Conservative voters have a rare opportunity to indirectly make a great headway in rolling back “Business as Usual” in Washington, DC, this year. Lack-luster Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is facing the first real primary challenge that he’s faced since becoming Speaker. He’s even running television commercials. But what makes this such an opportunity is that challengers tend to do much better in off-year elections, and in every respect, this is an off-year election.
Consider these factors:
- There is no presidential election this year.
- Neither of Ohio’s U.S. senators are up for election this year.
- Ohio’s Republican Governor and Lieutenant Governor are running un-opposed in the primary.
There is no major race this year that will serve to get large numbers of Ohio District 8 voters to the polls. So fewer voters will be able to affect a larger percentage swing, than in most other election years.
But the Ohio District 8 congressional race is more than just another local race. It’s a race that may well determine the fate of the GOP. That’s because the defeat of a Speaker, who has completely abandoned his party’s principles, will reverberate through the halls of Congress and RINOs from every state will realize that they are now vulnerable to the same fate.
Never before has a sitting Speaker of the House been defeated in a primary election. But this year, John Boehner faces a political perfect storm. He’s facing well funded TEA Party challenger, in an off-year primary, at a time when his approval rating is at rock bottom. Certainly, conservative candidate J.D. Winteregg can’t match Boehner’s million dollar war chest. But more than $300,000 has already been spent to promote Winteregg’s campaign, including a great television commercial, that has garnered national attention and given Winteregg the name recognition that he needed.
Traditional Republican voters have watched for eight years, as the GOP has become “Democrat-Lite,” under the weak and incapable excuse for leadership provided by John Boehner. In fact, a recent Human Events/Gravis poll of more than 1000 GOP primary voters showed that half of those voters would welcome a primary challenge to John Boehner, while only 28% would not. Add this discontent with Boehner to the fact that it’s a rare off-year primary and it all adds up to the fact that Boehner is primed for defeat.
But it’s not in the bag. There are two other Republican candidates in the race and Ohio’s primary is a “simple majority” primary. That means that in a 4-way race, it would be entirely possible for Boehner, as the only RINO in the race, to win with as little as 25% plus 1 vote, if conservatives were to split evenly. Then remember that 28% of District 8 primary voters were opposed to any challenger to Boehner. If it were truly a 4-way race, then Boehner would be the one who would have it in the bag.
But in reality, one of those three other candidates, Matthew Ashworth, is completely insignificant in this race, having no funding or organized support to speak of. He will be fortunate if his vote total gets out of double digits. So this makes it effectively a 3-way race. That means that Boehner could win the primary with as little as 33% plus 1 vote. Though not in the bag, reaching that low threshold would be easy for Boehner.
But let’s look at Boehner’s third challenger, Eric Gurr. He is only barely less insignificant than Ashworth, having raised less than $50,000 in a race where the leaders are spending in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, Gurr is so insignificant that Project VoteSmart doesn’t even have a basic info page for him on their website.
Update May 1, 2014: Matthew Ashworth has withdrawn from the race.
Let’s remember that the most important issue here is not getting a particular candidate elected. It’s all about ousting an entrenched RINO. Job Number One is defeating Boehner. If a candidate can’t do that, then his positions on all other issues in the race fade to insignificance. We’re not supporting Winteregg because he is better than Gurr or Ashworth. Any one of the three challengers to Boehner would be quite acceptable. We’re supporting Winteregg because he’s the only candidate who can accomplish Job Number One. He’s the only TEA Party candidate who can WIN.
Let’s do some math.
28% of District 8 GOP primary voters didn’t want to see a primary challenge to Boehner. It’s a safe bet that almost all of those people are RINOs, upon whose votes Boehner can depend. That would put him more than half way to a solid majority; not just a simple majority.
50% of District 8 GOP primary voters look forward to a primary challenger to Boehner. It’s a safe bet that most of those votes will likely go to one of the two TEA Party candidates.
22% of District 8 GOP primary voters were undecided as to whether they wanted to see Boehner face a primary challenger. These are the votes that would be critical in either a 2-way or 3-way race.
But Gurr is being out-spent by Winteregg 6 to 1 and accordingly, Gurr has almost no name-recognition to speak of. So even in his wildest dreams, Gurr can’t even hope to tie Winteregg for the votes of the 50% who wanted to see a Boehner challenger and he would fare even worse, with the 22% who were undecided on that question. Even in a 2-way race, Gurr would have no chance, because he would be an unknown, with almost no finances or name-recognition of significance, facing a sitting Speaker of the House. It’s just not possible.
By contrast, J.D. Winteregg, who like Gurr, began this campaign as a political unknown, has managed to gain lots of attention; even appearing on national news programs. While he hasn’t got Boehner’s name recognition, Winteregg has become quite well known within Ohio’s 8th District. Furthermore, one of the most innovative and effective political ads ever, is his “Boehner has elictile disfunction” ad. It has people all over the nation talking about him. If nothing else, it has gained him tremendous name recognition.
Disenfranchised District 8 voters now know who Winteregg is and what he stands for. There is no doubt that in a 3-way race, Winteregg would fair quite well and might possibly win. However, as long as Gurr remains in the race, to siphon off conservative votes, it’s really unlikely that any conservative candidate would be able to unseat Boehner.
But in a 2-way race, Winteregg has a solid chance of defeating Boehner. That’s because, in such a scenario, Boehner would need roughly 50% of the vote to secure a win, rather than a simple majority. Then consider that 50% of GOP voters in the district wanted a primary challenger for Boehner. Suddenly, the race gets very tight. Sure, District 8 voters might not vote for a complete unknown. But Winteregg is no longer an unknown. He could very well snag most of the votes of those wanting to see a challenger to Boehner, along with a large part of the 22%, who were undecided about a Boehner challenger.
J.D. Winteregg can win!
Update May 2, 2014: I spoke at length with Eric Gurr today and in follow-up research I confirmed that it is typical that about 35% to 40% of Ohio District 8 voters take advantage of early voting. This means that if this election is not an exception, it may well be too late to to unseat Boehner. If Boehner managed to get roughly 45% to 55% of early voting, as was expected, and the challengers split the rest, then it becomes increasingly difficult for either Winteregg or Gurr to make up the difference and get more overall votes than Boehner. It’s not a done deal. But it doesn’t look good for ousting Boehner.
Winteregg can defeat Boehner. By contrast, Gurr can’t possibly win. Furthermore, Gurr certainly knows that his continued presence in this race can serve no good cause for conservatives, since he can only bleed off critical conservative votes, in this simple majority primary, where every vote will count.
So the question becomes, “Is Gurr a conservative patriot, who will withdraw from the race and throw his support to Winteregg, for the good of the party and the nation, or is he more concerned with his own ego, than helping to secure a win that will change the face of the GOP for the next decade?” Of course, there is one other possibility, though I hesitate to mention it. If Gurr doesn’t bow out, it might possibly be because he’s a Boehner supporter in drag, whose whole purpose in running, is to split the conservative vote. But I’ll leave it to Ohio District 8 GOP voters to determine if that’s the case.
This race is about more than the ideology of individual challengers to Boehner. It’s about transforming the whole of the GOP, with just one primary election race. Both of Boehner’s challengers are imminently acceptable conservatives. But conservative voters in Ohio can’t afford to let partisan “my candidate is more conservative than your candidate” bickering cause conservatives to lose this opportunity to oust Boehner. This is about changing the face of the GOP and sending a strong message to all RINOs across the nation, who survive this election season.
Sure, it would be better to replace every one of those RINOs. But we all know that’s not going to happen in just one election cycle. But defeating a sitting Speaker, in the primary, would change the way those RINOs vote, till such time as we can replace them. In other words, they would do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. And, who knows? Some of them might even have an epiphany and become strong advocates for conservatism.
The point is that a win by either Winteregg or Gurr would send that powerful message to RINOs. However, although they’re both good conservatives, the numbers demonstrate, all too clearly, that only Winteregg has any chance of making that win happen.
With just over a week till the Ohio Primary, it’s time for Gurr to demonstrate that he’s in this for the good of the party and the nation and not just for himself. He can do this by not only withdrawing from the Ohio District 8 congressional race, but by doing so in a highly publicized manner, with J.D. Winteregg present and publicly throwing his support to J.D. Winteregg. With a week to get that message out to voters, conservatives could pull out the biggest win of 2014, by unseating John Boehner, and in doing so, give the TEA Party effective control of all congressional RINOs.
The Republican voters of Ohio’s 8th District have a huge responsibility. This is the single most important race of 2014 and only they get to choose, for the entire nation. The rest of the GOP is depending on those few voters in Ohio. District 8 GOP voters may well be remembered, for years to come, as the patriots who single-handedly saved the whole GOP and toppled the RINO dynasty within the party. But if they fail to oust Boehner, they’ll more likely become famous – or infamous – for being the district that failed the GOP, when they were needed most. Ohio District 8 voters can breathe new conservative life into the GOP or let the GOP continue to devolve into Democrat Lite, under the insipid leadership of the 8th District’s, John Boehner. It’s all on their shoulders and the rest of us can only watch with anticipation, to see if they do the right thing or give Boehner a mandate to continue his Democrat-Lite agenda.
The Ohio primary will take place in just over a week, on Tuesday, May 6. If you live in Ohio’s District 8, we urge you to vote for J.D. Winteregg. If you live outside the district, but know someone in that district, we urge you to contact them and make sure that they understand the importance of defeating John Boehner in the primary and why J.D. Winteregg is the only person who can do that.
To learn more about J.D. Winteregg, visit: jdwinteregg.com
