OHIO
      Nov. 6, 2012 Senate

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+Sherrod Brown (D) i
 		2,762,766
 		50.70%
Josh Mandel (R)
 		2,435,744
 		44.70%
Scott Rupert (I)
 		250,618
 		4.60%

5,449,128
Registered voters: 7,987,203.  Ballots counted: 5,634,017.
Plurality: 327,022 votes (6.00 percentage points).
 OH Secretary of State



Notes:  Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), won a second term, defeating  Treasurer Josh Mandel (R) by 6.00 percentage points after a sharply fought campaign.  Also on the ballot was truck driver Scott Rupert (I).  At the top of the ticket, Ohio was very much a battleground state, seeing intense activity by the Obama and Romney campaigns (>); Obama won by 2.98 percentage points.

Brown was first elected to the Ohio House in 1974, served as Ohio Secretary of State from 1983-91, and in the U.S. House from Jan. 1993 to Jan. 2007.  

Mandel was elected Treasurer in 2010 after serving two terms in the Ohio House; he served eight years as a Marine, including in Iraq.  He won the Mar. 2, 2012 primary with 63.02% of the vote against five other candidates.

The two major candidates engaged in three debates: 

Oct. 15 - City Club of Cleveland at the Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland (>);

Oct. 18 - sponsored by the Columbus Dispatch's Ohio Newspaper Organization (OHNO) and WBNS 10TV at Nationwide Insurance headquarters in Columbus;

Oct. 25 - at WCET-TV studios in Cincinnati (>).

According to Open Secrets (>), this was the third most expensive Senate race of the cycle, with general election spending by the candidates and outside groups totaling $82.4 million.  The Brown campaign spent $24.6 million and the Mandel campaign $18.9 million, while outside spending totaled $38.9 million.  Ten groups invested $1 million or more in the race: on the Republican side Crossroads GPS ($6.4M), U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($4.4M ), NRSC ($2.6M), Freedomworks for America ($2.3M), Government Integrity Fund ($1.3M), Now or Never PAC $1.2M) and NFIB ($1.1M) and on the Democratic side DSCC ($7.0M), Majority PAC ($3.2M) and the National Education Association ($1M).


Campaign Managers:
Sherrod Brown:  Sarah Benzing
(Feb. 2011)  Campaign manager on Gillibrand for Senate, Aug. 2009-Dec. 2010.  Chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, Jan. 2007-July 2009; campaign manager on Braley for Congress, Feb.-Dec. 2006.  Field director on Tim Kaine for Governor, Mar. 2005-Jan. 2006.  Voter contact director at America Coming Together, Nov. 2003-Nov. 2004.  Canvass director for the Iowa Democratic Party, June 2001-Dec. 2002.  Organizer in Gainesville, FL for AFSCME, Jan.-June 2001.  Regional director in Waterloo for the Iowa Democratic Party, June-Nov. 2000.   Field coordinator for Butler, Bremer, Franklin, Grundy and Hardin counties on Al Gore's 2000 Iowa caucus campaign, then in Olympia, WA, Sept. 1999-Apr. 2000.  Bachelor's degree in political science and government from University of Northern Iowa.

 Josh Mandel:  Ray Yonkura
(Mar. 2012)  On leave of absence from position as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan; started Jan. 2007.  Worked on Jordan's 2006 campaign.  "Worked for several years as a staff member of the Ohio House of Representatives and later served as the director of the campaign committee for the Ohio House Majority Caucus. Ray served as Deputy Auditor in Delaware County, Ohio..." Graduate of Kent State University, 1994.


See also:
Karen Kasler.  "Ohio Senate Race Gets Nasty Amid Flood of Ads And Cash."  NPR, Sept. 20, 2012.

 
  



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