Glass Half Full
The Democrat came within a couple of thousand votes of winning Ohio’s 12thCongressional District last night. In an August special election to replace long time Republican Congressman Pat Tiberi, Democrat Danny O’Connor was within a percent of Republican Troy Balderson. There’s provisional ballots to count, and a potential recount, but in all likelihood Balderson will gain the seat, at least until November, when the two face off again.
The 12thhas been a traditional Republican district for decades, the last Democrat to win was in 1980. And with re-districting in 2011, the 12thwas even more “Republicanized.” It contains rural counties: Morrow, Muskingum, and parts of Richland and Marion. These are traditional farm and Republican strongholds, but while there’s a lot of geography, that’s not where the votes are.
The 12thalso has the northern Columbus suburbs in Franklin County. It’s hard to imagine that upscale residential suburbs of Worthington, Dublin and Westerville (as well as the northern residential areas within the city of Columbus) are now considered “Democrat;” but O’Connor’s 65% vote margin shows it’s true.
So it’s the balance, between the rural and the urban/suburban. And in between those two extremes are the “exurbs,” the tremendous residential neighborhoods that have grown beyond the Columbus outer-belt in the past forty years. Southern Delaware County and Western Licking County make up those areas, and hold the current balance in electoral outcomes.
Delaware County, where President Trump came for a pep rally last Saturday, ran close to it’s 55% Trump vote in 2016, with Baldeson getting almost 54%. But the upscale areas nearer Columbus ran more Democratic, raising the question of Trump’s impact on white suburban women, the “soccer moms.” If O’Connor made a dent in the Republican wall, it was there.
Where he didn’t have an impact was in Western Licking County, my home. Like clockwork, Licking County gave the Republican 60% of the vote, the same numbers that the area has produced for decades. The difference is that it is now much more populous, feeling the increasing Columbus growth pivoting to the east, and is another Republican bastion.
Things may be different in November in the 12th, when there is an election with more than one race on the ballot. A hotly contested gubernatorial race will head the ticket (Democrat Rich Cordray versus Republican Mike DeWine) and long serving Senator Sherrod Brown is up for re-election. Traditional wisdom would say that a November election would mean a greater turnout for Democrats; it wouldn’t take much to tip the scale for O’Connor.
But it will also take greater outreach to the outer suburbs, not necessarily to win Licking and Delaware counties, but to mitigate the losses.
That’s the “micro” version of this election. The “macro” version is more encouraging: in a Congressional District that voted 11% for Trump in 2016, that Pat Tiberi won by 66% in the same year, and has had a Republican Congressman for thirty-five years: a Democrat came within 1700 votes (out of 200,000) of crossing the finish line. If this district is “in play,” then the Republican Congress should put their “blue wave” life jackets on.
They’re going to drown.
