Steve Stivers' Path To Victory In OH 15

This week: Ohio’s 15th District, where former state Sen. Steve Stivers (R) is facing Rep.Mary Jo Kilroy (D) in a rematch of one of the most expensive and nastiest races of the ’08 cycle.

The 15th CD is the consummate swing district in the consummate swing state. In ’08, Kilroy won by just 2,312 votes in ’08 in what many considered the cycle’s marquee House race. The DCCC spent $2.1M on the race, double what the NRCC doled out.

Come Election Day, OH 15 will answer one of the big questions floating out there this cycle: Will first time voters who backed Pres. Obama — like students at Ohio State — return to the polls and back Dem incumbents?

When we can, we’ll start with the challenger in this feature. Stay tuned tomorrow for a look at how Kilroy can stave off a GOP wave and win re-election.

Without further ado, here is how Stivers plans to win this year.

A Political Animal: When Stivers met with the NRCC and electoral prognosticators at the beginning of the ’08 cycle, he whipped out a map of the district and started lecturing on where he would pull out his votes. Down to the precinct level, Stivers knew where ex-Rep. Deborah Pryce (R) underperformed in ’06 when she only narrowly beat Kilroy by about 1K votes.

To those that know him, Stivers’ strongest attribute is he’s a political junkie. He has analyzed and re-analyzed the ’08 and knows that if he can make just small gains in certain areas, he’ll win.

That tenacity has carried over to his fundraising. Stivers is one of best fundraisers among GOP challengers and he has consistently outraised Kilroy – he’s one GOP challenger who won’t be at a significant financial disavantage. Currently, he has $1.2M in the bank to Kilroy’s $900K.

A Top National Priority: Stivers’ fundraising will be bolstered by the NRCC, which has already reserved air time in the district. OH 15 is a top priority for the NRCC for a few reasons. First, Republicans want to avenge the ’08 loss and return the seat to GOP hands — where it was for 40 years before Kilroy won it. National Republicans say there is no question the environment has shifted away from Obama — who carried the district by a 9-point margin — and Dems. Internal Republican polling, both in DC and in OH, Republican sources say, show Stivers holding a commanding lead.

Second, if this district flips, it will show Dem control of suburban districts – once believed to be their firewall — is beginning to give way. And third, the NRCC anticipates the DCCC having to spend BIG money in the expensive Columbus media market again. That, of course, will hamper the Dems’ ability to spend elsewhere.

A Repeat Performance: Stivers doesn’t need to change his turnout strategy, Republicans insist. Instead, he just needs to replicate and improve a little on what he did in’08.

Stivers will look to three base areas: Upper Arlington, which is just north of Columbus, and Madison and Union Counties. Upper Arlington is where Stivers is from and makes up most of his former state Senate district. In ’08, he won Upper Arlington by about 5K votes, approximately the same margin he carried Madison County. He killed Kilroy in Union County, winning by about 8K votes.

Republicans say that on election night if Stivers has a 5-6K margin in Madison and another 8K margin in Union, it’s game over. To put those numbers in context, those numbers represent Stivers outperforming John McCain’s ’08 numbers by sizable margins. McCain beat Obama by 4K in Madison and 6K in Union.

Republicans are confident that performance will be enough this year because they anticipate a drop off in Kilroy’s base voters in Columbus and Franklin County.

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