Ohio’s 12th
Tomorrow is election day, here in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District. Pat Tiberi, who represented the District from 2001 until this winter, chose to do what many “mainstream” Republican politicians found to be their best choice in the Trump era: he resigned from the House and went to make money in the private sector.
While the 12th District was redesigned after the 2010 census, it has always been Republican. The 2010 redistricting, the result of a Republican computer driven gerrymander, made it an even more Republican seat.
Today’s 12th District goes from Mansfield in the north, down I-71 sixty miles to include a sliver of the city of Columbus (for those who know the city, it’s the east side of High Street from OSU, then both sides of High Street to Worthington.) Then it includes the northern suburbs of Columbus including Dublin, Powell, Lewis Center, and Delaware County.
The district then goes east over sixty miles, splitting the suburb of Gahanna, includes all of Licking County, and into the rural eastern part of Ohio, with parts of Muskingum and Perry County. The gerrymander diluted the Democratic areas of Columbus and the smaller urban areas of Newark and Zanesville, with the massively suburban northern Columbus area, and the rural areas of the east.
For many years this was not a contested election. The Democrats would usually put a body on the ballot (and I would vote for them) but the reality was that Pat Tiberi, and before him John Kasich, were the overwhelming favorites. Tiberi won with over 66% of the vote in 2016; President Trump won by 11% over Clinton.
That’s not the case tomorrow. Tomorrow Republican Troy Balderson, a state representative from the Delaware area, is facing stiff opposition from Democrat Danny O’Connor, the current Auditor in Franklin County (Columbus and Central Ohio.) Current polling shows Balderson ahead, 46% to 45%.
Whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s vote, the Republican party has already gotten the message. They can no longer assume that the suburban vote is automatically “theirs.” With Trump’s numbers upside down with women, the “soccer mom” vote of suburban Worthington, Dublin, Olentangy and New Albany is up for grabs. And frankly, Trump’s rally on Saturday and Pence’s visit last Monday probably didn’t help.
The key to a Democratic victory tomorrow is turnout. The usual gripe: Democrats don’t show up for mid-term elections. Ohio looks like a “Red” state at first glance: only one Democrat holds statewide office, and both houses of the state legislature have large Republican majorities. But the results of the past several Presidential elections show that with a full Democratic turnout, Ohio can be, at the least, “purple.”
The higher the visibility of the race, the more likely Democrats will be motivated to go to the polls. What would normally be a “reflex” Republican district, now has the accelerant of a Presidential and Vice Presidential visit to drive Democrats out to vote. Republican Governor Kasich, who endorsed Balderson, suggests that the candidate didn’t want the President to come in for that reason. That didn’t stop the “Wrestlemania- like” Trump rally from coming to town, to Olentangy’s Orange High School, right in the heart of upper-middle class suburban Columbus.
This election is only for four months. No matter the results tomorrow, there will be a re-run in November, when the same two candidates will face off again. But with the focus of the nation, and both political parties, squarely on Ohio now, the money has flowed. The usual negative ads have been on television, with O’Connor claiming Balderson will raise the retirement age and cut social security, and Balderson claiming O’Connor is a Pelosi sycophant who will raise taxes and open the borders.
From inside the district, it really doesn’t feel like any of those claims have “stuck.”
Tomorrow then, ends up being a referendum on the President. The election is taking place in a District that overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016. If Danny O’Connor wins, it would be a huge upset; if he loses within a couple of points, it still will send a message. While the “Trump voter” may support Trump, that support doesn’t extend to Republican candidates in a general election.
Ohio’s 12th District will tell that tale tomorrow, and give all of us a better idea of what will happen in November. For those of us in the District, don’t forget to go out and vote (even if you may vote differently than I would.) For the rest, we will know more on Wednesday. Stay tuned.
