In every election since Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in 1860, Ohio has only voted against the eventual winner of the presidency four times with the last time happening 60 years ago. In addition to this, no Republican candidate has won the presidency without winning the state as well. In November, we’ll see if President Trump will be able to build on the movement that led him to the White House in 2016 or if Vice President Biden can swing this battleground state and secure the spot for himself.
In 1960, the last time Ohioans voted against the eventual winner of the presidency, the state represented 25 electoral votes. Over the years their population has declined relative to the rest of the country and their vote share has diminished too. Even though they only have 18 votes this year, those votes make up a bloc that both parties are eager to get in their camp.
As a true bellwether state, both the Biden and Trump campaigns have been closely watching the polls to see if their candidate is favored to come out on top.
Throughout 2020, most major polling has been divided with 50% showing that the state is a true toss-up with no definitive favorite and 50% saying that the state favors Donald Trump.
Though this polling is inconclusive, it looks very similar to polling in 2016. If that’s the case, Trump could enjoy a very healthy victory in the state.
In 2016, Trump did just that by capturing his victory in the state by over 8%, the largest victory for anyone in Ohio since 1988 when George H. W. Bush won by 11%. When H. W. Bush won, he was coming off the repeat wins as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President; this could give Biden some hope. Though he took an election cycle off in between, he might be able to use some of the momentum from his wins as Barack Obama’s VP in 2008 and 2012 to secure a victory of his own.
Honestly, looking at the data we shouldn’t be surprised if Ohio goes either way. The key for both candidates is going to be how well their respective messages resonate with blue collar workers and independents.
In 2019, Ohio was the third largest manufacturing state in America with 17% of its workforce in these jobs. These and other blue collar workers were the core voter base who gave Trump his victory in 2016. If either candidate wants to win the presidency, they’ll be a key constituency. With the coronavirus pandemic causing major financial setbacks to the economy, selling the voters on a plan to safely and effectively get production back on track is critical. Trump has spent the last four years bringing jobs back to state, but this year’s losses from the pandemic and his delayed response might be enough to make them interested in someone new.
One way to guess how a state will likely vote in the general election is to look at the voting pattern of the last midterm election. However, Ohio, in the words of Bart Simpson, is “a land of contrasts.”
In the 2018 midterm election, Ohioans not only had no change in party representation to the House of Representatives, re-electing every incumbent who ran, but they also re-elected Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown to another term. On the gubernatorial front, with Republican Governor John Kasich unable to run for reelection due to the state’s two-term restriction, Ohio chose Republican Mike DeWine, a former US Senator, over Democrat Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Obama administration. It’s worth noting that since Kasich lost the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, he became a vocal Trump critic, so much so that he spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention where he endorsed Joe Biden.
Maybe Ohio is just an enigma. Though they seem interested in one party for a while, you can’t really pin them down. Maybe they just like seeing a familiar face in office who gives them results. If that’s the case, whose face will they go with? Trump may have brought back jobs from overseas to the Buckeye State, but Biden was part of the auto industry bailouts that may have saved Ohio from complete economic collapse.
