[ House candidate Nina Turner out-raised, out-organized and
outspent opponent Shontel Brown and yet still came up short.]
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WHY NINA TURNER, THE REAL ‘ESTABLISHMENT,’ LOST OHIO DEMOCRATIC
PRIMARY RACE  
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Jason Johnson
August 4, 2021
The Griot
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_ House candidate Nina Turner out-raised, out-organized and outspent
opponent Shontel Brown and yet still came up short. _

Nina Turner Co-Chair Bernie Sanders for President Campaign Inside
Chicago Temple Chicago Teachers Union Rally 10-14-19_3831, This image
was marked with a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

 

The conventional wisdom about the Ohio 11th congressional district
Democratic primary was always wrong. After MARCIA FUDGE vacated the
seat to become President JOE BIDEN’s HUD Secretary, the race to
replace her didn’t suddenly become a battle
between _Progressives _and the _Establishment_ or a proxy
battle. 

I understand that framing the race in those terms drives clicks and
allows Democratic flacks and Washington pundits to extend the cold war
they’ve been fighting ever since HILLARY CLINTON blamed BERNIE
SANDERS for her 2016 loss, but that doesn’t mean that framing is
accurate. 

The reality of the Ohio primary is that NINA TURNER, whether anyone
wants to admit it or not, was the Establishment in this race. She had
more money, higher name recognition and tons of celebrity endorsements
in her pocket. Her opponent SHONTEL BROWN was a local Cuyahoga
County Democratic Party chair, that nobody would’ve been able to
pick out of a lineup four months ago. And yet, Turner still lost. 

Hopefully, Democrats and the media will learn a lesson from this —
but I doubt it.

I lived in Northeast Ohio off and on for a decade so let me put this
race in local terms that will make sense. On June 1, Turner was
leading the race 50% to 15% over Brown
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yet two months later on Aug. 3, Turner lost to Brown 51% to 44%.
[[link removed]] Turner
was the Golden State Warriors blowing a 3-1 lead to Brown’s
Cavaliers despite both of them having home-court advantage. I saw this
race through the eyes of old friends and former students in the area,
a hijab-wearing Muslim woman who works in PR, a 40 something-year-old
Black woman who makes a killing off ETSY, a millennial white lawyer
who leans conservative, amongst others.

Do you know what word I never heard any of them use? _Establishment_.
I bring that up because campaign post-mortems will desperately try to
force that narrative despite it having little or no resonance on the
ground.

The Establishment is no longer old white men in a smoke-filled room
playing kingmaker. Not in an era of social media, wild-wild west
campaign fundraising, and national organizers who can descend on a
district like political flash-mobs after one tweet. Did Shontel Brown
have institutional help? Of course. She was a local party chair and
was mentored by the outgoing incumbent.

However, Nina Turner was a former national surrogate of a presidential
campaign, former elected official, television pundit, college
professor, SuperPAC director and lobbyist
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got endorsed by the major local newspaper _Cleveland Plain Dealer_,
had Hollywood backing her and could raise thousands of dollars with
one mass text. It doesn’t get more Establishment than that, which
is ultimately why Turner lost the election.   

These were the kinds of conversations and messages I was getting from
people in Cleveland during the campaign:

_“You can’t say voting for Biden is like eating shit
[[link removed]].
I mean, lots of people felt that way, I wanted to vote for Pete
Buttigieg, but you can’t say that then run for Congress.”_

_“My sister went to school with Shontel, and I just don’t like
that “Hello Somebody” thing, [From Turner] it sounds forced!”_

_“The guy in the white Nina Turner van with speakers? He was parked
near my house and I talked to him, turns out he’s not even from
here, he’s from Seattle
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drove to Cleveland to help Turner.”_

Nina Turner had burned a lot of bridges in local Cleveland politics
years ago, and voters have long memories. This is not to say that
Shontel Brown didn’t have her detractors; her management of the
Cuyahoga County Democrats was seen as biased and one local organizer
told me that Shontel’s campaign trafficked in colorism and classism.
I heard a number of people complain that Brown’s only policy
position was ‘supporting Joe Biden’ and they wanted more. 

However, in the minds of the majority of non-aligned voters, Turner,
not Brown, was the big-name establishment politician. Initially, that
helped Turner when she began the campaign as the political prodigal
daughter coming back to save her hometown. Unfortunately in June after
she jumped out to a huge lead, her campaign went national, bringing in
activist and rapper KILLER MIKE who insulted
[[link removed]]Democratic
power broker Congressman JAMES CLYBURN and going overboard with
attack ads depicting Shontel Brown as a corrupt politician.
Clevelanders have a long history with corrupt politicians and Shontel
Brown doesn’t fit the bill.

It’s not a coincidence that Turner’s attacks had the dual effect
of raising Brown’s profile and opening the door for outside
advertising groups, including other Democrats, and yes, even some
Republicans to get involved in the primary. (Team Sanders openly
courted Republicans during the 2020 primary so it’s hypocritical to
claim GOP support somehow delegitimizes Brown’s win). 

Nina Turner raised $4.5 million in campaign funds to Brown’s $2
million and while outside groups spent slightly more on pro-Brown
advertising
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Turner had been on the air much longer so the air war was basically a
wash. The truth is, had Turner kept the race about fighting crime in
Ohio City and PPP loans for failing businesses in Tower City, Jim
Clyburn would’ve never driven into Cleveland in a caravan like a
Democratic King Jaffe Joffer
[[link removed]] with the entire CBC in
tow.

Turner didn’t lose because of “dark money,” she lost because
local voters don’t live their lives on Twitter, don’t read puff
pieces in _The New York Times _and didn’t want the Progressive
Establishment carpetbagging into town and telling people how to vote.
Not to mention, Shontel Brown is actually a pretty darn good public
servant.

If you could liquefy schadenfreude and inject it directly into your
veins, I know a lot of Democrats who’d be high as a kite right now
after Turner’s loss, but dunking on Turner or the Progressive
Establishment doesn’t do anybody any good. The progressive model of
success, finding a local activist or politician, training and funding
them to run against an out-of-touch or do-nothing incumbent is a good
model. That’s how ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ beat JOE
CROWLEY and JAMAL BOWMAN beat ELIOT ENGEL in New York; it’s
how CORI BUSH beat WILLIAM LACY CLAY in Missouri, and how AYANNA
PRESSLEY beat MICHAEL CAPUANO in Massachusetts.

The Progressive Establishment model didn’t work in Ohio because
Turner wasn’t an underdog and hadn’t been in the district recently
but also because mainline Democrats ignore progressives at their
peril. At the same time, progressives shouldn’t be calling Black
voters in Ohio stupid or blaming outside money when they simply ran a
candidate who had every technical advantage but couldn’t reconcile
half a decade of attacking the Democratic Party with running in a
heavily Democratic district.

Over 72,000 voters turned out for a special election primary in an
off-year when both campaigns privately estimated turnout would be in
the 40,000 range. That should be something all Democrats can get
excited about and should reverse engineer heading into the 2022
midterms. 

Despite the post-primary racism, vitriol and recriminations I see
online, Democrats have less than a year to get organized against the
onslaught of GOP voter suppression in 2022. You can’t win when
you’re in a circular progressive, moderate, establishment firing
squad.  

_Dr. Jason Johnson is a professor of Politics and Journalism at
Morgan State University, a Political Contributor at MSNBC and SIRIUS
XM Satellite Radio._

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