Democratic super PAC pulls back Ohio Senate ads Senate Majority PAC's cancellation of early September buys follows the same move by the DSCC.

A major super PAC supporting Senate Democrats is canceling advertisements set to run in early September in Ohio, a sign of increasing concern in Washington that former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland could be squandering his chance to unseat incumbent GOP Sen. Rob Portman.

Senate Majority PAC has scrapped at least $1.7 million in advertisements that were slated to begin Sept. 6 and run for two weeks in Columbus and Dayton, according to a GOP ad tracking source. The move aligns Senate Majority PAC's spending with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's fall reservations, which were paused on Monday and will begin running in late September, sources familiar with the situation said.


“We regularly adjust strategy to maximize our resources and make sure we’re in the best possible position to win back the majority this November," said Senate Majority PAC spokesman Shripal Shah.

Strickland, a longtime, well-known Ohio politician, was expected to wage one of the country’s most competitive Senate campaigns this cycle. But he has suffered through fundraising issues and an outside spending barrage, and Washington Democrats have grown frustrated in recent weeks watching Strickland's campaign struggle while other Democratic campaigns around the country are ticking up.

Senate Majority PAC's ads will now start the week of Sept. 20, the same week that the DSCC's advertising will hit. In the meantime, the DSCC is running $500,000 in coordinated ad buys directly with Strickland's campaign. The Washington Post first reported the DSCC's strategic shift.

The delayed ad-buying by national Democrats by no means presages a Democratic withdrawal from Ohio — but it does represent a change in tactics as Strickland lags behind Portman by more than 7 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics averages. Other top-tier Democratic Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire are outperforming Strickland in their races against incumbent Republican senators.

"You’re going to see our reservations going up and down in certain states from week to week as we constantly assess the best way to support our campaigns and win back the majority," said a national Democratic strategist working on Senate races.

A GOP nonprofit, One Nation, also recently canceled $2.8 million in Ohio TV airtime at the end of August and beginning of September. One Nation soon invested new funds in two states that Republicans are increasingly focused on defending, North Carolina and Missouri.

Senate Majority PAC has already spent more than $10 million in Ohio, and the DSCC has reserved nearly $10 million in fall TV ads in Ohio to compete with Portman, a prodigious fundraiser who had $13.2 million on hand at the end of June, in comparison to Strickland's $3.7 million. The NRSC reserved nearly $6 million in the spring to help Portman, and the Senate Leadership Fund — the Republican super PAC counterpart to Senate Majority PAC — reserved about $8 million this summer.

“Our campaign is confident we’ll have the resources we need to communicate Ted’s message of fighting for working families and highlight Sen. Portman’s record of pushing the agenda of the rich and the powerful at the expense of Ohioans who actually work for a living," said Strickland spokesman David Bergstein.

Ohio has seen $46 million in spending by outside groups with more than two months left in the general election, dwarfing the actual spending by either candidate. All told, Strickland and Portman combined to spend about $11 million by the end of June.

"After spending $20 million attempting to cover up Ted Strickland's record, even Democrats are resigned to the fact that Ted has the worst record of any Senate candidate in America,” said Portman spokesperson Michawn Rich.