Two Campaigns Kick Off In The Midwest: Ben Sasse (R-NE) And Nikki Foster (D-OH)

Let's start with Nebraska, where conservative Republican Ben Sasse began his reelection bid yesterday. He was first elected in 2014 against Democrat David Domina, 64.4% to 31.5%. 347,636 Nebraskans voted for him. Sasse was the first sitting senator to announce he wouldn't support Trump if Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016. Trump easily won Nebraska anyway-- with 495,961 votes (58.75%) to Hillary's 284,494 (33.7%). Sasse won all 93 counties in the state. Trump won 91, losing just the biggest and second biggest counties-- Douglas (Omaha) and Lancaster (Lincoln) to Hillary.

There was some talk of billionaire Trump-supporting wing-nut Pete Ricketts, the current governor, primarying him but Ricketts endorsed Sasse yesterday when he announced. Former Lancaster County Republican Party chairman, Matt Innis, a certifiably insane person, is running against him-- as are 2 Democrats (with two more thinking about jumping in). Innis: "You can’t find anything he’s really accomplished other than bashing the president and giving up his (Senate Agriculture Committee) seat for something more glamorous... I want to make sure that Nebraska is in good hands and they have somebody in Washington that will put their interests first."

As a Judiciary Committee member, Sasse has been a strong proponent of Trump’s judicial appointments, and has piped down about Trump lately, not criticizing all the racism and white nationalism, apparently in the hope that hard core Trump supporters will back him. He's gotten something of a reputation for being all bark and no bite when it comes to Trump.

A few days ago, we looked at how Omaha state Senator Hohn McCollister (R) had called on his fellow Republicans to stand up to Trump's racism. The response from the Nebraska GOP came swiftly, in the form of a press release:

They want him out of the party-- a sitting state senator. Amazing! No big tent there-- ad no standing up to Trump's racism will be tolerated!

The video up top was released yesterday as a campaign announcement for Nikki Foster, a Democrat running for the OH-01 seat (most of safely blue Cincinnati and the very red Warren county suburbs and small towns north of the city) against incumbent Steve Chabot, who would absolutely be vulnerable against a strong Democratic opponent. Is Foster? I haven't spoken with her-- and the video looks good-- but... The former Air Force vet looks more like an identity politics candidate with a nice bio than the kind of candidate who can win a tough race against an incumbent. Her weak garden variety platform isn't going to excite anyone other than committed Democrats who vote for any Democrat who runs, not enough to win OH-01. I suppose some people will want to vote for her because she flew 200 missions over Iraq and Afghanistan or because she was an All-American rugby player. But... no mention of Medicare-For-All or any other motivating policies on her website. Last year she lost a state house race last year against incumbent Paul Zeltwanger in a redder district north of the city. That same year, another weak Democrat afraid to take any strong policy positions, Aftab Pureval, lost to Chabot in the middle of the "Blue Wave." The other Democrat in the race this cycle, Kate Schroder, is the same kind of thing, afraid to motivate the base with any talk of Medicare-for-All or the Green New Deal. Both, like Pureval was, appear to have been persuaded by Republicans and the Republican wing of the Democratic Party to not coming out swinging for cutting edge policies. So they'll get Democrats and some independents who hate Trump, but the kind of people who have given up on the two corporate parties... neither Foster nor Schroder is offering them anything, or at least not anything that's going to change their mind about voting.

What a shame! It looks like a winnable district. The PVI is R+5 and Trump only beat Hillary 51.2% to 44.6%. Trump did worse than either McCain or Romney in the district. If only there was a better candidate who understood what it takes to motivate voters!

Last time, Pureval outraised Chabot $4,069,489 to $1,949,962 and outspent him by a over a million dollars. The DCCC and its allies put another $2,289,840 into slamming Chabot. (The NRCC and it's allies put $3,537,280 into smearing Pureval.) The Republicans are not going to give up this district without a fight to the death and neither Nikki Foster nor Kate Schroder appears to be the kind of candidate who could fight that kind of battle. Again... what a shame. This is just the kind of year and environment where a strong progressive candidate could beat Chabot.