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OH-Sen: Frank "Issue 1" LaRose (R) Lost Big Tonight. We Need To Get Ready To Beat Him Again In 2024. [1]

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Date: 2023-08-08

First off, FUCK YEAH!!!!

I've seen enough: in a major victory for the pro-choice side, Ohio Issue 1 (a measure to raise the threshold to pass a state constitutional amendment to 60%) fails.

While there are many reasons to feel joyous about this, here’s another big reason this makes me very optimistic:

The final Ohio Issue 1 map could end up looking a lot like the '18 Senate race map, where Sherrod Brown's strength/religious conservatives' weakness with blue-collar voters in eastern Ohio proved decisive.

And Secretary of State and U.S. Senate candidate Frank LaRose (R. OH) was a bigger loser tonight:

x Ohio just made a fool of @FrankLaRose pic.twitter.com/x4oy52MR0y — Ohio Dems (@OHDems) August 9, 2023

One of the GOP candidates, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, is the highest-profile champion of Issue 1, which would raise the bar for voters to ratify future state constitutional amendments from the 50%-plus-one currently required to 60%.

If it passes, the new threshold would apply to a separate November ballot measure that’s aimed at enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution, making it harder for Democrats to challenge the Republican stranglehold on power in Ohio and highlighting Brown’s lonely, endangered status in an increasingly red state.

LaRose’s central role in the ballot measure campaign has emerged as a tension point in the Senate primary. Losing would do little to ease those feelings.

He has argued that his two wealthy rivals for the nomination haven’t done enough to support Issue 1. A moderate by reputation who has heavily courted the GOP’s conservative base, LaRose also faces scrutiny — on the right and the left — for emphasizing the abortion angle ahead of Tuesday’s vote, as well as for what his critics call a divided focus between his political ambitions and the special election he is responsible for administering.

“A victory on Tuesday will give LaRose a story to tell donors and some much-needed credibility with the conservative grassroots around the state,” said Scott Guthrie, a veteran of Republican Senate campaigns in Ohio who is not aligned with any of the 2024 candidates. “If the issue fails, LaRose will have spent the vital early days of his campaign as the face of a losing effort and he will be open to criticism from the already skeptical conservative base.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/8/2186085/-OH-Sen-Frank-Issue-1-LaRose-R-Lost-Big-Tonight-We-Need-To-Get-Ready-To-Beat-Him-Again-In-2024

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