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    House Filings Show Democrats Are All Over Ohio Again
    By Greg Giroux
    Congressional Quarterly

    Monday 07 January 2008

    The just-passed candidate filing deadline in Ohio simply underscored what already was well-known. The state's congressional contests include major targets for House Democratic strategists, who in 2006 succeeded in one House takeover bid in Ohio and fell narrowly short in three others.

    The end of the filing period late Friday afternoon confirmed that Democrats will wage highly competitive challenges in two districts that Republican incumbents are leaving open to retire - including the Columbus-based constituency where Rep. Deborah Pryce survived her 2006 race by a razor-thin margin - while picking up where they left off in two Cincinnati-area districts where Republican incumbents toughed out close races last time.

    Ohio Republicans, playing mostly defense in this year's slate of House races, are staking their hopes for a comeback on their efforts to unseat freshman Democratic Rep. Zack Space. He won the seat that veteran Republican Bob Ney vacated just before the 2006 election after his conviction on political corruption charges in the scandal involving influence-peddling lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

    Perhaps nowhere in Ohio are Democrats' takeover hopes higher than in the Columbus-based 15th, a swing district where President Bush edged Democratic challenger John Kerry by just 1 percentage point in 2004. While Republican incumbent Pryce decided not to seek a ninth House term this year, her Democratic opponent in the close 2006 race is back for a second try. Mary Jo Kilroy - an elected commissioner in Franklin County, which includes Columbus and contains most of the 15th District's population - is running again after losing to Pryce by fewer than 1,100 votes and half a percentage point.

    Unopposed in the Democratic primary, Kilroy will face the winner of the five-candidate Republican primary election on March 4 in which the leading candidate appears to be state Sen. Steve Stivers.

    The other open seat that is in the Democrats' sights is the 16th District, which 83-year-old Republican Ralph Regula has left open to retire after 18 House terms. Democratic state Sen. John Boccieri began preparing a campaign in the district, dominated by the city of Canton and other territory in northeast Ohio, well before Regula announced in October that he was retiring. Though Boccieri has long been viewed as his party's presumptive nominee, he will face primary opposition from Mary Cirelli, a councilwoman in Canton who previously represented the city in the state House. Cirelli, a surprise candidate, filed her papers just before the filing deadline.

    Three Republicans are seeking their party's nomination in the 16th. They are state Sen. Kirk Schuring; Matt Miller, a county commissioner who took 42 percent of the vote against Regula in the 2006 primary; and Paul R. Schiffer, a radio talk show host.

    Although Bush in 2004 outran Kerry by 54 percent to 46 percent in the 16th, the district is considered politically competitive.

    There is a third open Republican seat in Ohio, but the 7th District represented by retiring nine-term incumbent David L. Hobson - which is mainly south of Columbus and takes in a small part of the city itself - appears a more secure prospect for a GOP hold. The Republican field in the district, which went 57 percent for Bush, includes state Sen. Steve Austria and former state Rep. Ron Hood.

    Democrats will be running hard in at least two of the eight Ohio districts where Republican incumbents are seeking re-election.

    None of the current Ohio members running for re-election this year faced a closer 2006 race than Jean Schmidt, who beat Democratic physician Victoria Wulsin by 1 percentage point in the 2nd District in and east of Cincinnati. This election came after a 2005 special election that the strongly conservative Schmidt also struggled to win, even though this normally Republican turf was a 64 percent Bush district in 2004.

    Wulsin, who is gunning for a rematch, faces Democratic primary competition from Steve Black, a well-funded lawyer, and a lesser-known candidate, William R. Smith. Schmidt - who had to fend off former Rep. Bob McEwen in both her 2005 and 2006 Republican primaries - faces primary competition this time from Phil Heimlich, a former county commissioner, and state Rep. Tom Brinkman, who placed third in the June 2005 special primary. A fourth Republican, Nathan Bailey, also is running.

    Seven-term Republican Steve Chabot, who represents the adjacent 1st District that includes western Cincinnati and some suburbs, will face another tough challenge but a new opponent. Both he and Democratic state Rep. Steve Driehaus are unopposed for their parties' nominations. Chabot took 52 percent of the vote in 2006 against Democratic lawyer John Cranley in a district that went for Bush by a razor-thin margin in 2004.

    Some Democrats see prospects, though a longer shot, in the 14th District, anchored in Ohio's northeastern corner, where seven-term Republican Rep. Steven C. LaTourette is favored for re-election. LaTourette, who is unopposed in the Republican primary, will face the winner of a Democratic primary that includes Bill O'Neill, a former state appellate judge who is the Democratic establishment's preferred candidate, and a pair of little-known hopefuls, Dale Virgil Blanchard and John Greene Jr. The district gave 52 percent to Bush in 2004.

    CQ Politics rates these races as follows. The 15th and 16th districts are rated as No Clear Favorite; the 1st and 2nd districts are rated as Leans Republican; and the 14th District is rated as Republican Favored.

    Meanwhile, of the Democrats who presently hold seven of Ohio's 18 House seats, Space is the only one whom the Republicans will seriously challenge this November. This is mainly because his 18th District in eastern Ohio has a mostly rural and conservative orientation, as evidenced by the fact that Bush pulled down 57 percent there in his re-election campaign.

    Four Republicans are competing in the March primary. They are Fred Dailey, a former director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture; Jeannette Moll, a lawyer and former local magistrate; Paul Phillips, a lawyer and Air Force veteran; and Beau Bromberg, a political unknown. Space faces a minor primary challenger in Mark Pitrone. CQ rates the general election race as Leans Democratic.

    Ohio's Cleveland-centered 10th District is strongly Democratic-leaning (58 percent for Kerry in 2004). But it will feature a primary challenge to Democratic Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, who is running for a seventh term there even as he continues to pursue his longshot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

    The four Democrats challenging Kucinich are Joe Cimperman, a Cleveland city councilman; Thomas O'Grady, the mayor of North Olmsted, a Cleveland suburb; Rosemary Palmer, an educator whose son died in Iraq in 2005; and Barbara Anne Ferris, who took 24 percent of the vote in a 2006 primary challenge to Kucinich. There are two Republican candidates, former state Rep. Jim Trakas and Jason Werner, who lost the 2006 Republican primary in the 10th.

    The other Ohio districts seem very secure for the incumbent party, at least at this early stage. These include the northwestern 5th District, a Republican bastion that has one of the newest members of Congress. Republican Rep. Bob Latta almost certainly will have a less grueling campaign this year than he did in late 2007, when he won a special election to succeed the late Republican Paul E. Gillmor.

    Neither of Latta's two opponents for the March primary - Scott Radcliffe and Michael Reynolds - is as well known as Steve Buehrer, the state senator who Latta narrowly defeated in the special primary election last November. And the lone Democratic candidate, George Mays, is not as well-known as Robin Weirauch, who lost to Latta by 14 percentage points in the Dec. 11 special election after running as the Democratic nominee against Gillmor in both 2004 and 2006.