Answers for Ohio Dems asking what happened
Beyond one state Supreme Court seat, Ohio’s Democrats have nothing to celebrate, given the results of Tuesday’s election. In a word, Democrats lost big.
h Ohio will cast its electoral votes for President Trump.
h State Senate Republicans, who now rule the Senate 24-9, will have a 25-8 majority in January; also in January, the GOP will begin its 36th consecutive year of controlling the state Senate.
h And the Ohio House, now 61-38 Republican, will be 65-34 Republican in January. Immediate consequence: Likely re-election of Ohio House Speaker Robert Cupp, a Lima Republican, despite rumblings of GOP unrest before the election.
Moreover, while not unexpected, voters re-elected ex-ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford, to his House seat. Householder’s only opponents were write-in candidates. Still, a grand jury has indicted Householder on federal racketeering charges.
Meanwhile, in what has to be considered a bitter irony, voters in west-suburban Cleveland unseated someone who was among those who’d blown the whistle on Householder, Rep. Dave Greenspan, a Westlake Republican.
At issue in the Householder case, at least outside his 72nd House District (Perry and Coshocton counties, parts of Licking County): House Bill 6, which Householder steered to passage in 2019 and which requires Ohio electricity customers to bail out two nuclear power plants once owned by Firstenergy Corp. as well as two coal-fired plants — one of them in Indiana.
As noted, voters did add Democrat Jennifer Brunner to the Supreme Court, which will now have four Republicans and three Democrats. Brunner defeated incumbent Republican Justice Judith French. With Brunner’s election, the Ohio Supreme Court may be less inclined to let the General Assembly trample on the rights of injured Ohioans.
Oh, and this: Mahoning County, once organized labor’s Ohio Gibraltar, voted for Donald Trump. That was only the third time in 88 years Mahoning has backed a Republican for president. (The earlier GOP wins there were in 1972, Richard Nixon over George Mcgovern; 1956, Dwight Eisenhower over Adlai Stevenson.) And Trumbull County (Warren), which once flanked Mahoning in labor strength, seems now to have become a Republican area, costing Democrats, among other things, an Ohio House and state Senate seat.
If you’re an Ohio Democrat, or for that matter an Ohioan of any party, or none, who voted against Donald Trump, the morning-after question is, “What happened?” A quick look suggests these possibilities:
First, consider the ten Ohio counties where Democrat Hillary Clinton racked up the most votes against Trump in 2016. It appears that every one of them cast more votes Tuesday for Joe Biden than they did for Clinton in 2016 — but, obviously, not enough more votes.
Then look at Ohio’s rural and semirural counties. As a percentage of the votes won, Trump’s three best counties in 2016 were Mercer (Celina), Putnam (Ottawa) and Holmes (Millersburg).
Those three counties also appear to have been Trump’s best Ohio counties, percentage-wise, on Tuesday. But in each of the counties, the total number of votes Trump gleaned in them last week was greater than his 2016 totals. That suggests Trump’s campaign was able to squeeze every last vote out of Ohio counties that were already pro-trump.
Agreed, Mercer and Putnam, among Ohio’s most heavily Catholic counties, and Holmes, which has a vast Amish population — and which was the only county east of I-71 to support the GOP’S Kenneth Blackwell for governor in 2006 — aren’t exactly typical counties.
But statewide, Ohio has a smaller percentage of Hispanic Americans and other new Americans than other states do. Also, statewide, Ohio has a greater proportion of older residents than do many other states. In tandem, those factors make for a voting population that is less attracted to change than are many voters elsewhere.
And the numbers demonstrate once again the disappearance of Democrats in rural Ohio counties (leaving aside Athens, 57% pro-biden and proud to brag about it if you’re within walking distance of Ohio University’s campus).
There will be arguments about whether Ohio remains a presidential bellwether. But if Trump, by whatever means, does win re-election, one factor in the bellwether maxim will have stood: No Republican has become president without carrying Ohio.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com