Super-close Ohio election makes outcome anyone’s guess
OThomas Suddes
fficially, the longest Ohio night of 2018 will begin on Friday, Dec. 21 — the winter solstice. But politically, Ohio’s longest night may begin on Tuesday, Nov. 6, when polls close, because, at this writing, the contest for governor between Democrat Richard Cordray of Grove City and Republican Mike DeWine of Cedarville appears exceedingly close.
The Dayton Daily News’ Laura Bischoff reported Wednesday on a University of Akron Bliss Institute Poll that showed Cordray and DeWine in a dead heat.
“Overall,” according to the institute, “37 percent of voters favor Republican Mike DeWine and 36 percent favor Democrat Richard Cordray … The remaining one-quarter of voters
(27 percent) are undecided.” What’s more, “If the undecided voters are excluded, Republican DeWine is ahead of Democrat Cordray 51 to 49 percent — well within the survey’s margin of error,” the institute reported.
The Center for Opinion Marketing & Research L.L.C. conducted the poll.
Ohio’s other candidates for governor are the Green Party’s Constance GadellNewton of Columbus and the Libertarian Party’s Travis Irvine of Bexley.
Cordray was an Ohio House member, then state treasurer and attorney general. In 2010, DeWine unseated Cordray as attorney general. Then in 2012, President Barack Obama appointed Cordray as the first director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
DeWine, before beating Cordray in 2010, had been a state senator and U.S. House member, then Republican Gov. George Voinovich’s lieutenant governor. In 1994, DeWine won a U.S. Senate seat, but in 2006, now-Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, defeated him.
Given that there’s a Republican president in Washington, a midterm election challenge inside Ohio by Democrats should, in theory, give Democrats an edge. (The same would be true if a Democrat were president and Republicans were trying to retire Ohio Democrats.) That is, this year’s “out” party (Democrats) should have an advantage over this year’s “in” party (Republicans).
Republican Gov. John Kasich of Westerville can’t seek a third consecutive term. If Ohio’s political history is any guide, a Democrat would likely be Kasich’s successor. Why? Because only twice in 100 years — in 1934 (Democrats George White and Martin L. Davey) and 1998 (Republicans Voinovich and Bob Taft) — has an incumbent Ohio governor been succeeded by a governor of the same party.
Still, it’s important to recall a maxim of the late Thomas A. Flinn, a Cleveland State University political scientist: “Ohio is now and has long been a competitive two-party state in which the Republicans enjoy the advantage.”
Over the past few decades, industrial unions’ membership losses and the disappearance of rural Democrats from the Ohio General Assembly have further strengthened Ohio’s GOP. That built-in Republican edge wasn’t the only reason, but in 2016, Ohioans preferred Donald Trump to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by almost 450,000 votes. (Nationally, Clinton beat Trump by 2.87 million votes, but Trump won 304 electoral votes, 34 more than the necessary 270.)
And in 1974, in the wake of Watergate and President Richard Nixon’s resignation, Republicans lost 48 U.S. House seats and five U.S. Senate seats. But on that same 1974 day, Ohio voters unseated Democratic Gov. John Gilligan and returned Republican James Rhodes to the governorship.
Democrats may well win some statewide executive offices next month (leaving aside, for now, the ultratight governorship contest). Those other races are for attorney general (Democrat Steven Dettelbach vs. Republican David Yost); auditor (Libertarian Robert Coogan vs. Republican Keith Faber vs. Democrat Zack Space); secretary of state (Democrat Kathleen Clyde vs. Republican Frank LaRose vs. Libertarian Dustin Nanna) and treasurer (Democrat Rob Richardson vs. Republican Robert Sprague). On Nov. 6 — or Nov. 7 — Ohioans will see who captured what office.
Time was, early in the Democratic Party’s history, that when Democrats won, they’d light bonfires. There’s no harm in piling logs now. But it’s too soon to strike a match. In the race for governor, Ohio’s Democrats may well close the deal. So far, they haven’t.