OH-01: Kate Schroder Took A Chance On 2020 - And It May Pay Off

[RandySF]

If Democrat Kate Schroder – a first time candidate for anything – pulls off an upset win over Republican incumbent Steve Chabot in Ohio's 1st Congressional District in November, there will be some better-known Democratic politicians in Cincinnati who are going to be deeply depressed.

Those are the party regulars who took a pass this year on challenging Chabot, who has been running for one office or another since the late Pleistocene Era.

They had it all worked out in their heads, and it sounded like a good plan at the time. Give Chabot another term in a district made up by part of Hamilton County and all of the fire-engine red Warren County and wait until 2022.

By then, the thinking goes, the Ohio General Assembly, working under new rules for congressional redistricting, will almost certainly turn the now reliably blue Hamilton County into an undivided congressional district of its own.

In that kind of district, Chabot – who has now spent 24 years in the U.S. House – might not run at all, knowing as he does, that his chances would be slim to none, and slim's left town.

Schroder, though, was willing to roll the dice on the 1st District; on the assumption that she could run a better campaign than her fellow Democrat, Aftab Pureval, did two years ago, when his campaign fell into every bear trap the Chabot campaign laid for him.

Well, Schroder, a public health professional (not a bad thing for a candidate to be these days), is running a better campaign; and an increasing number of pundits and political professionals believe that she can, indeed, take down Chabot, if all the stars fall into line in November.
The latest on board is The Cook Political Report, a well-known and closely watched independent newsletter headed by long-time political analyst Charlie Cook.

This week, David Wasserman, an editor at The Cook Political Report, published a piece on four Democratic congressional candidates who he believes has a shot at knocking off an incumbent.

The Democrat from Clifton, Wasserman wrote, "poses a serious threat to the incumbent."

"Schroder's health care background could play well in a pandemic,'' Wasserman believes.



https://www.wvxu.org/post/commentary-kate-schroder-took-chance-2020-and-it-may-pay#stream/0

[Hortensis]

1. She sounds competent, and very good luck to her and the voters.

I don't admire the author's using her success for a dishonest hit job on the party. Schroder's not "rolling dice." Running for office is how she gets her name out to the voters, and running a good campaign will be a win for her no matter what.

Reminds me that Bernie Sanders ran for local, state and national offices for a decade before being elected mayor of Burlington in 1980. Different era, different political climate. As he served in his first electoral position, he also continued his runs for various state and national offices, including governor and president, for another decade until being elected to the national congress in 1990. He ran for the national senate 3 times between 1972 and 2006, when he achieved that goal.

Go, Schroder!