Can This Man Rebuild the Dems’ Blue Wall?
Tim Ryan, a brash, blustery, Democratic congressman from Ohio, is probably running for president. Among his supporters: tens of thousands of Trump voters.
When Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown handily beat mini-Trump Jim Renacci by six points in the 2018 midterm election, he inspired many in the party to rethink their slate of 2020 presidential contenders — a list so crammed with coastal elites that it could qualify as caricature. Even the 66-year-old Brown, the self-styled rumpled populist who’s long demurred from having any ambition for higher office, has said he’s now seriously considering a presidential run.
The shift makes sense. The thought of President Beto may enrapture progressives, but if the midterms are any indication of how the Democrats can win back the White House, the electoral path runs through Rust Belt states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, not through Texas (see Beto) or Florida (where even the Obama-esque Andrew Gillum was unable to prevail), and certainly not through California and New York (sorry, Kamala and Bloomberg).
And if Brown’s capturing 53 percent of a Trump state in 2018 is something to crow about, what about a Democratic congressman who, in 2016, won 68 percent of a Trump…
