DeWine faces choppy political waters one year into pandemic

COLUMBUS (AP) — At the beginning of 2020, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was working on plans to battle algae blooms in Lake Erie, crack down on distracted driving, and figure out a way to save an Ohio minor league baseball team.

The largely popular first-term Republican governor accepted an invitation to give the commencement address at Miami University in May. The 2022 election was a long way off, but some Democrats were already exploring challenges to DeWine.

Then came the first week of March, and with it a decision by DeWine that set the stage for a year of politics that today seems like something viewed from the other side of Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass.

On March 3, without a single reported COVID-19 case in the state, DeWine laid down strict attendance limits on the annual Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, a supersized gathering founded three decades ago by Arnold Schwarzenegger that typically brings 20,000 athletes from 80 countries to compete in events including professional bodybuilding and a strongman competition. Annual economic impact on the city: more than $50 million.

“That was really, at least for me, the beginning of the pandemic,” DeWine said earlier this week, adding: “It’s hard to believe that it’s been an entire year.”

Nine days later, with the virus spreading rapidly elsewhere but with just five confirmed virus cases in Ohio, DeWine ordered schools closed for three weeks, becoming the first governor nationally to make such a move. The closing of gyms and theaters followed shortly, and then statewide stayat-home orders.

What came next was a year of surprising political turmoil for a career politician who many initially believed had met his moment. DeWine, who’s held multiple state and federal offices, now faces reelection in 2022 amid fierce criticism from the very Republicans whose party he spent decades helping to build.

DeWine’s actions against the virus won him early praise, not just from public health professionals but also from business groups and even restaurant owners hammered by the shutdown who acknowledged his actions could save lives.

Soon DeWine, Health Director Dr. Amy Acton and GOP Lt. Gov. Jon Husted were a daily fixture for many Ohioans, the 2 p.m. routine dubbed “Wine with DeWine” by cooped up Ohioans teasingly prone to day-drinking by the pandemic. Acton became a folk hero in her own right, inspiring young girls to dress up like doctors and to conduct their own living room briefings.

The good mood didn’t last long for some. Democrats sued after Acton, acting on DeWine’s orders, postponed Ohio’s March 17 primary just hours before voting was set to begin, thrusting the state’s presidential election into chaos.

On April 13, dozens of lockdown protesters shouted outside the Statehouse Atrium and briefly pounded on its windows as reporters covered the governor’s daily briefing, which had been moved to increasingly larger spaces to accommodate social distancing rules.

As virus deaths rose and national divisions grew, Republican lawmakers pushed back with multiple bills against the GOP governor’s public health orders, leaving Democratic legislators to defend Acton and DeWine. One legislator started a movement to have DeWine impeached.

The bespectacled, graying 74-yearold persisted, concentrating during his briefings on conveying the status of the pandemic and buoying the state’s spirits. He praised ball teams, music groups and schoolchildren, celebrated frontline workers and small business owners and brought on First Lady Fran DeWine to share recipes, activities for parents to do with their stircrazy children and tips for making a festive mask. He and the first lady also livestreamed themselves receiving the first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.

DeWine plans to seek reelection next year. Some critics of the governor’s response within the party want the road kept open for him to face a GOP primary challenge; early potential candidates include central Ohio farmer Joe Blystone.