Ohio Senate race: Tim Ryan faces JD Vance in crucial election

Ohio’s race for a US Senate seat is one of the most important — and expensive — in the nation.

The campaign has come down to a neck-and-neck battle between two candidates with national prominence and a test for the political aptitude of a former president eager to make his mark on the midterm cycle.

A purple state that has in recent years trended increasingly red, the Buckeye State has long been a bellwhether for the presidency, with Republicans taking a win in the Rust Belt as a sign of victory nationally. That ended in 2020, when Donald Trump captured the state for a second time but lost to Joe Biden thanks to defeats in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan, among others.

Here’s why Ohio matters and why this year’s race is taking on increased importance.

Who controls the seat?

Republicans currently hold the seat in the form of Senator Rob Portman, the state’s junior senator. But Mr Portman is not running for reelection, faced with the prospect of battling for Donald Trump’s endorsement while refusing to back his false and conspiratorial claims about his 2020 election defeat. As such, the seat is up for grabs and both parties ran primary elections to select their nominee earlier in the summer.

Mr Portman, the state’s junior senator, splits the Ohio Senate delegation by party due to his service alongside Sherrod Brown, a Democrat and the state’s senior member in the Senate. Mr Brown isn’t up for reelection until 2024.

Who is running?

The two main candidates in the race are Congressman Tim Ryan, a centrist Democratic member of the House, and author JD Vance, writer of the Netflix-adapted Hillbilly Ellegy.

Mr Ryan is a veteran of the US House who has surged to national prominence (or at least some version of it) thanks to a short-lived bid for the presidency in 2020 and an effort to oust Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House. Both failed, but succeeded in establishing Mr Ryan’s reputation as a maverick willing to buck party leadership. His current campaign is centred around that reputation as he has aligned himself with Donald Trump’s position on some issues, including China policy, and stated that he does not support the idea of Joe Biden running for reelection.

Mr Vance is a political newcomer who won the GOP nomination after Donald Trump breathed life into his campaign with an endorsement also heavily sought after by Josh Mandel, his top opponent in the contest. Mr Vance has made clear efforts to align himself with the populist right of the GOP and has campaigned with other Republicans including Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz as he seeks a seat in the Senate.

Why is the seat so important?

The seat’s importance is defined by the slim margin in the US Senate separating the two parties; as of now, Democrats have a 51-vote majority thanks to the tiebreaking votes of Vice President Kamala Harris.

A win by Democrats in Ohio next month would solidify the party’s Senate majority (to some extent) and cut in to the power of conservative members of the party including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who have proven willing to side with Republicans in order to kill parts of Joe Biden’s agenda that they don’t like.

Republicans, meanwhile, see holding the seat as crucial to having any chance of taking the upper chamber this cycle; a loss here would mean that the party would have to oust two Democratic incumbents just to take a majority.

Who is going to win?

Right now, the race is statistically tied. Mr Vance holds a slim lead, according to a FiveThirtyEight average of polls that puts Mr Vance at a 0.2-point lead over the congressman.

It’s not a comforting sign for Republicans given that it puts Mr Ryan well within striking distance of his opponent in a state that Republicans were hoping would be an easy seat to defend this year.

The two candidates met for their final debate on Monday evening; the race now heads into its final weeks.

Perhaps the strongest sign about how the race is headed can be found in the actions of Democrats in Washington, who have made comparatively small investments in the race even as Mr Ryan looks positioned for a clear shot at victory. Mr Ryan has vocally complained that his party’s elitist, coastal leadership remains uncomfortable with backing working-class candidates (or those who centre their campaigns around such voters).

One Ohio-based Democratic strategist summed up the race and the failure of her party to aid Mr Ryan in an interview with NBC News: “If we lose this race by a few points, and the Senate majority, blame should squarely fall on the DC forces who unfairly wrote off Ohio.”