Ohio no longer a swing state but still has national role in final 2024 campaign stretch

So the cookouts, fireworks shows, parades and Labor Day picnics are behind us. Now the focus on the 2024 elections in Ohio intensifies for the next two months as campaigns begin their stretch drives to Election Day.

"Ohio has been in suspended animation this summer," said David Niven, University of Cincinnati political scientist. "Having fallen all the way from being the most competitive electoral state to being totally ignored, the energy of the presidential race has been elsewhere."

But if you think you’ve already seen a lot of political advertising, they’re just getting warmed up. The "full deluge" of campaign ads is still to come, Niven said. Third-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s reelection bid against businessman Bernie Moreno is at the top of any short lists of the most important Senate races nationally.

Republican Donald Trump’s second 8-percentage-point victory in Ohio in 2020 while losing the national presidential election halted Ohio’s long traditional role as a bellwether state. Yet the state is very much involved in this year’s race for the White House.

Vance can make Ohio political history

That starts with first-term Sen. J.D. Vance, now a vice presidential nominee just eight years after first gaining public attention as the author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy. His election would make him the first Ohio-born VP in nearly 100 years, and the first to not only have been born in Ohio but to have grown up in the state and entered politics in Ohio (two others were Indiana governors and the third got into politics while living in Illinois).

More: What JD Vance loves about his Cincinnati neighborhood

Vance’s main campaign roles seem to be highlighting GOP efforts to attract blue-collar votes in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin while serving as a Trump campaign spokesman on national talk shows and in rallies. He likely will be back in Ohio to campaign for Moreno, also Trump-backed.

Disagreement about impact of Harris candidacy

The sudden ascension this summer of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee in place of Joe Biden has thrown some new elements into the 2024 campaign. Harris’ candidacy has increased interest among female, young and Black voters. That’s likely good news in Ohio for Democratic candidates.

"Vice President Harris helped resuscitate the Democratic ticket in Ohio. Even though she won't even bother to compete here, the energy she has brought to the campaign and brought out in voters makes it plausible for Sherrod Brown to succeed," Niven said.

More: Ohio hasn't been a swing state for years. Could November change that?

However, veteran Republican strategist Mark Weaver doesn’t think that will alter the big picture here.

"Ohio is not in play in the presidential," Weaver said. "Trump will win by 7% to 11%, and the Democrats would be imprudent to spend ad dollars to prop up Harris here."

Having Trump at the top of the ticket will help Republicans more than Harris will help Democrats in the state, Weaver thinks.

"Brown and Moreno will be close," Weaver said of the Senate race that will likely be pivotal to control of the upper chamber in Washington. "The Trump margin could bring Bernie to victory."

EXTRA POINT

Ohio Republicans using smoke and mirrors on gerrymandering

Voters are supposed to choose their elected officials. In Ohio, politicians pick their voters.

The statewide Issue 1 this November is aimed at ending gerrymandering in Ohio by taking political pros out of the process after years of Republican super-majorities drawing electoral maps to stack decks in their favor and conduct elections under court-rejected maps.

More: Supporters of Issue 1 sue over Ohio Ballot Board's wording of redistricting issue

It also continues an emerging trend in which Ohio Republicans who know they are on the wrong side politically of an issue try to confuse voters with ballot language. Last August, it was the Issue 1 measure trying to get voters to make it harder to pass an abortion rights measure. It failed, and voters in November made abortion access an Ohio constitutional right.

This November, voters are asked to weigh in on how to stop partisan gerrymandering. But the ballot wording can leave them scratching their heads about what exactly their vote will do.

Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice, Maureen O ‘Connor, who’s been leading the gerrymandering reform campaign, called Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s ballot language illegal and manipulative, saying it violates the state constitution’s prohibition against "language designed to mislead, deceive or defraud voters."

LaRose likes to use the unoriginal slogan "easy to vote and hard to cheat." How about making state ballot issues easy to understand?

Suggestion to voters: if you don’t like gerrymandering, don’t vote the way the people who’ve been doing the gerrymandering want you to.

If you’re against gerrymandering, vote for Issue 1.

Dan Sewell is a regular Opinion contributor to The Enquirer. Contact: [email protected]

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Trump helps Republicans more than Harris helps Democrats in Ohio