Something’s happening in Ohio politics.
Something in the heart of what national pundits like to call “deep red” Ohio.
It was something that came about as a spontaneous combustion on July 21 when President Joe Biden shocked the world — and his own White House staff — when he announced on social media that he would not run for re-election this year, only two days after saying he would be getting back on the campaign trail after a bout with COVID.
On the Richter scale of American politics, it was a solid 9.
Everything changed in that moment — even in Ohio, where the pundit class put Ohio’s 17 electoral votes in Donald Trump’s column from the get-go.
Even in Ohio, where the odds of a Kamala Harris win are still long, her candidacy has caused an explosion of enthusiasm among Ohio Democrats — and people who didn’t know they were Democrats until Trump came long.
Barbara Myers, president of the Cincinnati Women’s Political Caucus (CWPC), was on a nationwide zoom call of white women who support Harris last week that drew 200,000 women nationwide. Similar calls were done with Black women and Black men.
“The energy on that call was real; the excitement is real,’’ said Myers, whose CWPC has followed the lead of its national parent organization in endorsing Harris.
“We’ve got less than a hundred days left now,” Myers said. “I am certain we can keep that energy and excitement going on through Election Day.”
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This past weekend in Cincinnati, Democrats gathered for two events that drew hundreds of volunteers, many of whom had never been involved in politics before.
One was a canvassing effort out of U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman’s office in Bond Hill. The rally and door-knocking that followed featured Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. It was a get-out-the-vote effort for Landsman and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.
The next day, hundreds of volunteers gathered for a Kamala Harris rally hosted by Landsman and Hamilton County Commissioner Alicia Reece.
You can expect more such events every week from now until the Nov. 5 election.
“I have never seen anything like this, at least not since 2008 when Barack Obama fired up Democrats,’’ said Hamilton Couty Commissioner Denise Driehaus, who is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which begins in Chicago Aug. 19.
“People are energized in a way they weren’t before President Biden dropped out,’’ Driehaus said.
“We love Joe Biden; he has been a great president,” Driehaus said. “But the energy, the enthusiasm wasn’t there until Kamala got in the race. People were just going through the motions.”
Vote.org said last week that of the over 100,000 new voters who registered since July 21, 84% of them are ages ages 18-24.
In the week after Biden endorsed Harris, the vice president’s campaign raised over $200 million — two-thirds of it from people who have never given money to a federal campaign before.
So, does any of this mean that Trump won’t win Ohio, as he has done in the past two elections?
As always, the answer lies in turnout.
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It would take a long, hard slog. It may be impossible. It would only take one more vote for Harris than for Trump to flip the script in Ohio.
Ohio has been a fickle state when it comes to presidential politics over the last eight presidential elections.
Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Trump in 2016 and 2020, D to R to D to R.
Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party has a simple answer: No way.
“Kamala Harris is going to have her moment,” Triantafilou said. “But the fact is Kamala Harris has been consistently to the left of Biden on the issues. And that’s not going to work in Ohio.”
Having Harris as the opposition instead of Biden may have another upside for the Ohio GOP, according to Triantafilou.
“It will be a good tool to get out our vote,’’ the Ohio GOP chairman said. “Having Harris on the ballot may make it easier to get our people excited about this race.”
For Ohio Democrats, the most encouraging factor is the enthusiasm among women voters who fear another Trump administration will result in a nationwide abortion ban and the misogynistic opinions of his running mate, JD Vance of Ohio, who has complained of women who are childless “cat ladies” and who wants to end “no fault” divorce — even for women who find themselves in abusive marriages.
“JD Vance has been sticking his foot in his mouth just about every day since Trump picked him,” Myers said. “Women voters know who he is and they don’t like it.”
Last fall in Ohio, there was an unmistakable sign of where women stand on the Ohio GOP trying to control their most personal decisions.
Issue 1, the reproductive rights amendment on the Nov. 2023 ballot, passed easily with 57% of the Ohio vote. That vote cut across party lines — Democrats, Republicans, independents.
There are 18 counties in Ohio that voted for Trump in 2020 where a majority voted in favor of Issue 1.
Many of them were in northeast Ohio; nearly all were in close proximity to solidly blue urban areas, including Butler County, just north of Cincinnati.
Put aside for the moment the idea of Harris winning Ohio.
There is another possible result of the influx of new voters, new money, new campaign volunteers, and new enthusiasm that Harris is responsible for in Ohio.
“It’s going to have an enormous impact for down-ticket Democrats,’’ said Driehaus.
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It likely means:
- More votes for Sherrod Brown, who is in a fight with Republican Bernie Moreno that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate going forward.
- More votes for Democratic U.S. House members like Landsman and Marcy Kaptur of Toledo.
- More votes for the Citizens Not Politicians ballot initiative, which could drastically change the partisan gerrymandering that has created a veto-proof super-majority for the GOP in Ohio's legislature.
- And more voters for the slate of three Democratic candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court who, if they sweep their contests, would flip control of the highest court in the state.
In other words: There’s a whole lot more than Harris winning Ohio’s electoral votes for Ohio Republicans to worry about over the next three months.
