More background to bring everyone up to speed. Understand that in Ohio, all statewide elected posts have been controlled by the GOP for two or more election cycles.

It all went downhill with governor Taft. in 1998 Taft was first elected governor and easily succeeded George Voinovich, who moved up to the senate, taking John Glenn's seat away from the Democrats.

Taft cakewalked to victory. Name recognition means a lot and Taft just happened to be the grandson of 'Mr. Republican' Senator Taft and great grandson of President and supreme court justice William Howard Taft. How's that for a pedigree?

So even before he was elected, Ohio voters thought he was already the governor.

Flash forward to 2002, again the Democrats put up a weak candidate with little money or name recognition and Taft wins again. Meanwhile Taft had been steadily ticking off key parts of the Republican base.
The Republican base in Ohio consists of three groups of people. First, there are those who care about social issues. They were ticked off at Taft because he chose a lt. governor who was pro-choice in Bradley. Furthermore, he opposed the amendment to ban same-sex marriage on the Ohio ballot.

Second, there's the folks who are Republican because they want to see lower taxes and spending. Taft did nothing for these folks, doing nothing to limit the growth of state spending and raising the sales tax.

And third, a smaller but very important group is the gun people, those for whom a candidate's issue on the 2nd amendment is the overriding concern. Taft ticked these folks off by dragging his feet on a concealed weapon bill for a very long time, finally agreeing to it after demanding a provision to make the list of permit holders available to the media. These guys hated Taft.

And since almost the entire GOP fits into one of these groups, that's explains Taft's approval numbers hovering around 15-20%.

In the meantime Taft got implicated in a corruption scandal, accepting rounds of golf from a lobbyist. It wasn't a big deal as these things go, but it sure didn't help.

The big takeaway here is that the GOP is battling to get some fresh faces into key statewide posts and the power of incumbency of the GOP is not really an asset, it's a liability.