2022 Election both a win and a loss for local political parties
Hamilton County party poobahs reflecting on November’s elections results must be channeling Charles Dickens’ memorable kickoff to A Tale of Two Cities: ”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
GOP County Chair Alex Triantafilou crowed about Ohio’s statewide “red wave.” It left just a puddle nationally but swamped Ohio Democrats. Statewide, Democrats (with the exception of Senate candidate Tim Ryan) barely broke above 40%.
And yet… Hamilton County Democratic Chair Gwen McFarland could point to a sweep of contested county wide offices. Democrats Brigid Kelly and Pavan Parikh won races for county auditor and clerk of courts. Democrats retained all three county commission seats. The biggest local prize: Cincinnati Councilman Greg Landsman ended Congressman Steve Chabot’s two-decade grip on the First Congressional District. GOP county office holders have shrunk to only the engineer and prosecutor. Sooner or later Joe Deters will retire, right?
How did the GOP enjoy “the best of times” statewide, but bottom out in Hamilton County?
How did Ohio Democrats suffer “the worst of times,” but run the table down here?
Demographics seem to explain it best. The Columbus Dispatch’s post-election analysis showed Ohio’s electorate is older, whiter and less educated compared to the nation, or neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, which now tilt blue. The state that voted twice each for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama now votes more like Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia.
Hamilton County has bucked the trend. In comparison, we are better educated and more diverse. Trumpism has found a fertile home in white resentment of so called “woke elites” stoked by populist candidates who attended Ivy league schools, like Ohio’s new U.S. Senator J.D. Vance. Ohio rural and ex-urban voters lap up that message. Meanwhile, better educated and more diverse urban enclaves like Franklin and Hamilton counties became bluer islands in a sea of red.
But demographics don’t tell the whole story. Candidate quality matters, too. Governor Mike DeWine is a throwback to a mellower Ohio political style, when Republicans tilted to the mainstream. Think former governors or senators like the Tafts, Rob Portman, George Voinovich or John Kasich. The angry outlier on the GOP state ticket was Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who dissed Trump in 2016, only to grovel to win his 2022 endorsement. Vance’s win margin over Tim Ryan was only about 6%, as opposed to DeWine’s 25% takedown of Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley.
Locally, the biggest GOP losers doubled down on Trumpy tropes. Chabot went full MAGA when he voted not to certify the 2020 Presidential election. Landsman benefited from a slightly redrawn district and exploited Chabot’s election denialism and anti-abortion orthodoxy, flipping the First District blue for the first time since the days of Tom and Charlie Luken.
In the east side General Assembly District, long a GOP bastion represented by arch-conservative Tom Brinkman, the GOP endorsed Jenn Giroux, a foot soldier in those bitter school culture wars. Giroux not only opposed abortion, but birth control, too! Rachel Baker, her triumphant Democratic opponent, ran up big majorities in formerly GOP leaning neighborhoods like Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout.
Dollars also played a big part. The statewide Democratic party has withered in the wilderness. Unlike in 2008 and 2012, when the Obama team invested in a statewide field organization, Ohio was written off early by national Democrats. Meanwhile Vance benefited from tens of millions in national GOP spending to shore up his flagging candidacy. Democrats did not have the resources to make those statewide races competitive.
As Democrats and Republicans regroup for 2024, we may have to delve deeper into Dickensian analogies from that first A Tale of Two Cities passage. Will Trump’s attempt at a White House restoration deliver us into an “age of foolishness” or a scarier “winter of despair?” Don’t count on a “season of light.” But one can only hope.
Don Mooney is an attorney, a past member of the Cincinnati Planning Commission and is active in local politics.
