Republicans in Ohio are worried about voter turnout for Senator Jon Husted. Only two volunteers showed up at a Cleveland office recently, compared to many in 2024. Ms. Karabanovs said, "This is really a weird cycle." To fix this, campaigners started using a new message focused on the threat of socialism.
To boost Senator Jon Husted, who is in a tight race to keep his seat, some Republicans who were making a jobs pitch have pivoted to focus on socialism.
Just two volunteers showed up on a recent weekday at a Republican Party campaign office near Cleveland that in 2024 was brimming with activity every night.
One of the two, Tanya Karabanovs, 54, sat among stacks of untouched yard signs and brainstormed new ways to convince her neighbors to vote for Republican candidates such as Senator Jon Husted, who was appointed in 2025 to finish the term of Vice President JD Vance. Her most recent idea: stuffing chocolate bars into goodie bags with leftover campaign literature.
"This is really a weird cycle," said Ms. Karabanovs, who recalled at least 30 volunteers packing into the office each day in 2024. "There's no way to feel confident about any of the races, honestly."
Many of the Republican volunteers trying to keep Ohio's Senate seat red started the summer making the case that, despite rising prices, Mr. Husted was better suited to fix the economy than his Democratic challenger, the former senator Sherrod Brown. But when it became clear that the message wasn't landing, they began to pivot.
Some, like Ms. Karabanovs, got creative. The political PAC for Americans for Prosperity, a prominent conservative advocacy group that deploys thousands of door-knockers across the state, switched its script to the threat of socialism -- and organizers quickly noticed a difference.