Donald Trump returning to Ohio to again promote JD Vanc - Capitol latter

TRUMP CARD: Former President Donald Trump is coming to Ohio later this month to stump for Republican US Senate candidate JD Vance.  As Andrew Tobias writes, Trump's super PAC announced Monday that Trump will appear at a rally in Youngstown on Sept. 17.  Trump joins Florida Govt.  Ron DeSantis joins the Mahoning Valley as the second national Republican to campaign for Vance, who has been represented in Congress for nearly 20 years by Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan.

   Cash-strapped: With the exception of Democrat Ed Fitzgerald's scandal-rock run in 2014, Nan Whaley has raised far less money than any other major-party candidate for Ohio governor in recent elections.  That's according to an analysis by Jeremy Pelzer, who found that Whaley has raised less than half of the money raised by his Republican rival, Gov.

   MAIL TIME: About 8 million absentee ballot applications sent last week are beginning to arrive in voters' mailboxes at Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office.  Tobias writes that the unsolicited mailings — which Ohio has done for even-years, more than a decade after general elections — are raising questions from Cuyahoga County voters who wonder if they are legal.  Click here to read more.

   Shift in legal strategy: Abortion clinics asked the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday to dismiss a case challenging the so-called fetal "heartbeat" law.  Later in the day, he challenged the law in the Hamilton County Court of Appeals.  They said the case in Ohio's Superior Court is progressing slowly, and they're hoping for a quick resolution in county court because abortion access for Ohio women is shrinking from abortion in nearby states, Laura Hancock reports.

   School of thought: A divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Warrensville Heights City School District must share tax revenue from the corporate park with the Beechwood City School District, Hancock reports.  The two school districts have been fighting over revenue over the Chagrin Highlands development for nearly 30 years.  With its ruling, the court remanded the case back to the Cuyahoga County trial court.

   Jordan vs. Biden: Champaign County U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan on Tuesday responded to President Joe Biden's speech warning of the extremism of "Donald Trump and the mega-Republicans," telling FoxNews that "you can't get it when you don't get anything else."  "You have to name your opponents."  Noting that Democrats don't have a running record, Jordan added, "If he wants to put President Trump on the ballot, great. I think that's good because the American people remember that we were under President Trump."  How nice it was.

   Ch-ch-change: Jordan told a National Federation of Independent Business luncheon in Avon the day before Biden's speech that his caucus will produce a "Commitment to America" ​​plan in September, Sabrina Eaton reports.  "I think a change is coming," Jordan said.  "I go all over the district, all over the state, I go all over the country... There are people and I think November 8th is going to make a difference, I really do."

   Going nuclear: After returning from a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine, the U.S.  Sen.  Rob Portman told Eaton that he wants the international community to pressure Russia to stop using Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant for military purposes.  "You should never militarize a nuclear power plant, it's too dangerous," said Portman, who was making his eighth visit to Ukraine.

   Trending: His wife Usha speaks directly to the camera in JD Once's campaign ad ahead of the general elections.  As Natalie Allison wrote for Politico, Vance wasn't the only male Republican U.S. Senate candidate to reassure his wives on TV in August.  Republican Senate candidates from Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada also aired similar direct-to-camera ads featuring their wives at the same time.  The broader story explores the challenges Republican women voters face after the US Supreme Court's June decision to slash national abortion protections.

   Voters of Color: Community Change Action, a Democratic super PAC-nonprofit duo, is spending more than $10 million on a voter mobilization program aimed at bringing low-propensity voters into statewide midterm battleground races.  Also skipping a handful of races in states including Ohio, Politico reports.  The group's efforts include traditional voter outreach, such as canvassing, phone-banking and digital advertising, and more unconventional tactics, such as paying micro-influencers, to get their followers to vote.

   OPENING ROUND: The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC, teamed up with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this week to launch a massive pro-Vance ad campaign.  According to the group's YouTube page, its first TV and radio ads attacked Ryan by tying two Democratic bills — the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill President Joe Biden signed in March and the so-called deflationary relief bill Biden signed last month.  Ryan has been running largely unanswered ads so far during the campaign, thanks to healthy fundraising gains.