A word about Josh Mandel

Ohio state rep. Josh Mandel was elected to the office of state treasurer on Tuesday. Joel Mowbray first brought Josh to the attention of our readers in “Star on the rise.” Josh is completing the second of two terms in the Ohio legislature. When Josh first ran for state representative, he wore out three pairs of brown leather shoes while knocking on 19,679 doors in his Democratic-leaning district. When Josh first visited Minnesota earlier this year he brought a pair of the worn-out shoes along as an exhibit. Josh also made a return visit this fall during which he spoke to our local chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Josh is a Marine with two tours in Iraq to his credit. When he ran for reelection in 2008, Josh’s Democratic opponent tried to make an issue of Josh’s return to service during the surge. Joel covered the story in “Iraq war vet’s service attacked in Ohio campaign.” Joel updated his column for us here.
During the campaign I identified Josh as my favorite candidate this year. Reader Sue Funk writes from Ohio to point out a fact that I had missed in connection with his election to statewide office on Tuesday:

Being a regular Power Line reader for several years, I know that you’re a big fan of Josh Mandel. I thought I’d point out that not only did Josh win his race for Ohio Treasurer, he drew the largest number of votes (two million) in any of the five statewide Ohio races. John Kasich had 1.85 million. Josh is definitely a rising star!

It can’t have hurt that Dartmouth alum Rob Portman led the ticket in the race for the open Senate Seat. I can’t find the raw vote totals, but Portman must have led the pack by a fair margin among all candidates running statewide in Ohio this year.
UPDATE: Sue points me to this page with Ohio’s election results. Josh ran ahead of all other candidates for state office and only slightly behind Rob Portman, who had an incredible night.

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