The Brief Time With Tim Ryan

In a crowded presidential race, Tim Ryan is trying to break through with a midwestern message.

- Philip Elliott

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF TIM RYAN’S COUSIN. Sitting on a barstool in an office-park brewery in West Des Moines, Iowa, Ryan tells the tale of how cousin Donny called him up two decades ago, shell-shocked and soon to be out of a job at the electrical-parts factory where he’d worked for seven years. The last thing Donny did was box up the equipment he’d been running to ship it to China, along with his job.

It’s an anecdote that Ryan deploys often. It’s also one that could have come from the mouth of President Donald Trump, whom Ryan is now running against. An eight-term Democratic Congressman from a largely white, working-class part of Ohio, Ryan has just launched a presidential campaign built around the plight of the people Trump dubbed the “forgotten men and women” of America. And even a few years ago, the 45-year old swing-state Congressman may have looked and sounded like a presidential candidate from central casting, a man following the path taken by eight Presidents from Ohio to the White House.

But as the 2020 race gets underway, Ryan barely registers in the crowded Democratic presidential contest. The party is fielding its most diverse group of contenders in history, including firebrands, pioneers and coalition builders. In a race dominated so far by policy ideas like free college and breaking up monopolies, there’s little sign of an opening for a little-known Midwestern Congressman who was against abortion rights until 2015 and has made rebuilding the party’s connection with blue-collar voters the centerpiece of his campaign. Most of the latest polls in Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t even ask about Ryan, who faces a steep climb just to qualify for the first Democratic debates in June.