(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

It's time to get an update on what's going on down in Columbus at the State House and also what's going on in Washington DC and how those two are interacting and basically working with each other and against each other.

Joining us are the host of "The State of Ohio," Karen Kasler, and from the Bowling Green State University Department of Political Science, Dr.

Nicole Kalaf-Hughes and Dr.

David Jackson.

Welcome all of you to "The Journal."

Thank you for being here.

Karen, let's start with you.

The big question that has dominated Ohio politics for the last seven or eight months, what will Tim Ryan do?

So what is Tim Ryan going to do or not going to do?

Let's get that one outta the way and then we'll move on.

- Well, he started the last weekend by announcing on Friday morning that he would not be running for governor.

And this ends months of speculation.

I think a lot of people had written him out of the race because it had been so long.

And other candidates who had wanted to get into races where there would be a contested primary had entered by a point before this in other years.

And so if he had gotten into the race, it would've been a contested primary with Dr.

Amy Acton, who's been running for the Democratic nomination for governor since the beginning of the year.

And so he said that after lots of consideration, talking to family and friends and that sort of thing, he decided not to run.

I mean, there were all sorts of things that were being talked about that he had talked to, campaign people that he wanted to hire, and he had reached out for support and all this.

But in the end, apparently it was not enough.

I think he looked at the election results from earlier this month and thought maybe there's a chance, but then eventually decided there wasn't.

- Yeah, and David, I know we were talking about this too, that the BG poll that the university does, that you guys do, talked about the fact that he appeared to be possibly successful at the statewide level, or at least close to that, but maybe wouldn't have gotten out of the Democratic primary if there had been a primary.

So speak to that just a little, if you would too, that he looked good maybe at the general election to some degree, but maybe wouldn't pass muster with Democratic voters in a primary.

- Well, sure, yeah, there's a lot of things going on with this whole Ryan situation.

One of the aspects of it is it tells us something about the condition of the Democratic Party in the state of Ohio, in that the speculation about one person's decision is so central to the future of the party, because once you get past Tim Ryan, and once you get past Sherrod Brown, who's the next name on the bench, who's the next person to think about?

You know, we compare Michigan and Ohio a lot, and there's a lot of people up there with a pretty serious chance at winning statewide in the Democratic Party, the bench is deep.

The bench in Ohio isn't so deep.

So one of the bigger picture questions of just the whole speculation around this one, you know, potential candidate is interesting.

Yeah, the data from the BGSU public policy survey tells us a couple things.

Number one, Democrats that we surveyed weren't clamoring for Tim Ryan.

Amy Acton was significantly ahead of him among the Democrats sampled for the primary side.

So certainly it would've been a contested primary that would've involved probably a lot of, you know, bad feelings after it was over with, would've cost a lot of money, you know, could have been more destructive of the Democratic brand in the state of Ohio, though it's hard to imagine, the Democratic brand in the state of Ohio getting into a much worse position.

Interestingly, in a head-to-head matchup, both Acton and Ryan are competitive within the margin of error, versus the presumptive Republican nominee.

And so either one, it seems had a chance at this point, extremely early, a long way away, almost a year away from the election, which, you know, a month is a lifetime in politics, so 11 months is even more.

But he wasn't as popular among the Democratic party, likely primary voters that we sampled.

So I mean, he took a look at it as you know, Karen said, you know, talked to family, friends, supporters, backers, and made the business decision, as some people describe it, not to go for it this time.

- Yeah, and Nicole, I have a question, and I know we didn't talk about this a lot, but is it unusual that we have in essence with now Tim Ryan out of the race, that for both the presumptive nominees on the Democratic and Republican side, these are people that have never held elective office before.

Is that something that is becoming more typical or is that still an atypical situation where you have basically people who've never run for elective office now want to be governor of a state?

- I think it's very typical for the current time that we are in.

We've seen this before in other states.

We've had a number of like celebrity governors who come to politics from like, a successful movie career.

And we've seen that over time in a variety of states across the US.

I think right now we're seeing more people who may not have a ton of elected experience showing an interest because we've had, like for example, the current administration, the president did not have any elected experience prior to winning in 2016.

So I think you have a little bit of that going on.

The other thing that you have going on is that if you don't have elected experience, you haven't served in prior office, you don't have a track record.

And so essentially, you can make all these claims, you can make all these promises and it becomes harder for people to criticize a political record if you just don't have one.

Now, you may not have one and you may not know what you don't know, which can be problematic as well when it comes time to actually get things done, but if you don't have a political record, you don't have a history of votes that actually for some candidates, it may make it a little easier.

Amy Acton has served in an administration, right?

She was appointed to a position by Governor DeWine.

So she has experience with state government, but she doesn't have the elected history that we've historically seen in Ohio and that we have with Governor DeWine, right?

He served literally in every single level of government.

I think the only job he has not done is president or vice president of the US.

So you go from someone who has done literally everything to right now what it's looking like the two major party candidates not having that elected experience.

- Yeah, now, when we come back, because were right at the end of the segment, assuming that those two folks are going to be, and you guys can think about this during the break, who's lining up to be the Lieutenant Governor attached to each of these people?

Because obviously there's bound to be some competition for that because that can be seen as a stepping stone in some cases to being governor, but then also the most recent Lieutenant Governor is now a US senator.

So there's gotta be some active stuff, activity behind the scenes on that as well.

So maybe we can talk just a little about that when we come back.

Back in just a moment with Karen Kasler, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, and David Jackson here on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Karen Kasler, the host of "The State of Ohio," and from Bowling Green State University's Department of Political Science, Dr.

Nicole Kalaf-Hughes and Dr.

David Jackson.

Karen, we left that last segment, we talked about obviously the peers, we have two presumptive candidates, but as David said, there's a long way to go before we get to next November.

What about the Lieutenant Governor, the second slot on there?

Because that's been known as a big stepping stone to bigger and better things.

So, and I know we probably don't have any names that are popping up, but what would it look like, the profile potentially for maybe what each of those candidates might go for?

- Well, I have reached out to try to find out when the candidates might announce, and so far nobody's saying when they might announce.

I think it's one of those things where nobody necessarily votes for the Lieutenant Governor, But it can be somebody who can strengthen the ticket and certainly give you an idea of the importance of certain issues to the headlining candidate.

So I think the Lieutenant Governor is an important position, and as you said before the break, you know, Lieutenant Governor can go on to do other things.

Our former Lieutenant Governor John Huston is now in the US Senate.

So, you know, it can be a big position.

I think that it's very likely that one or both tickets are going to pick a white Christian male because you've got a woman on the Democratic side, you've got a non-Christian male on the other, on the Republican side.

And so I think that that's probably something that I think both parties are looking at.

- Yeah, now, Nicole, that should that be the case, let's say it's trying to find balance, whether it's, you know, racially, ethnically, gender wise, whatever it is, what kind of positives and what kind of negatives does that bring when you make that selection?

- Well, there is a concept in political science that looks at how people feel about other people, both other people like in their groups and they're elected officials.

And it comes down to this idea of resentment.

And resentment is the idea that someone or a group is taking something that they haven't earned.

And what we know is that in studies of women in elected office and people who are not white in elected office is often gender and racial resentment come into play.

And so my guess is that the candidates so far that seem to be essentially setting themselves up to be the candidates for both of the major parties in Ohio are going to look for someone who's going to balance that out.

Because that's what voters are going to want to see, particularly among Democrats who feel kind of cross pressured and which means that they may have resentful views that don't line up with what their party is telling them that they should support.

Or you may see this among Republicans with the Republican nominee and essentially who the major players in the Republican party have endorsed.

You are going to want to find someone who can balance out those cross pressures so that voters can hopefully for both parties kind of get behind their ticket.

And that I think is going to be something that is challenging.

There are very few elections in the US particularly at this level for statewide office that are between a woman and a essentially non-white, non-Christian male.

There are very, very few of those.

And so if that is indeed the election that plays out in Ohio, it's gonna be unique kind of in that way.

But we have a lot of information about how voters behave.

And so I think both campaigns are going to look for someone that voters can support that balances out the ticket and helps kind of overcome some of that resentful voter behavior.

- Yeah, and David, you know, when you guys, when you do the BG poll, you're obviously looking at a lot of different areas, how does this play out into what you've seen the way voters have responded or people who have taken part in that poll?

- [David] Well, I mean, one of the things that I think is gonna be interesting about this election is it's going to be looked at by some from the perspective of the candidates who didn't run.

So we already began with Tim Ryan, and then of course on the Republican side was the idea of Jim Tressel being, you know, a potential candidate, and neither of the white male moderates or measured candidates chose to run.

And so, Ohio, not a state who's necessarily always on the cutting edge of politics in terms of the backgrounds of the candidates who rise to the top in our state is in a situation as we've been discussing, where a woman and a non-white male are likely to be the nominees of the two major parties.

Now, does this signal that it's a new day in Ohio politics where it's not going to be as dominated by white males?

Certainly that then I think leads to the potential for resentment that Professor Kalaf-Hughes mentioned.

And we see it anecdotally every time on social media where comments are available, people saying for want of a better term, the most ghastly things possible about these candidates, particularly Ramaswamy that I've seen.

And these people who are posting these comments are probably voters that the candidates are going to need.

And it's not again, you know, systematic data, but it certainly indicates that these are voters who are not just, you know, saying, okay, you know, "If I have to, I'll vote for this guy."

There's a lot of voters saying they will never vote for this guy.

And it's pretty interesting.

- I gotta add in too that Ramaswamy has already gotten the endorsement of the head of the influential lobbying group, the Center for Christian Virtue, not the group itself, but the person who heads up the group.

And that's interesting because again, Ramaswamy is Hindu, but this group leader has said he believes that he's got the right policies here, so there's that.

And then on the other side, Amy Acton, she's Jewish and there was a lot of antisemitic backlash against her during COVID.

So that does play a role here, I think, in what we've been talking about.

- Yeah, yeah, and Nicole Kalaf-Hughes real quickly, because we've got just a moment here, would this be, again, a situation, it could be that I'll hold my nose and vote for this candidate because I just dislike the other partys candidate so much?

Is that a possibility that that would play into this as well?

- I think it's definitely a possibility.

I think a lot of it is going to depend on the campaign.

I think it's gonna depend also on what else is on the ballot, because some of it is going to be like, you may dislike the other candidates so much you're willing to vote for someone you don't support.

Sometimes people are just gonna stay home.

So I think a lot of it really is going to depend on kind of what this campaign looks like as we get closer.

Based on kind of what we've seen from some of these online comments and some of these public events even, like the actual in-person response is pretty awful.

And so if that kind of thing continues during the campaign, it's not great for either candidate, it's not great for the state of Ohio.

So I think it'll be interesting.

There are very, very few elections at this level in the US that are between members of two, what are considered outgroups.

And so I think that it's gonna be really interesting to see how it shakes out.

- Okay, well, when we come back, we'll talk about a couple of other things, but it does appear this could be great fodder for political science research then coming downstream, I'm guessing.

So, okay, back in just a moment here on "The Journal" with Karen Kasler, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes and David Jackson here on "The Journal," back in a moment.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Karen Kasler, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, and David Jackson.

Karen, a lot going on the General Assembly in a lot of areas.

Some time ago, Ohioans passed marijuana laws, which they thought sort of settled that issue and put things in place.

The General Assembly has been tinkering with that in a lot of different ways.

So talk maybe in general about some of the things that are being floated and not floated and what they may or may not mean, or if some of them will ever see the light of day from one house of the legislature to the other.

- Well, ever since voters approved legalization of marijuana in 2023, state lawmakers have talked about changing that because it was a law that voters approved, not a constitutional amendment.

And so that gave lawmakers the opportunity to change some things around.

And some of the biggest things that they were concerned about were where the marijuana revenue would go, and also some of the specifics about how many plants people could grow in their own homes and that sort of thing.

And so for two years now, there's been this effort to try to pass something that changes that law a little bit.

And you've got Governor Mike DeWine who said, "Okay, while you're doing that, you should also put some regulations on what's called intoxicating hemp, how these Delta-8 THC products that are not covered by marijuana regulations, they are not considered part of that.

And so they're sold at gas stations and convenience stores and all that kind of stuff.

Now at the federal level, that stuff was banned and an order that was part of the decision and the deal to end the federal government shutdown.

And so I think that kind of forced lawmakers hands here to try to figure out exactly what they wanted to do on their own bill that they had been working on.

And so they've basically mirrored the federal ban on these products, and they can't be sold in gas stations and convenience stores.

They have to be sold in marijuana dispensaries, these intoxicating hemp products.

There's a longer runway when it comes to beverages, which have become very popular.

And so they're giving them a little bit more time before there would be a ban on those.

But all of this comes down to, it was a very last minute kind of thing that at the end of a session that was designed to get lawmakers done so they could get out of town and go home for Thanksgiving, this happened at like one o'clock in the morning.

This deal had been on and then off and then on again.

And Democrats all voted against it, Republicans were kind of split on it.

It was a really close vote in the House, and now it has to go to the Senate.

And then of course DeWine has to sign it.

But it's the first action we've really seen in this area since voters approved this law back in 2023.

- Yeah, yeah, and Nicole, one of the other things that was kicking ground on there, and it has sort of been in place, Ohio is putting in place what they call or is talking about putting in place what they call the success sequence, which would kind of put itself into the public schools and to track people success-wise or do certain things.

So talk a little about what the success sequence is and may be as it as it makes its way through the legislature.

- So what the success sequence legislation would do, so this is actually part of model legislation that was written by the Heritage Foundation.

And a lot of states are kind of looking at implementing various parts of this because what happens with model legislation is it's written by lobbyists or an interest group and then shopped around the states for state legislators to then introduce, having to do very little work on actually writing the legislation.

And so it's coming from Heritage, so it's a very conservative piece of legislation.

And what it would do is Ohio sixth through 12th grade students would be essentially taught that they should graduate high school, get a job, and get married in that specific order prior to starting a family.

Now we know broadly that if you graduate high school, you're going to have a higher income than if you don't.

But this type of legislation doesn't really reflect everyone's family experience.

And so there's a lot of concerns that this type of teaching in schools is really just out of step with what people see kind of on the day-to-day basis.

Additionally, there is concern that if you pair this type of legislation with abstinence only education in schools, you're missing essentially a key factor in telling people how to actually accomplish this and how to essentially not get pregnant.

And so if you want people to wait to start families, there has to be an education component that tells people how to wait to start families.

And right now, a lot of this legislation is talking past each other.

And so this model legislation comes from Heritage.

There's the Baby Olivia video that would essentially show an AI generated developing fetus that is not scientifically accurate, the dates are wrong, you know, the video is wrong, are really being kind of worked on by the legislature to put into schools, with that one, it would start as young as fifth grade.

But there's a lot of this stuff is kind of talking past each other without getting at some of the issues that are necessary for kids to succeed.

- Yeah, and David, the other thing that has kind of surprised people, or maybe not because we don't know what the machinations were behind the scenes, but Ohio does have districts ready for the 2026 congressional election.

So talk a little about that process because the assumption was it would probably end up with the general assembly, that there would be a stalling process, a lack of an agreement with the committee charged with doing that.

But it didn't end up that way.

We have new maps and the general assembly didn't have to take a vote on it.

- Well, we've had race and sex and gender, so why not talk gerrymandering too?

Hit all the controversies in Ohio.

So yeah, I mean, it's a technically bipartisan map, so I believe that means they're in place until I think 2031, which up here in northwest Ohio means that the 9th Congressional District, which has been represented by Democrat Marcy Kaptur since she won the election in 1982, has held office since 1983, has become more Republican.

She barely won the election in 2024 in a district that Trump carried quite comfortably.

And that came down to a small number of votes, and the libertarian candidate ended up potentially mattering.

So the district, in terms of the way it's been shifted around, has become more Republican, which certainly makes it more attractive for more candidates on the Republican side to get into the primary.

And so, we can definitely expect that to be an extremely hotly contested primary on the Republican side.

And you know, probably in the future, this district will, you know, trend Republican more than it does right now.

And I'm not just speaking in terms of the math, the math can remain the same, but having an incumbent like Kaptur is an advantage the Democrats have only as long as they have Marcy Kaptur in that position.

And when that seat, you know, hypothetically if she wins in '26, at some point it's going to become an open seat, and at that point will probably even be a better opportunity for a Republican to take and and hold that seat.

- Yeah, because there probably isn't anybody with her name recognition or that kind of momentum that she has garnered over all those years that could step in as a new candidate and replicate what she has done.

Be a lot more difficult, as you said.

- Yeah, name recognition, community roots, the longest serving woman in the history of the US Congress.

I was at an event once where it wasn't a political event, it was a sort of Hall of Fame dinner for the Polish American community in Toledo, and so there were Republicans in the room and Democrats in the room.

And when Representative Kaptur showed up, people I knew to be Democrats and people I knew to be Republicans all said, "Yeah, Marcy's here, that's right, Marcy is here."

And you can't buy that.

- Yeah, yeah, that kind of impact, that kind of resonance with people, yeah, good, good.

Great, well, we're gonna have to leave it there for this edition of our update on state and national governmental activities.

Thank you, thank you to Karen Kasler, David Jackson, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and of course you can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU PBS.

We will see you again next time, goodnight and good luck.

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