MEDINA, Ohio—Flanked by a “Don’t Tread On My Uterus” flag to his right and longtime GOP adviser Steve Schmidt to his left, Tim Ryan stepped out from under the gazebo in a town square to fire up the crowd with a promise to “shock the world” on Election Day.
Ohio wouldn’t vote like Ohio, Ryan argued, because Buckeye State voters just want to elect a pragmatic centrist.
Despite almost every major headwind going against Democrats this midterm cycle, the Ohio congressman said his campaign would do more than just “put a dent in Medina,” a county where former President Donald Trump won by almost 25 points in 2020.
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As Ryan tries to replicate the Sherrod Brown playbook and defeat Republican J.D. Vance in a seat comfortably held by outgoing GOP Sen. Rob Portman, the Youngstown native’s closing message in the unexpectedly tight race melded economic anxiety with the fight for democracy.
“This ain’t us, we are not extremists,” Ryan told the crowd of over 100 after bragging about “kicking J.D.’s ass” during the debates and a Fox News town hall.
If Ryan’s longshot Senate bid were a movie, the climactic scene where the emotional music score comes to a crescendo would’ve been a perfect fit at the Sunday afternoon swing through the reliable red county just south of Cleveland.
Recent polling has shown Vance with the lead, despite months of a neck-and-neck tussle between the two with Ryan occasionally leading. Vance’s edge is still relatively slim at around 4 points going into Election Day, according to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker.
"If any Democrat is primed to upset the conventional wisdom this year it is Tim Ryan," David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron, told The Daily Beast. "The Ryan campaign has been everywhere in Ohio and has done yeoman’s work traveling and speaking to voters in every part of the state, every county, every nook and cranny."
"Democrats running for statewide office in Ohio rarely do this," Cohen continued. "Sherrod Brown does and it has been one of the keys to his success... Ryan has consciously distanced himself from Biden and the Democratic Party by proclaiming every chance he gets that he is his own person and will break with his party when he feels it is right."
Even though he was preaching to the converted—with most rally attendees telling The Daily Beast they’d already voted early—standing shoulder to shoulder was a big deal for the liberals of Medina.
Voters recalled the series of disappointments they’ve seen going back to former President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, stung by their own county where undecided voters keep breaking for the GOP.
“It kind of sounds like we’re talking about Star Wars,” Stephanie Reed, a Medina resident who works in crisis intervention, told The Daily Beast, referring to her slow rolling efforts to convert voters over from “the dark side.”
Reed, who found the “Don’t Tread On My Uterus” flag for just $9.99 on Amazon, said she has seen signs of the county turning blue. Yet by this point, she said, she keeps an optimistic outlook just for her own sanity.
In his modified stump speech, Ryan evoked his late maternal grandfather, who, he said, supported liberal causes because he had time from his job to volunteer and support the community, rather than having to work more hours to make ends meet. Working off his grandfather as an allegory for the working class voters Democrats have lost, Ryan then attempted to tie economic anxiety to his own worries about the survival of the American democratic experiment.
Ryan spoke of how “we’ve lost something as Americans, the feeling we can make a difference in somebody’s life.”
His illustration of severed social bonds were shared by attendees, such as Al Junke and his wife Rosie Collier. The pair of retirees said their social circle has already voted and they all tend to have similar political beliefs, but they still go out and knock doors in an effort to change some minds.
They used to have Republican friends and family, but those ties were severed even before the Trump era, and while they’re used to Medina County going for Republicans, both said they think the Supreme Court’s abortion decision is the best chance Democrats will have to win statewide.
Maybe the race has already been lost, but they said they’d never let themselves admit it as long as there’s more work to do before Election Day.
In his final rallying cry, Ryan explained that the upset he’s counting on will come from “ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
No matter that Ohio went for Trump by roughly 8 points in both 2016 and 2020.
For Ryan, if enough people from places like Medina show up and vote when they otherwise wouldn’t have, the math will eventually add up in his favor.
“So watch out, because we’re ordinary people who are about to do something extraordinary,” Ryan told the crowd just before sunset. “We’re gonna win Ohio.”
