Analysis: Trump, GOP victories statewide and locally historic
Nov. 8—A red wave washed over Ohio Tuesday from the top to the bottom of the ticket, unseating a long-time U.S. senator, giving the GOP solid control of the Ohio Supreme Court — while maintaining a supermajority in the Statehouse — and even flipping at least one local county seat currently held by Democrats.
Former President Donald Trump won Ohio by 11 percentage points, the widest margin any presidential candidate has carried the state in 40 years.
Vice President Kamala Harris won Montgomery County by only 513 votes. President Joe Biden in 2020 carried the county by more than 6,000 votes, though in 2016 Trump was the first Republican to carry the county since 1988.
Voters in Butler, Clark and other area counties overwhelmingly backed Trump.
"We saw a uniform shift across the country. And the same was true in Ohio. If you go back to 2020, (Joe) Biden lost Ohio by the same margin as (Hillary) Clinton in 2016, but he performed better in the cities and the suburbs, while losing even more ground in rural counties," said Lee Hannah, professor of political science at Wright State University.
"This time around, Trump improved his vote share by about 3% everywhere," Hannah said. "I think one surprise is that he squeezed even more of a margin out in rural counties across the state."
Ohio voters widened Republican control of the Ohio Supreme Court, supporting GOP candidates by a similarly large margin as Trump's victory. When the new court is sworn in, six of the seven justices will be Republicans. This is a victory hailed by abortion-rights foes as the new court will interpret Ohio's abortion rights constitutional amendment passed by voters last year.
Justice Jennifer Brunner will not only be the sole Democratic Supreme Court member, she will be the only Democrat holding statewide office. Voters ousted Democrat U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, favoring Republican Bernie Moreno 50.2% to 46.4%.
"The shift to the right is real and continuous. Trump's win was dramatic, and large enough to pull Moreno over the finish line," said Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. "It is also possible that Ohio's most Republican electorate is during a presidential election cycle. It is the largest pool of voters and it tilts possibly more to the right than mid-term or off-year elections. Perhaps Brown would have survived in a non-presidential cycle, but not this one."
Lower voter turnout in Ohio's urban counties was likely a factor. If the state's current unofficial turnout holds, 2024 will be the lowest turnout presidential election in Ohio since 2000, falling from 74% turnout in 2020 to 69.7% turnout in 2024.
Voter turnout was especially sunken in the state's largest metro areas. In Montgomery County, the state's fifth most populous, turnout dropped from 72.7% in 2020 to 67.4% in 2024.
Similar trends played out in Franklin County (65.6% in 2024; 72.1% in 2020); Hamilton County (67.2% in 2024; 72.3% in 2020); Summit County (71.2% in 2024; 74.2% in 2020); and most notably in Cuyahoga County, which dropped to 63.9% in 2024 after posting a 71% turnout in 2020. Ohio's most populous counties tend to be heavily Democratic.
"I think we are looking at a realignment, where white voters without a college degree are moving fully into the GOP. This makes rural counties overwhelmingly Republican to the point that the GOP is able to offset weaknesses in urban areas," Smith said. "If the GOP keeps evangelical Christians, enough suburban voters, as well as white working class voters, it is a large coalition. So, I think it is demographic, and it is cultural. As the Republicans take on culture war issues, those resonate with these voters. Immigration tends to fit this mold as well."
Partisan reaction
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, handily won reelection Tuesday and cited the economy and what he views as a general disparagement of everyday Americans as reasons for the red wave.
"This is now a party of working class, middle-class, common-sense people with common sense positions, and I think that message was sent loud and clear yesterday," Jordan said on a political podcast on the day after the election.
"People are tired of being called racist, deplorable, garbage — they're just tired of that," Jordan said.
Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters released a statement Wednesday calling the election results "disappointing for our state and our democracy."
"In 2024, we were up against hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate special interests who were hell bent on buying their elected officials," Walters said. "But it would be a mistake to completely give up on Ohio. We mirrored national trends, not unlike other competitive states. Senator Brown ran further ahead of the presidential ticket than any other senator in the country. We made critical gains in the state legislature."
"In the coming days, there will be lots of questions — but one thing is clear — we're never going to stop fighting for our state. We'll continue to fight for women's rights, voting rights, workers rights, and for a better Ohio for all of us," Walters said.
GOP keeps Statehouse control
Democrats did pick up a few Ohio House and Senate seats where they were given an advantage after legislative maps were redrawn last year. Locally, this includes Ohio Senate District 6, where state Rep. Willis Blackshear, Jr., D-Dayton, won out over Republican Charlotte McGuire.
Blackshear's margin of victory of three percentage points, though, is smaller than the on-paper eight point advantage Democrats have in the district, based on historic voting patters.
And Republicans not only held onto their supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly, but also staved off Issue 1, a proposed redistricting reform amendment that was expected to make more Statehouse and Congressional seats winnable by Democrats. The measure failed 46% to 54%.
In the Ohio House, Democrats flipped two seats statewide. Come January's new term, Republicans will have a 65-to-34 (66%) majority over Democrats — a slight change from the current 67-to-32 (68%) majority the party holds today.
It's a similar story in the Ohio Senate, where Democrats also gained two seats. The GOP's majority will shrink from 26-to-7 (79%) to 24-to-9 (73%) once the new term commences.
The gains will have only minor impact in Columbus. Republicans maintained their supermajorities (over 60%) in both chambers and can use it to override governor vetoes, place proposed amendments to the Ohio Constitution on the ballot, and effectively circumvent their Democratic colleagues, if they want.
However, Democratic gains will allow more Democrats to sit on committees and weigh in on bills. In the House, the party will also now have a say in whether bills contain an emergency clause, which makes laws go into effect immediately instead of the standard 90-day waiting period. That move requires a two-thirds majority, or a 67% majority, that the House Republican caucus no longer has.
Dems losing county seats
All the way down to the county level, Republican Mary McDonald is leading incumbent Democrat Debbie Lieberman by a slim margin. If McDonald stays ahead after provisional and late-arriving mail ballots are counted, Republicans will gain a seat on the dais now occupied by three Democrats.
And voters ousted incumbent Democratic County Recorder Stacy Benson-Taylor, electing Republican Lori Kennedy to that post. Meanwhile, Republicans defended other county level offices they have picked up in recent years, including the treasurer's seat — and a clerk of courts seat where the incumbent Republican is facing criminal charges and wasn't backed by his party.
"The Republican growth is so large that it is influencing places like Montgomery County," Smith said. "We may even see the GOP eat away at the margins in large, urban areas at some point."
The GOP maintained its overwhelming dominance in other area counties.
Democratic Party reckoning
For Democrats looking at swaths of red marking Republican wins across Ohio and U.S. maps, the next step is figuring out why that happened and what needs to be done to win in the future.
"The losing party usually does some soul searching too and retools to be more competitive. I don't know how the Democrats will change, but those conversations are already happening," Hannah said.
He said there are Democrats who could have the "appeal and charisma that resets where the party stands" and helps turn some of that red back to blue in the future.
"Maybe they're already in the mix," Hannah said, listing Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, and businessman Mark Cuban.
"Or maybe it's some other state legislator in Illinois that we'll learn about in the next few years," Hannah said.
Ohio has gone from being a reliably purple swing state to one firmly in the red camp, but both Hannah and Smith said that may not always be the case.
"I don't think anything is permanent. California was a strongly Republican state into the 1980s and early 1990s, and then it wasn't," Smith said. "As long as the Democrats are known for social progressivism, I think it will be hard. Also, the Democrats need to reconsider their economic arguments. Perhaps they will be more powerful if they are disconnected from issues of identity. We will see."
Voters punished the party in the White House because large numbers of Americans feel that the country is on the wrong track, said Hannah. But once Trump and Republicans take over the White House, the U.S. Senate and possibly the U.S. House of Representatives next year, they will be the ones voters hold accountable.
"After every election, the winning party is tasked with governing and they will fall short in some ways, they will overreach in others, and sometimes they just face larger crises that are out of their control," said Hannah. "We know this is true because parties almost always lose seats in midterm elections."
