The weekend before South Carolina’s special election, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan had been thrown into the lion’s den — “literally,” he joked.

As a surrogate for an under-the-radar Democratic candidate in the 5th District race, the congressman from Youngstown, Ohio, was addressing a Lions Club candidate forum in a gated community south of Charlotte, North Carolina, where the room was mostly white, elderly and Republican.

But that was the point.

Ryan thinks his party’s brand is dead, and in the days since Democratic losses in South Carolina and Georgia, he’s once again been calling for new leadership to help his party reach out to voters, like these South Carolina Republicans, who are turned off by Democrats.

The South Carolina audience soon found out — from the Republican candidate Ralph Norman — that this was the guy who had challenged House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.