Republicans’ main task at this point is to play defense, and no race illustrates that better than Husted, who got that job a little more than a year ago, taking over for Vance.
Husted, a fixture of Ohio politics dating back to his first campaign in 2000, is known in Ohio—as well as anyone who served in the state legislature, state Secretary of State, or Lieutenant Governor can be, that is. Most polls show him with the advantage, but it’s a darned narrow one.
Husted’s may be a veteran of the campaign trail, but he’s making the mistakes of a rookie, serving a string of comments ready-made for attack ads, like saying the solution to high prices is to “earn more” and claiming Ohioans’ “work ethic is broken” and that they are “not very experienced at navigating the real world.”
Then he had to take the stand last month in a public corruption case that accused former energy executives of bribing a utility regulator in the state that resulted in passed-on energy costs to households. That Husted attended a dinner where the execs lobbied state officials made for bad headlines but, to be clear, Husted had not been accused of any wrongdoing. The trial ended last month with a hung jury.
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