House Filings Show Dems Are All Over Ohio Again

[babylonsister]

House Filings Show Dems Are All Over Ohio Again
By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff


The just-passed candidate filing deadline in Ohio simply underscored what already was well-known. The state’s congressional contests include major targets for House Democratic strategists, who in 2006 succeeded in one House takeover bid in Ohio and fell narrowly short in three others.

The end of the filing period late Friday afternoon confirmed that Democrats will wage highly competitive challenges in two districts that Republican incumbents are leaving open to retire — including the Columbus-based constituency where Rep. Deborah Pryce survived her 2006 race by a razor-thin margin — while picking up where they left off in two Cincinnati-area districts where Republican incumbents toughed out close races last time.

Ohio Republicans, playing mostly defense in this year’s slate of House races, are staking their hopes for a comeback on their efforts to unseat freshman Democratic Rep. Zack Space . He won the seat that veteran Republican Bob Ney vacated just before the 2006 election after his conviction on political corruption charges in the scandal involving influence-peddling lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Perhaps nowhere in Ohio are Democrats’ takeover hopes higher than in the Columbus-based 15th, a swing district where President Bush edged Democratic challenger John Kerry by just 1 percentage point in 2004. While Republican incumbent Pryce decided not to seek a ninth House term this year, her Democratic opponent in the close 2006 race is back for a second try. Mary Jo Kilroy — an elected commissioner in Franklin County, which includes Columbus and contains most of the 15th District’s population — is running again after losing to Pryce by fewer than 1,100 votes and half a percentage point.

Unopposed in the Democratic primary, Kilroy will face the winner of the five-candidate Republican primary election on March 4 in which the leading candidate appears to be state Sen. Steve Stivers.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002652647

[Divine Discontent]

1. I am confident Kilroy will win this time

Pryce, a very annoying suck up to B*sh, got in by the skin of her teeth, and the disgust over the re"election" of B*sh only makes people more upset. Kilroy is a well known name to voters there, and I've never heard of Stivers. So, there's one seat. Space won the Newark area, and they will give him a run for his seat there, however, with a strong Democratic candidate running for the office that Ohioans like (COUGH COUGH EDWARDS COUGH COUGH) he will be re-elected.