bigger picture.

After getting enough property owners to say yes, the project began.

Jamie Gentry has worked in a variety of capacities to get this mega site to the point it is now.

My involvement goes back at least 20 years, working on the site and various levels of government, but mostly working here with the local partners from planning a lot of the early due diligence studies and things that went into the site making sure the zoning was in place, working on a lot of the incentives that would go towards future projects and really just the marketing of the site to all of our partners at every level of government in the development world.

Republican Senator Bob Petersen was a Fayette County commissioner 20 years ago when he says Honda looked at this mega site for a different project.

Honda was looking to expand and we were we kept getting more interest and more interest from Honda.

And ultimately it came down to one other side in Ohio, our site, and then a site in Indiana.

That they were looking at.

And over a period of months, we spied more information and told them what we do.

They told us what they needed.

Ultimately, they went to Indiana, and that was pretty heartbreaking.

Since then, Peterson says he's worked as an elected official to make the site more attractive by reducing regulations and taxes for companies like Honda.

Meanwhile, the farmers whose land is part of the mega site, held out hope to David Martin, the farmer who is the principal landowner, says when Honda came back earlier this year for a second time.

The decision was simple, but it does feel good.

It feels very good.

And in the position that we were in, we we have the ultimate veto power to to choose the right company for this community.

And sometimes you're faced with a decision that's very difficult to make because you we had we had to say no several times.

And ultimately, though, it was a very easy decision for us to make for Honda.

The state has proposed a $71.3 million job creation tax credit for Honda based on the company's recent announcement for an investment of up to 4.2 billion and the EV battery plant and retooling of Honda's three manufacturing facilities.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority will consider the proposal marked as a 1.871% credit over 30 years.

At its next meeting, the job creation tax credit is performance based and would be subject to reviews of Honda's job creation and payroll commitments.

And state lawmakers are also considering an $85 million plan to make upgrades to address the plant significant needs for water and road infrastructure.

The county engineer, who has spent much of his career working on the site, says there's still work to do.

We have some roadway work, some water work, some sewer work, a little bit of stormwater work, a little bit of everything.

We've got a plan for everything.

We've got a funding plan for everything.

So it's just a matter now of doing it and doing it on time.

It's unclear whether there will be job losses at Honda's three existing manufacturing plants.

As they transition away from making traditional gas powered cars.

But for the 28,000 residents in Fayette County, a community that's been losing population in recent years, Honda's plans to create 2200 jobs at the EV battery plant is exciting.

Having grown up here and worked here, there's a mentality of you've got to go outside the community for an opportunity.

And I think this changes that.

It really changes that in a, in a way that now it's on you to to get that opportunity and you don't have to go outside the community for it.

There's another line from a great movie that says When you clearly believe that it will work out in the end and it hasn't worked out, you're not at the end.

Joe Ingles Statehouse News Bureau.

The November election is a little over two weeks away.

Early voting started last week and requests for absentee ballots and early in-person votes are up 2.7% from four years ago, when all five of the statewide executive offices were open.

You can see my conversations with nine of the ten major party candidates from the last five weeks of the show at our Web site, State Newstalk.

This year, there are five incumbents in those offices, but there's also a close U.S. Senate race as well as three seats on the Ohio Supreme Court and two ballot issues.

More than 943,000 voters have either asked for ballots by mail or cast votes in person at Board of Elections offices.

And the secretary of state's office also reports 37,479 people have signed up as poll workers passing the goal of just under 36,000.

But 46 counties have not met the goal of recruiting 115% of the workers they're expected to need.

Many of them are rural counties, but also more populated, one such as Hamilton, Lucas, Mahoning and Montgomery.

Of the 67 elections for Ohio governor since the current two party system started in the state in 1855 Republicans have won 40 elections and Democrats 27.

Ohio has been strongly Republican in even non-presidential years since 1994 except for 2006 when Democrats won all the executive offices but auditor.

Ohio native Kyle Kondik is managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia.

I asked him whether that success will continue for Republicans in Ohio this year or whether Democrats will be able to grab victory this time.

One of the things that I saw that you wrote this week is that you wrote that Biden remains unpopular.

The House generic ballot polling has gotten a little bit better for Republicans lately.

But you would not be surprised if the numbers improve a bit for Republicans down the stretch.

What do you mean by that?

Yeah, you know, one thing about the House generic ballot polling and again, it's just, you know, national polling asking people whether they vote for a Democrat or Republican in their respective House district or whether they want the Democrats or Republicans to have control of Congress.

What I think about it is that historically it's been likelier to understate Republicans than Democrats.

I don't know exactly why that is.

It also sometimes is some late kind of movement toward the opposition party.

And in midterm years, we were probably seeing a little bit of that at this point.

And what sort of seemed like for much of the cycle would be a REPUBLICAN-LEANING environment.

You kind of got cloudy a little bit in the wake of the dogged decision and the increase in salience of abortion.

There were some positive moments for Democrats.

You know, it's sort of the late summer you know, maybe things are sort of regenerating a little bit for, you know, for Republicans.

I don't know if that means this is going to be some sort of big wave year or something.

But, you know, Republicans have been favored in the House the whole time and I think continue to be.

And even despite a lot of challenges in the race for the Senate, in the Senate, it remains right there for the taking for Republicans.

Obviously, they'll need a net one seat.

So, you know, just watch sort of down the stretch to see if that we saw in the polls.

You know, the numbers just start to get a little bit better for Republicans.

That would not be unprecedented.

You also write that there are some weird things going on out there.

So what do you mean by that?

And do you mean specifically in Ohio or in other states?

Even more in other states.

You you've had some polls in New York State.

You're in the governor's race there.

That Democrat Kathy Hochul trying to run for a full term that that might be getting a little bit closer.

Democrats also seem to be competing for the governor's race in Oklahoma, which is a red state, you know, pretty red state.

You know, there are some kind of upset potential races across the country.

I would put the Ohio Senate race maybe in that category as well.

So not all of the indicators are sort of pointing in the same partizan direction, although, again, I'd say that you probably would still expect this to be a Republican leaning year, broadly speaking.

But of course, that also wouldn't mean the Republicans would win everything Do you think?

I think that I think that we're Democrats who thought that they really had a lot more opportunity with the Davis decision, like you referenced earlier.

Did Democrats speak too early?

I don't know if they peaked too early.

I just think that, you know, there's a whole constellation of issues that people are concerned about.

And, you know, they're just some sort of basic kind of fundamental problems that Democrats have in this election.

It's just hard to hold the White House in a midterm, generically speaking.

You know, even sometimes the presidents are popular.

They don't do all that great in the White House.

And when they're unpopular, they usually do poorly.

You know, Joe Biden has remained a popular.

His approval is in the in the low forties.

It's been, you know, better than it was at points during the summer.

But it's still fairly weak.

You know, the the public is often open to this idea that you sort of need a check and balance on the White House.

And so they're just more likely to want to vote for that for the opposition party.

And, you know, there are some other important issues out there, like inflation in the economy, most notably that are issues that I think Republicans are pretty comfortable running on.

You know, so again, that's not to say abortion isn't important.

And also let me make one other point.

I think if Republicans do end up doing well in this election, when both chambers of Congress, which again, is right there for the taking over the Senate, is it still remains a pretty big question mark.

I think there'll be this temptation to say oh, well, the abortion issue doesn't matter or the abortion issue has gone away.

I don't think that's the case at all.

Like I think abortion is going to abortion has been important in American political life.

And I think will continue to be important in American political lives.

You're probably going to see more statewide ballot issues having to do with abortion.

Ohio is a very logical place for that to happen, given that it's not it's not that difficult for outside groups to be able to get things on the ballot, statewide ballot in Ohio.

And it's going to be an issue that is I think, a salient to voters.

It's just not necessarily going to be the issue in every single election.

When we were talking about the weird things that are happening across the country and Ohio's Senate race, that would be kind of one of these weird ones because Donald Trump won Ohio by eight points in 20, 16 and 20, 20.

And yet the US Senate race is considered pretty close here.

Why is that race so volatile?

Looking ahead, I think that Tim Ryan has probably run a better campaign in the J.D.

Vance, as Ryan has certainly raised a whole lot more money and it's forced Republican outside groups, Senate Leadership Fund, which is the most important player these days, and sort of outside spending on the Republican Senate side.

They've spent a lot of money in Ohio to try to sort of make up the advertising gap with with Ryan.

I thought all along that J.D.

Vance was still favored in this race.

Given Ohio's political trajectory.

You know, we've had a couple of debates in the Ohio Senate race.

I don't necessarily know if those debates really changed a whole lot about the trajectory of the race.

And, you know, Tim Ryan has tried to get outside Democratic groups to come to his aid.

And generally speaking, they haven't.

I mean, at least at least the big ones.

So, again, I still think this is Vance's race to lose down the stretch.

It does seem like the Senate race is going to be, you know, different.

Maybe than the other statewide.

It seems like the the state executive office is akin to the governorship.

The Republicans look like they're in pretty good shape.

And in all of those races, you've got state Supreme Court races that are probably question marks, still a party label on the ballot now in those races.

And so that's probably going to be helpful to the Republicans.

You would think so at the end of the day, you know, I think if you like the Republicans outlook, broadly speaking in the state, it's just that there are four question marks, I think, about Senate race and then the other races.

Is the Senate race simply going to come down to money?

No, I don't necessarily think so, because, you know, Ryan, of course, has raised a whole lot more than Vance.

You have outside groups coming in.

But one thing to note about whether outside groups spend, you know, spend on TV ads is that they don't get has been a very based on federal law, the candidates themselves get better advertising rates.

So Tim Ryan's dollars go further and JD Vance's dollars go further than, you know, Senate leadership funds do.

I'll television.

So that's, I think, an important thing to note.

You know, the public polling is sort of mixed.

Vance's generally been leading by a little bit recently.

I think it is reasonable to note that certainly at least to 20, 16 and 2020 polling in Ohio, you know definitely underestimated Republicans.

You know maybe something like that happens again, although you never know from year to year which way the poll error might go.

Ohio now has 15 congressional seats down from 16 How many of those you consider tossups.

I see I've seen three is an estimate the new and open 13th district featuring Democratic former House minority leader Amelia Sykes against Trump endorsed Republican Madison Jessie photo Gilbert but also the contest between Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and Trump endorsed newcomer J. Ahmadu And also Trump endorsed Republican incumbent Steve Chabot against Cincinnati City Councilman Greg Landsman.

How many of you think there are just those or are the ones I'm not missing that I am missing?

Those three are certainly by far the most competitive of House elections in Ohio.

I think Kaptur probably has a little bit of an edge in her district although if if, in fact things sort of break toward the Republicans at the end, I think she's still in danger of losing because even though she has a weak opponent, that's the Trump one district Trump carried the district by three points.

And it's sort of moving the wrong way for, you know, for Kaptur, of course, it's been around basically for four decades, you know, representing iteration of the Toledo based seat.

Her district used to extend all the way to Cleveland last decade.

It sort of it's sort of more northwest or central Ohio now.

So I think if the Democrats have a chance to you know, it's a decent chance to win any of the districts in the state.

The Kaptur one probably comes first.

It's interesting because the other two actually Biden won Districts House 13, which is basically the new Akron kind of Africans to open seat that was a Biden plus three district.

And then Steve Chabot seat in Cincinnati is Biden plus high single digits although it's not quite as blue down the ballot.

I look at both the Ohio 13 Ohio one races as tossups and give a slight edge to Kaptur in Ohio nine.

How will the governor's race which is at the top of the ballot affect the rest of the ballot.

I mean polling has shown that Mike DeWine is leading and Whaley by double digits so how could that affect the down ticket races the congressional races U.S. Senate race Supreme Court all that.

You know look it's it's helpful if in fact DeWine wins this thing going away.

You know it could be could provide some sort of some support down the ballot.

To, you know, to some other candidates, you know, maybe in the federal races, you know, maybe in his district look a little bit more like the the Vance Ryan race, which looks like it's more competitive that than the gubernatorial race.

You know, but there are.

It seems like there is a small but significant share of Democrats who for one reason or the other, you know, good crossover to support Mike DeWine in the governor's race.

You know, those folks probably aren't voting Republican in other races.

And so, you know, maybe that maybe that that shows up in some of the disparities, you know, among the various races.

You know, I think there's there is less less ticket splitting in American politics than there used to be.

But you don't have to go back far to find, you know, in Ohio, big differences among races.

You know, back in 2018.

You know, Sherrod Brown won the Senate race by seven points to like the one Mike DeWine won by like three or four.

So you had you had you know, basically a 10% difference in margin between the governor's race and the Senate race.

I don't know if it'll be that dramatic this time, but it certainly could be.

And certainly the polls that have shown the Senate race close and the governor's race not close indicates that they're picking up on some of these voters who might be still on their tickets.

There've been two debates in the U.S. Senate race.

There have been no debates in the governor's contest.

Does the lack of debates really matter?

You know, probably not.

I mean, DeWine is pretty clearly going with a classic Front-Runner strategy here.

You know, it certainly feels like he's ahead.

And, you know, he doesn't want to give Whaley, who I think has had no trouble kind of building up her name I.D.

statewide.

He doesn't want to give her any oxygen.

You know, I guess from sort of like a normative standpoint, you know, what's the quote, quote unquote.

Right.

Thing to do is a good thing to do.

You'd like to see the candidates making joint appearances and doing debates and that sort of thing.

But it's not like this is the only state where there are debates going on in a major race.

I mean, there have been debates about debates in other states, some some states, just like Ohio, the horse governor's race, or you're not going to see really any debates at all.

And again, like like I think for, you know, for observers and for voters, it's good to be able to see the candidates together.

But there's no there's no requirement that that happens.

And so sometimes, particularly when a candidate feels like he's ahead, there's no reason to, you know, to to do the debates because you feel like the only way it could change the race is in a way that's unfavorable for you.

So maybe it's not knowable, but it's certainly understandable.

It may be too early for me to ask this, but you literally wrote the book on Ohio being a bellwether state.

Is Ohio still a bellwether state, as far as you can tell?

No, I don't think so.

I think that book was that it became history pretty quickly once I did it before the 2016 election.

I just I just think that, you know, the political trends in the state, you know, just it's just become more Republican over time.

You know, think about it this way.

So in 2012, Barack Obama won Ohio by three points nationally.

Or about four or so you know and that that was a long string where the Ohio vote was really very close to the national vote.

But you know over time in 2016 and the 2020 and Trump one of eight points piece is national the national margin loss was bigger in 2016.

So from a relative standpoint Ohio stood still in 2020 while the rest of the country collectively you know moved moved a couple of points more towards the Democrats.

And so I don't think that Ohio is going to really be a presidential battleground in 2024.

You do have the Senate race in Ohio with Sherrod Brown.

I think that probably starts to something like kind of a toss up sort of race we have seen in the past couple presidential elections only one Senate race in those two separate years.

Was there a candidate of one party who won the Senate race despite the other party winning the state for president?

Every other state had the same party win for president and for Senate.

And you would think that the Republican presidential nominee will win Ohio and probably probably win by by more than just a couple of points.

And so that puts Sherrod Brown, I think, in a challenging position.

It's not an impossible position, but I think it's difficult that I think there's going to be a lot of angling for the you know, for that Republican Senate nomination, just like you saw in 20, 22.

And yet a pretty crowded field.

Houses of worship have long played key roles in elections, holding voter registration drives, hosting meet the candidates events and taking souls to the polls to vote.

So-called megachurches, which are usually evangelical Christian denominations, have done a lot of these kinds of events.

But there's a group that's traveling Ohio to meet with evangelical leaders about concerns over the embrace of Christian nationalism by Republican campaigns and candidates.

Even though Christian nationalism is one of these issues that people don't know about or don't use that term.

It doesn't mean that it's not real.

It feels a bit like people learning what a COVID viruses and you realize, oh, the common cold is also coronavirus, but then you realize there's also a deadly mutation of it.

So what a lot of us are recognizing is these symptoms have been around for a long time and we're talking about them in some new ways because of their effect on the United States population and our government.

Christian Pastor Doug Paget's Group Vote Common Good made three stops in Ohio this week, starting at a debate watch party for supporters of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tim Ryan.

Padgett says his group believes faith should guide people's decisions, but it should not be used by politicians to create laws.

And they're connecting with people of faith who think that way, too.

So we don't travel around telling people to change their mind.

We connect with people who are already in the process of having a mind change and we try to help them connect that to something that would feel better to them.

A lot of people feel politically homeless.

They feel like something changed.

Maybe something changed in them, maybe something changed in the country or the political parties, but they just don't feel at home anymore.

And those are the people that we try to talk with.

Faith Organizations.

Another 501 see three groups are Tax-Exempt, as long as they do not support specific candidates.

If they do, they could be required to pay income tax for every year.

They have failed to qualify for that exemption.

And that is it for this week.

My colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television thanks for watching.

Please follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter White Maurice and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Right is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Puerto Right dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OGA dawg.