# Why has Ohio swung to the right recently? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 26, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193 "2017-07-26T20:54:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/41 "2017-08-09T23:54:41Z")
Ohio has always been a swing state with the political parties tending to either switch power or share power. I do not see recent events as much beyond the normal. One aspect that is a bit of a change: the Reagan sweep of 1980 brought in a heavily Republican legislature who pretty thoroughly gerrymandered the state at the representative level. Governors and U.S. Senators can still swap out based on current politics, but Congressmen and Legislators tend to hold well established Republican seats. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/42 "2017-08-10T00:01:22Z")
Regarding Columbus: [![](https://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/corneliuscummins248poplarstreet1957built1891.jpg) ](https://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/corneliuscummins248poplarstreet1957built1891.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/43 "2017-08-10T02:05:38Z")
Ohio is becoming more “conservative” in large part because the eastern half of the state, which used to be reliably Democratic through union membership, has turned to Republicanism. Unions hold less and less sway in the area, and Republicans have social values more in line with the residents of that area. Once Democrats abandoned trade protectionism, it was inevitable they would switch allegiance. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/44 "2017-08-10T02:38:46Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Ohio is becoming more “conservative” in large part because the eastern half of the state, which used to be reliably Democratic through union membership, has turned to Republicanism. Unions hold less and less sway in the area, and Republicans have social values more in line with the residents of that area. Once Democrats abandoned trade protectionism, it was inevitable they would switch allegiance. I don’t always agree, but I think this a pretty solid synopsis, DS. The decline of unions can’t be understated, not only because they are a fundraising mechanism but also because of their tremendous social impact. Unions would encourage other members to go to the polls and vote for their economic interests. Democracy is a social activity, and unions are well-suited to get people involved in the process. But the cultural aspects can’t be ignored either. Don’t have time to get into it this evening but these are more complex. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/45 "2017-08-11T14:06:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As I understand it, the swing has mostly been in white working-class voters. Traditionally, Republicans have done very little for these voters, so they’ve been reliably Democratic. This year, though, the Republicans are still doing very little for them, but managed to convince them otherwise. Yup. In 2008 the democratic candidate lost high school educated whites by about 14 points. The democratic candidate lost them by about 28 points in 2012 and by 39 points in 2016. Ironically the share of the electorate that are high school educated whites keeps declining. 39% in 2008 down to 34% in 2016. But the margins they give the gop keep growing. I do wonder if there is a ceiling to their support for the gop, or if they’ll give 50 point margins in 2024. Also black turnout was down a little, which didn’t help either in Ohio. I’m not 100% sure why the white working class keeps moving to the right (the black, Latino and Asian working class still supported the dems). Probably a mix of anti immigration and disdain for the poor combined with seeing the Democrats as an effeminate coastal party concerned with issues that aren’t important to them. No idea. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/46 "2017-08-11T14:16:12Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I don’t always agree, but I think this a pretty solid synopsis, DS. > > The decline of unions can’t be understated, not only because they are a fundraising mechanism but also because of their tremendous social impact. Unions would encourage other members to go to the polls and vote for their economic interests. Democracy is a social activity, and unions are well-suited to get people involved in the process. > > But the cultural aspects can’t be ignored either. Don’t have time to get into it this evening but these are more complex. While true, the white working class has left the Democrats in droves just over the last 15 years. The breakdown of unions occurred before this, and after the gop won on the state level in 2010 (with the support of working class whites) one of their highest priorities was busting public sector unions. So the breakdown of unions plays a role, but it can’t be everything. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/47 "2017-08-11T18:03:01Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > 2006 was an unusually bad year for Ohio Republicans. There was the national disaster for the party _and_ a bunch of state-specific stuff. (And Ken Blackwell was a terrible candidate.) So, at the very height of the Ohio Democratic Party’s power in the last 25 years, it won some (but not all) statewide offices and a slim majority (that lasted two years) in one house of the state legislature. > > It’s a little odd that the party did so badly in a presidential elections, but the same forces also flipped Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. I agree. Without knowing too much about Ohio specifically you have to assume that the forces moving Ohio slightly to the right are the same forces which moved the electoral needle in Wisconsin, Penn, Michigan and Minnesota last November. I remember Clinton supporters complaining about how narrowly she lost Penn, Wisc and Mich in 16. If only a few % of Dem diehards came out in each state these states would have been Clintons they opined. I think the big takeaway from 16 was not how close the 3 states were but that they all showed pretty much the same uniform swing. Heck, Trump came pretty damn close in Minnesota. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/48 "2017-08-12T00:16:46Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > While true, the white working class has left the Democrats in droves just over the last 15 years. The breakdown of unions occurred before this, and after the gop won on the state level in 2010 (with the support of working class whites) one of their highest priorities was busting public sector unions. So the breakdown of unions plays a role, but it can’t be everything. The actions that Democrats took to overturn segregation in the South didn’t produce an immediate re-alignment of the parties in the South, either. It took time for that to happen. Indeed, in my district in South Carolina (SC 5, Mulvaney’s district), in 2010 Mulvaney ousted a long-term Democrat, John Spratt. Spratt was from a locally prominent family in these parts. He had had little trouble retaining his seat, until he voted for the ACA. Since then, the Republican candidate here has had little trouble (with the notable exception of this spring’s by-election). The district is solidly Republican, and that’s with little demographic change in the last 30+ years. It just took a while for the voters to finally say they had had done with Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![notheretoargue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@notheretoargue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notheretoargue)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/49 "2017-08-12T01:34:21Z")
So freaking incredibly ignorant (and this goes on equally on both sides) for people to make statements such as “x all thinks like y” when x represents a huge part of a population so big. Just totally freaking arrogant to make such an assertion with little to no first hand experience. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/50 "2017-08-12T02:27:52Z")
> [@notheretoargue](#): > > So freaking incredibly ignorant (and this goes on equally on both sides) for people to make statements such as “x all thinks like y” when x represents a huge part of a population so big. Just totally freaking arrogant to make such an assertion with little to no first hand experience. Okay, but why does everything have to be on x and y axes? Just think about that for a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/51 "2017-08-12T02:38:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Yup. In 2008 the democratic candidate lost high school educated whites by about 14 points. The democratic candidate lost them by about 28 points in 2012 and by 39 points in 2016. > > Ironically the share of the electorate that are high school educated whites keeps declining. 39% in 2008 down to 34% in 2016. But the margins they give the gop keep growing. I do wonder if there is a ceiling to their support for the gop, or if they’ll give 50 point margins in 2024.. Manual labourers voted for the ethnic nationalist candidate in Austria by a 78-point margin last year (and evangelical whites in America vote Republican by 65-70 point margins) so no I don’t think there’s any necessary ceiling (other than the fact that the GOP is really dysfunctional / over the top, in a way that conservative or ethnic nationalist parties in other countries mostly aren’t). ---
**Author:** ![notheretoargue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@notheretoargue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notheretoargue)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/52 "2017-08-12T03:05:52Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Okay, but why does everything have to be on x and y axes? Just think about that for a bit. Oh. Muh. Gosh. Blew muh mind. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/53 "2017-08-12T03:07:59Z")
**notheretoargue** , who’s claiming that “x all thinks like y”? ---
**Author:** ![notheretoargue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@notheretoargue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notheretoargue)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/54 "2017-08-12T03:14:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **notheretoargue** , who’s claiming that “x all thinks like y”? I wasn’t calling out anybody in particular. But I see it on here all the time. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/55 "2017-08-12T14:25:38Z")
> [@notheretoargue](#): > > I wasn’t calling out anybody in particular. But I see it on here all the time. If you weren’t calling anyone out who said that in this thread, then how is your comment relevant to anything being discussed in this thread? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![notheretoargue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@notheretoargue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notheretoargue)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2017, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/56 "2017-08-13T04:01:25Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > If you weren’t calling anyone out who said that in this thread, then how is your comment relevant to anything being discussed in this thread? 😕 Sorry, I shouldn’t post on here when I know I’m not willing to spend the energy to reply. I only post when I’m well sauced, and bored. It’s just not worth it for me to spend the energy, good day to you. I do enjoy reading these threads as a lurker a lot of the time though. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/57 "2017-08-14T15:53:48Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Ohio’s population didn’t change; the Democrats’ message has changed a lot. But as I said, it’s not just a problem in Ohio; it’s a problem now in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and if the Democrats aren’t careful a state like Minnesota could be next. The warning signs were there all along: Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, despite being reliably blue in presidential elections had already elected Republican governors, senators, and legislatures – presidential races were the outliers. It’s a bit of a mystery as to why Democrats believed that this was somehow bought into this blue wall theory. It was cracking long before Trump came along and took a bulldozer to it. > > None of this is to say that the Democrats are wrong to promote diversity and civil rights – they should absolutely stay on message there. But they need another message that reassures middle class white voters and the white working poor that they’re not forgotten. There hasn’t been an effort to communicate with them, and shockingly, they’ve just decided to write off much of flyover country, not even campaigning there. It’s the failure to compete and campaign that has been the most disastrous for the Democrats, IMO. This has to change, but I’m not sure that they get it just yet. Bernie Sanders, as much as I’ve criticized him, seems to, but I think he and his supporters over-estimate the popularity of their ideas. I think its mostly just appearances. We have seen monumental progress on LGBT rights and Democrats tried to keep pressing what they saw as an advantage in that area. Some people see a party that is overly focused on LGBT stuff and race stuff to the exclusion of other stuff. Democrats seem to be in lock step with free market fundamentalists when they cut trade deal after trade deal and push immigration policies that sell out the unskilled working class of America. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193/58 "2017-08-15T10:57:47Z")
Yes, it’s a matter of priorities(social justice and environmental issues over economic issues) combined with economic policies that directly upset working class voters(trade deals and influx of cheap labor holding wages down). But here’s the thing: the Democrats would actually have to make some hard choices if they changed direction. A party for the working class will tend to represent working class sensibilities. They can’t continue to be a party that talks like the elite and has the priorities of the liberal elite and claim to represent the working man. The Democrats are now the party of the progressive CEOs, the Ivy League professors, concerned celebrity activists, the upper middle class government workers, and the socially conscious college students. I’m not sure where Charlie the Coal Miner fits into this. If his job isn’t being eliminated by environmental regulations, his boss is replacing him with cheaper immigrant labor. Meanwhile, Bob the Factory Worker is either seeing his job sent overseas, or he’s just being replaced with immigrant labor himself. And he’s obviously a racist if he has a problem with this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-ohio-swung-to-the-right-recently/792193.md?page=2)