Sen. Rob Portman, a well-respected two-term Republican senator from Ohio, announced Monday that he will retire when his term ends in 2022 and will not run for reelection, explaining that it is becoming increasingly difficult to “break through the partisan gridlock” in Congress and opening up a major battleground state in what will be a hotly contested midterm election for Senate control.
Ohio is currently one of just six states with one Republican and one Democratic senator in Congress. Ohio’s two senators could not be more different: Sherrod Brown, Ohio’s Democratic senator, is one of the most liberal senators who supports expanded health care access, strict gun control, pro-immigration, pro-abortion rights, pro-gay marriage, and was a strong opponent of President Trump’s tax bill in 2017. Portman, on the other hand, is a fairly conservative senator who is a budget hawk, anti-abortion, pro-gun rights, and is against large government spending.
Despite the huge difference in political ideology between Ohio’s senators, both are extremely popular: Brown won his last election in 2018 by seven points (even though Donald Trump carried the state twice by eight points in both 2016 and 2020), while Portman won by an astounding 21 percentage points in his last election in 2016, even managing to win the Democratic-leaning counties containing Cincinnati, Akron, and Dayton. It isn’t difficult to see that both senators are well-liked by Ohioans.
Before Portman announced his plan to retire at the end of his term, this seat was considered solid for the Republicans in the first analysis of the 2022 Senate elections. Considering the amount he was able to win by previously, it just seemed improbable that a Democratic challenger would be able to beat him. In addition, the state has also been getting redder on the presidential level.
In Portman’s retirement statement, he said that gridlock in Congress is getting worse, and that there are “too few people who are actively looking to find common ground.” He said that the partisan gridlock, as well as the difficulty in making progress on substantive policy, were the main reasons in choosing to leave Congress at the end of his term. He also announced that he would be working with the Biden administration to try and help Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal gain bipartisan support.
The fact that Portman is now retiring is an opportunity for Democrats to win an open seat in this battleground. Portman’s announcement came as a shock to the GOP establishment—what was considered a safe seat will now be very competitive. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, has announced interest in running for this Senate race, and since Portman’s announcement, Ryan has already begun fundraising to run in the race. Ever since he won by a smaller-than-expected margin in his industrial district in northeastern Ohio last fall, he has been eying up a statewide bid.
On the Republican side, the person to watch will be Rep. Jim Jordan. He was a staunch supporter of Trump when he was in office and is likely to have a substantial appeal to Republicans in a primary. If Jordan chooses to run and wins the GOP nomination, it could give Democrats an even bigger opportunity. Even though Ohio is no longer as competitive as it once was, Brown has proven, in 2018, that Democrats can and still win statewide in Ohio. If the Republicans nominate a far-right candidate, the Democrat can position himself as the centrist, which will make them appealing to moderates, independents, and obviously Democrats. This is almost certainly a path the Democrats will take if Jordan runs, since he is one of the most pro-Trump Republicans in the House.
Another headache for the Republicans comes in Arizona. With the Democrats recently sweeping into office in many statewide races and the margins for Republicans dwindling in the state, the GOP must win back Arizona should they want to regain the Senate majority in two years. However, the Arizona GOP has staunchly supported Trump and is tearing itself apart in this increasingly purple state, and aside from Gov. Doug Ducey, the state’s popular Republican governor, there are not too many other significant Republicans statewide.
As Ducey announced that he will not be running for the U.S. Senate in two years’ time, that leaves the GOP without any good, not-too-extreme candidates to run in 2022. In fact, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s decisive win last fall is likely to leave him as the favorite to win in two years’ time, especially if the statewide GOP nominates a Trump-like candidate.
The 2022 Senate map, one that already had Democrats slightly favored, is now even worse news for the Republicans. They will now have to defend Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and even possibly Iowa, while the Democrats will only need to focus on defending Mark Kelly’s seat in Arizona and Raphael Warnock’s seat in Georgia (and possibly Nevada, though it is a long shot for Republicans, as the state is practically a blue state by now). That’s a lot of seats for the Republicans to defend, and not a lot of possibilities of expanding their seat count in the Senate.
The 2022 midterms are still a long way away, but the journey toward it has already begun.