By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…
Is Ohio a liberal place? Or is it a conservative place?
I suspect far more people would say the latter rather than the former.
In many respects, Ohio is politically similar to Florida. Both are well-known swing states that hold a bountiful electoral prize. Both lean Republican. Both have large cites that function as pools of Democratic votes. Both also have considerable rural, Republican regions.
But in other ways they could not be more different. Sunny Florida is diverse, growing, and service-oriented. While Florida often votes Republican, it is not exactly conservative. Cold, northern Ohio is a rust-belt giant. It is not very diverse. It is definitely not growing. Florida is new. Ohio is old and conservative.
For the moment Ohio is a bit more conservative than the country at large. For the past eight out of nine presidential elections, it has been a bit redder than the nation. Not much redder, but enough to be noticeable.
I do not think that the future looks bright for the Democratic Party in Ohio. The two are moving in opposite directions. Demographically, Ohio is staying static while the country at large changes. And there are not many truly liberal spots in Ohio – places like Boulder, CO or Seattle. There never were.
Ohio has a lot of unionized, working-class folk who are still voting against Herbert Hoover; they are a core part of its Democratic base. I am not sure how long they will continue to support a party that is becoming, quite frankly, fairly upper-class in ethos. People in West Virginia certainly don’t anymore.
Not that Ohio is doomed to become a Republican stronghold. Places like Columbus are rapidly turning blue, perhaps fast enough to offset losses in working-class counties. And it isn’t inevitable that those counties will start voting Republican. If West Virginia is a prime example of working-class voters who deserted the Democratic Party, Michigan is a prime example of working-class voters that still support it. Barack Obama won a landslide in that state.
Nevertheless, my gut still tells me that Ohio and the Democratic Party are shifting farther and farther away from each other. These things can reveal themselves very quickly in politics. In 1988, California was a red state that had voted Republican for six elections in a row. Then one day it was won by Bill Clinton – and it has never gone back since then. In 1996 West Virginia had gone blue for five out of the past six elections. Then George Bush won the state – and now we consider it a rock-hard Republican state.
That may be the fate of Ohio.
I have to say that your analysis is off. NE Ohio is very different from West Virginia, even if parts of it look like WV. It’s way more similar to Michigan.
Firstly, the working-class voters in NE Ohio (Youngstown, Akron, Canton, Cleveland) are all urban voters whereas those in WV are largely found in small mining towns. That alone makes a big difference. Plus, younger voters in the area are just as Democratic, if not more so, than their parents. Fact is that the Republican party has almost NO presence in NE Ohio, save for two largely rural counties (Columbiana and Geauga). Outside of Youngstown, I would say that the rest of NE Ohio is moderate-to-liberal on most issues, similar to Illinois and the Upper Midwest. Don’t forget that a number of very liberal Democrats were based out of this area (Howard Metzenbaum, Sherrod Brown, John Seiberling). I exclude Youngstown, my home base, because the area is somewhat socially conservative–due in large part to a large Catholic population. This brand of social conservatism, though, is more “live and let live” than the evangelical variety. Our congressman, Tim Ryan, is a perfect example. He’s liberal on most domestic issues but supports gun rights and personally opposes abortion. However, his position is that the best way to reduce abortions is to reduce the need for them through better access to contraceptives and better sex education.
In West Virginia, it was all unions when it was Democratic. Now that the unions are fading, it votes Republican. There was also a big race factor. People seemed pretty opposed to Obama in NE Ohio and West Virginia at first. Still, Obama did not do worse than Kerry. My opinion is that Republicans can make inroads with Protestants but it is harder to do so with Catholics (NE Ohio is heavily Catholic while West Virginia is heavily Protestant.)
You say that “I do not think that the future looks bright for the Democratic Party in Ohio.” If you had made that statement four years ago, I would have understood, but you ignoring the major shifts that have occurred in Ohio that favor the Democratic party since then. Since 2004, Democrats have gained control of 4 GOP-held House seats and defeated a 2-term GOP U.S. Senator. They went from controlling zero statewide offices to electing a Democratic Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Treasurer in a 2006 electoral sweep. In 2008, Democrats retook the state house as well, and they also control the redistricting process as things stand (although that may change in 2010). Finally, in 2008 Barack Obama received 52% of the vote here, the first Democratic candidate to receive a majority of Ohio’s popular vote since 1964. This is all in contrast to 2004 and the decade that preceded it, so it would indicate a reversal of long term trends and an indication of how things are shifting in Ohio.
And on the subject of democgraphic shifts: if you look at the exit polling in 2008, you will see that voters between the ages of 18-29 and voters age 65+ each made up 17% of the total voting population. But while the seniors voted 55-44% for McCain, an equal number of younger voters favored Obama by a whopping 61-36% of the vote. As the older, more Republican voters die out, they are being replaced by younger voters much more amenable to Democrats.
So I understand your concerns, but I think that when you look at theose two pieces of solid evidence and recent data about where things are moving in Ohio electorally, it is difficult to argue that Democrats are on the road to losing Ohio in a big way anytime soon.
with this analysis solely on the basis of population distribution. It seems like you (Inoljt) are concerned that Ohio might become the next West Virginia, with it’s large amount of working class people and industry in the eastern half of the state. While I can’t say that this theory doesn’t have any merit, it does ignore the trends we saw in the rest of the state from 2004-2008.
Although Ohio was the 1 state that essentially gave Bush the presidency in 2004, we were actually on the Dem side of the national popular vote that year. Although we were on the Repub side by 2 1/2 this time, I chalk that up to eastern Ohio not really liking Obama personally outside of Cleveland. I don’t see it as a trend so much as an aversion to an individual candidate. If Hillary Clinton was the nominee, I think Ohio’s race wouldn’t have been close, as those same eastern OH working class people who voted the same as they did in 2004 and voted for Strickland, Brown et al in 2006 would’ve voted in big numbers for her. The same would’ve happened in WV, not to mention other border south states like KY, TN, and AR where Obama cratered.
But let’s say that SE Ohio trends away from the Democrats, and that NE Ohio becomes slighly more conservative (though still the most liberal part of the state by far). Let’s say your hypothesis plays out. The other cities in the state are becoming much more liberal and should counterract that. Franklin County (Columbus) is becoming a liberal haven, improving from a 3% win for Gore in 2000 to a 9% win for Kerry, to a whopping 19% win for Obama, a difference of 100K votes. Hamilton County (Cincinnati) has improved from a 9% loss for Gore and a 5% loss for Kerry, to a 5% win for Obama in 2008. If these two counties continue to trend Democratic, it won’t matter what happens in the southeastern part of the state because Columbus and Cincinnati far outnumber that region in population.
One part of the state that nobody has mentioned yet is Northwestern Ohio. Barack Obama was able to score some HUGE numbers up in northwestern farm county and Toledo. He carried Lucas County (Toledo) by almost 30%, making it the 2nd most democratic county in the state in 2008. Not only that, but many counties around Toledo made huge strides as well. Williams County moved 20 points farther left, Henry County 19 points, Sandusky County 16 points, Hancock County (home of University of Findlay) 15 points, Wood County (home of Bowling Green State University) also 15 points. It’ll be interesting to see if this region continues it’s leftward march in the 2010 gubernatorial election, and especially in the 2012 presidential race. If it does, NW Ohio can also serve to counterract growing Repub votes in the SE and E.