After Tuesday, jockeying for 2022 races begins
Come what may Tuesday, Ohio will immediately face another campaign: a 105-week slog, ending in November 2022, to Ohio’s next gubernatorial and U.S. Senate election.
Ohioans will also elect a new Ohio Supreme Court chief justice in 2022, an office whose power shouldn’t be underestimated.
In early 2022, Republican Gov. Mike Dewine will have celebrated his 75th birthday. And on Election Day 2022, Sen. Rob Portman, a Cincinnati-area Republican, will be a month away from age 67. Dewine and Portman are all but certain to seek reelection.
Still, there are a couple what-ifs. The first: To whom do Republicans turn if Dewine, of Greene County’s Cedarville, decides against running? Sure, if anything, Dewine’s battle against COVID-19 has added to his popularity. Still, if he wins a second term (and the last Ohio Republican governor denied a second term was C. William O’neill, in 1958), Dewine would be age 76 on 2023’s inauguration day. By comparison. four-term GOP Gov. James A. Rhodes was 73 when he finished his final term.
If Dewine did opt against running for reelection in 2022, that likely would position Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who’d turn age 55 in mid-2022, to be the GOP’S candidate for governor. Husted, now of suburban Columbus, is from the Dayton area.
Meanwhile, Republican Secretary of State Frank Larose of suburban Akron would be age 43 in 2022. And no statewide elected Republican officeholder except Dewine has been mentioned more, or been more widely broadcast or photographed in 2020, than Frank LaRose.
That’s because as Ohio’s secretary of state, Larose is the state’s chief elections officer. COVID-19 poses an unprecedented challenge to voters in a presidential election year, when turnout is at its highest. Ohio’s 88 bipartisan county boards of elections manage voting’s nuts and bolts. But the secretary of state is the ultimate policymaker and most visible officeholder when mass media want to put a face on an election in which millions of Ohioans will vote.
If, next week in Ohio, voting and the vote count go reasonably well, Frank La
Rose will be applauded. If not, maybe it’ll be a while before Larose climbs further up the political ladder. But Larose is young. He has time.
For both parties, Ohio’s election calendar offers opportunities — and perils. Ohio picks its governors in the middle of a presidential term. That means a campaign for governor can be a referendum on whomever is in the White House.
In 1970, Ohioans elected Cincinnati Democrat John J. Gilligan governor two years into Republican Richard Nixon’s presidency. In 1982, Ohioans elected Cleveland Democrat Richard F. Celeste two years into Republican Ronald Reagan’s presidency. And in 2006, two years into Republican George W. Bush’s second presidential term, Ohioans elected Appalachian Democrat Ted Strickland governor.
But that cuts two ways: In 2010, two years into Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, Ohioans unseated Strickland and replaced him with Westerville Republican John Kasich.
But that president-governor cycle is far from certain: In 2018, two years into Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, Ohioans elected Republican Dewine governor. Even so, there are bystanders who say that who runs in Ohio 2022 for statewide office, and which party will have an edge in those Ohio contests, will depend in part on Tuesday’s presidential vote.
Come whatever down the road, this is for now: The army of patient, publicspirited Ohioans who will staff the state’s almost 9,000 election precincts Tuesday deserve everyone’s thanks – and respect.
Remembering Joe: In 1982, when I returned to Ohio, and every two years since, Ohioans have elected a governor or voted for a president.
From November 1982 on, first in the Plain Dealer newsroom, then by phone and email, there was one Election Night constant: Check-ins (never just one) about the results with co-worker and friend Joe Rice. That won’t happen Tuesday. Joe, of Richmond Heights, died suddenly on Sept. 30. He was 78.
Just about everybody in Ohio politics knew Joe. And Joe had their phone numbers. Joe was The Plain Dealer’s politics writer. Then he became a political consultant. Joe worked hard. He always seemed to be in motion. Joe was devoted to his family. He was a generous and loyal friend. I will miss him.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com