DeWine duplicated Trump win in Ohio — with president’s help
Governor-elect Mike DeWine doesn’t resemble President Donald Trump in the least, but a snapshot of his victory last week is similar to Trump’s in 2016 in Ohio.
Tuesday’s governor-race results answered one question hanging from the presidential contest two years ago: Could anyone duplicate Trump’s big margins in rural Ohio while staving off Democrats in urban and suburban areas?
DeWine answered that question with a resounding “yes” — and it’s attributed at least in part to the president’s help.
“The Trump realignment is real,” said Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat, during an election postmortem last week.
It’s one point on which the parties agree.
“Mike DeWine’s victory followed a Trump pattern — he retained ground in traditional Democrat strongholds in northeast Ohio that President Trump flipped in 2016, and he turned out rural Ohio voters in droves,” said Mandi Merritt, Ohio spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.
“His support of Republican candidates had a noticeably positive impact on voter turnout, helping Gov.-elect DeWine and many others across the country over-perform on Election Day,” she said.
That so-called Trump effect over-performance was pivotal in DeWine’s success. Sources from both campaigns said their final internal polls showed Democrat Richard Cordray ahead of or, at times, tied with DeWine.
Trump rolled up seldom-seen margins in many areas of the state in 2016, but DeWine beat or came within 2 points of Trump’s totals in 41 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and he came within 4 points in 24 more. The 2018 totals will be finalized after provisional and remaining absentee ballots are counted.
In five of six Ohio regions, DeWine came within 1.6 points of Trump’s percentage, calculations by election statistics analyst Mike Dawson
DeWine in 2018 compared to Trump in 2016
Here’s a look at the percentage of the vote Mike DeWine received in last week’s governor race compared to President Donald Trump run in 2016 in southwest Ohio counties: Butler Champaign Clark Darke Greene Hamilton Miami Montgomery Preble Shelby Warren DeWine 61% DeWine 68% DeWine 58% DeWine 77% DeWine 61% DeWine 44% DeWine 71% DeWine 49% DeWine 72% DeWine 75% DeWine 67% show. The only exception was southeastern Ohio, where Cordray made inroads that Hillary Clinton did not. Still, DeWine won that area with 61 percent of the vote.
“It’s hard to transfer presidential enthusiasm to off-year gubernatorial elections,” said consultant Aaron Pickrell, who couldn’t make it happen as Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland’s campaign manager in 2010 after President Barack Obama won Ohio two years earlier. “But Trump managed to do that.”
Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper said it wasn’t just Trump’s visits to Ohio — including one the Trump 62% Trump 70% Trump 57% Trump 79% Trump 60% Trump 43% Trump 70% Trump 48% Trump 75% Trump 78% Trump 66% day before the election, in which DeWine for the first time appeared by the president’s side — but also the frenzy he generated using the hearings on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and labeling as a national threat the caravan of Central American refugees slowly winding its way toward the southern U.S. border.
Outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich tweeted Friday afternoon: “A week before the election all voters heard about was the #caravaninvasion. Now, all that fear mongering has seemed to cara-vanished.”
But exit polls showed that Ohioans — more than 1,300 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border — considered immigration as the No. 2 issue in Tuesday’s election, behind only health care. And among the 58 percent who said Trump’s immigration policies are about right, or not tough enough, DeWine won more than 80 percent.
The exit polls — conducted as voters departed polling places — showed that Ohio is more Republican than the country as a whole. Accordingly, while U.S. voters overall gave Trump a 45 percent approval rating, 52 percent of Ohioans offered a thumbs-up.
Democrats lament that Cordray rolled up more than 2 million votes — fifth most in Ohio history — but still lost.
“We have to figure out ways to be able to communicate and appeal to a lot of these rural voters while still retaining the urban areas,” Pickrell said.
He credited DeWine for walking the tightrope of lining up backing from outgoing Gov. Kasich and finally appearing with Trump, Kasich’s political enemy, at the end of the campaign. Pickrell also took note that Trump’s children appeared in smaller cities across the state, and that an ad showing Kasich’s support was confined to carefully selected digital outlets.
“It wasn’t popping into somebody’s feed in Mercer County,” Pickrell said.