Ohio, pulled in two directions

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by jpdivola

Not in the short term, but it seems like the politics will swing back somewhat in Ohio. As Columbus grows and some of the rural areas decline, it seems the Dems will be a bit better positioned. Maybe not in the legislature, but at least in the state wide races. Moderate Dems should be able to at least win a governors election.

That scenario has already happened to an extent even in very red states like Kansas. Most of the rural counties there have been in nonstop decline for over 100 years, and all of the population growth has been in eastern Kansas- Johnson County, a suburb of Kansas City, MO now has over 600,000 people and is becoming a blue county. The county is very well educated with well above average median household incomes. The state also has a Democratic governor.

[Cida]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

Yes, very much this. Such folks may have voted Democratic out of socio-economic interest, in an era when the Democratic party identified with organized labor, while the Republicans were the party of New England bankers (to coarsely generalize). Now that Democrats are primarily a white collar party - the party of software programmers, engineers, insurance agents, realtors, attorneys, teachers and so on - the lunch pale set (again to coarsely generalize) have switched allegiances. This has happened nationwide, but Ohio's demographics particularly reflect this.

It's all puzzling. One consistently puzzling aspect is why people seem to imagine they're voting in their economic interest when they're not. I have no problem with being willing to disregard economic interest in favor of other things (like when a person votes for a civil rights candidate or an anti-war candidate), but it's puzzling when people don't think through the economics.

Makes me think of the Thomas Frank book, although he used Kansas, not Ohio, as his example.

https://tcfrank.com/product/whats-th...r-with-kansas/

[jas75]

Originally Posted by jpdivola

Not in the short term, but it seems like the politics will swing back somewhat in Ohio. As Columbus grows and some of the rural areas decline, it seems the Dems will be a bit better positioned. Maybe not in the legislature, but at least in the state wide races. Moderate Dems should be able to at least win a governors election.

Ohio hasn't had a hard core #MAGA nominee for governor yet, but it's probably just a matter of time. When Republicans choose such a nominee they are unlikely to win by the wide margins achieved by DeWine or Kasich, who received strong support from moderate voters. But it will likely take an extremely competent and charismatic Democrat who can't be credibly characterized as "radical left" to make it a real contest.

[Natural510]

Originally Posted by jas75

Ohio hasn't had a hard core #MAGA nominee for governor yet, but it's probably just a matter of time. When Republicans choose such a nominee they are unlikely to win by the wide margins achieved by DeWine or Kasich, who received strong support from moderate voters. But it will likely take an extremely competent and charismatic Democrat who can't be credibly characterized as "radical left" to make it a real contest.

JD Vance is the senatorial version (no one licks Trump’s boots as cleanly, outside of Jim Jordan), so it’s just a matter of time.