Or does he? This article tends to put Trump backed Vance’s win in the proper perspective and what it means for Democrats.
“Trump’s endorsement of J.D. Vance in the Ohio Republican primary may have moved the needle enough to allow Vance to win in a five-person race. Some in the mainstream media reported this development as “stunning,” “seismic,” and a “confirmation of Trump’s domination of the GOP.” See, e.g., Newsweek, Donald Trump’s Stunning Ohio Victories Show’ Era Has Ended’ for Republicans. Without disputing Trump’s probable influence on the outcome, we should maintain perspective about what happened—and what did not happen—in the Ohio Republican primary. Before looking at the numbers, let’s skip to the end: Democrats can win in Ohio, notwithstanding J.D. Vance’s victory. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
The starting point is to recognize that turnout in the Ohio primary was pathetic, as is true in almost all primaries. But turnout was abysmal in Ohio on Tuesday, which saw the third lowest primary voter turnout in Ohio since 1986. Only 20% of registered voters could rouse themselves to vote in a year of great challenge to our nation.
In the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Vance won with 31% of the vote (218,053 votes)—which, by definition, means that 69% of the Republicans who bothered to show up did not vote for the Trump-endorsed candidate (or 478,333 votes that did not go to Vance). And note that the anti-Trump candidate garnered 22% of the vote (152,198 votes). That’s not nothing!
In a state with 8.1 million registered voters, we should be mindful of the “law of small numbers” in interpreting Vance’s win with 218,053 votes. (The law of small numbers is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency to draw broad conclusions based on a small dataset.) It would be easy to over-interpret Vance’s win by “scaling-up” his winning margin in the primary to project his performance in the 2022 statewide election for U.S. Senator. That intuitive approach is wrong, at least in Ohio.”
Read the whole piece by Robert P. Hubble here: