... Every now and then.

Portman is maintaining a double-digit lead in recent Ohio U.S. Senate polls over Democratic rival Ted Strickland.

I HOPE by his sticking with the CON, his supporters will change their minds.

Like say Inhof or Sessions or other solid red state Senators. Ohio is too much of a swing state to ever be completely safe.

Strickland is a good guy but a weak candidate. His timing is bad, being governor when Ohio hit the wall in 2008. Obviously a national tsunami but still, it's easy to make his numbers look really bad.

With the exception of Sherrod Brown (D-OH)...and this time I got it right !!!... every state wide office is R. Even in the years BHO carried the state, all of the state offices went R.

So, in absence of Portman being directly involved in some kind of scandal equal to Trump's issues tonight...I think he falls into "safe seat" territory. I would love nothing more than to be wrong on this one.

"So, in absence of Portman being directly involved in some kind of scandal equal to Trump's issues tonight...I think he falls into "safe seat" territory"

I don't know, intentionally holding open a Supreme Court seat for over 6 months to allow the possibility of the scandal embroiled Trump to nominate a replacement, damaging the ability of the current President to complete one of his Constitutional duties and causing this session of the Supreme Court to operate at a suboptimal level of judges seems like a scandal to me.

My down ballot strategy:
Hammer him on it by saying "it's not enough to disavow Trump's comments, (if he rescinds endorsement) it's not enough to pull an endorsement. You are currently holding a Supreme Court seat open for a candidate you think is saying reprehensible things about women/now unfit to be endorsed by you to be president. How do you justify that course of action?" Then look for commitment to open Supreme Court hearings. He's pinned in that they're in recess. Even if he goes "You're right, Trump is that bad we should open hearings and you have my commitment to support hearings the first day we're back in session" you then get some movement for confirmation during Obama's term. On top of that, you would then continue to pin him on "why is this the step too far, but Trump's talk on Muslims and Mexicans and mocking of disabled reporters wasn't enough to get you to disavow earlier?"

Hit him, Burr, Ayotte, Blunt, Kirk, Toomey (hell hit Isakson, Rubio, McCain, Lee, McConnell (as Sen leader) too) on this...basically any incumbent Sen Republican should be hit on this repeatedly. Hang Trump around their necks. Similar strategy (minus the supreme court thing) for GOP Reps (for example...Chaffetz rescinded his endorsement on account of his daughter. But earlier Trump comments on Mexicans and Muslims he didn't have a problem with facing daughter about?) and Governors that have endorsed Trump. Make them own support for Trump's potential sexual assault(?) or else distinguish where that was a bridge too far for them but his other comments were not.

Good! He can lose independents by taking this route. He has four weeks of hell to deal with. Now if he changes his mind he is a flip flopper and gets to lose some Tea Baggers.

I sure as hell hope so... we could end up with a complete Democratic congress to go along with our next Democratic President.

He apparently needs major help to win.

Strickland is kind of "blah," but he's better than Portman!

And you're right, he's blah on the campaign trail. Good guy in small conversational groups but loses it in a crowded room.

National level funding has disappeared from his campaign. If he had the money, there's no question that ads hanging Trump around Portman's neck could be beneficial.

On the flip side, I think there's a lot of national level support for Portman. No coincidence Ohio was where Koch's PAC spent their first dollars this election season. Lots of local talk that he's on a short list among the non-evangelical republicans for 2020.

So I think Strickland's got a tough time closing the gap. He was a weak choice and Portman won the general the day Strickland won the primary. Wish it wasn't so but that's my humble opinion.