Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
Here and there, in political reporting’s nooks and crannies, are theories that, given Kamala Harris’s strides, and Donald Trump’s stumbles, Democrats’ Harris-Walz ticket could – could, maybe, might – capture Ohio in November.
That’s beyond unlikely, even considering the flak the Ohioan who’s Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD (James David) Vance, a Cincinnati Republican, is drawing.
True, Harris, Joe Biden’s vice president, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have stoked enormous enthusiasm nationally among Democrats, and Democrat-leaning independents, who had been terrified that Biden’s demonstrable weaknesses would usher Trump back into the White House.
Now, though, public opinion surveys nationwide suggest that – at least at the moment a given poll was taken – the Harris-Walz ticket is briskly competitive with, and in some instances, leads, the Trump-Vance ticket.
JD Vance has some nerve. Childless cat ladies I know are more invested in kids.
Does history teach us anything about Harris’ chance in Ohio?
The key words are “at the moment.”
The election, on Nov. 5, is 80-odd days away. And the Democratic National Convention, which opens tomorrow in Chicago, could as easily illustrate Democratic divisions — over, say, the Israeli-Palestinian war — as party unity behind Harris and Walz’s team.
(It may be telling, incidentally, that Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat who’s being challenged for re-election this year by Republican Bernie Moreno, a Greater Cleveland entrepreneur, won’t attend the Democratic convention.)
True, since the Second World War ended in 1945, Democratic presidential nominees have carried Ohio in 1948, 1964, 1976, 1992, 1996, 2008, and 2012: Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and, twice each, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Given this campaign year’s specifics, and the likely closeness, either way, of November’s national tally, any Ohio victory – again, however unlikely – by Democrats’ Harris-Walz ticket would almost certainly be as razor-close as Harry Truman’s victorious Ohio margin in 1948, and Jimmy Carter’s, in 1976.
In 1948, Truman – who sometimes seems like the last authentic human being to have served as president – carried Ohio by only about 7,100 votes statewide, besting GOP presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey.
Truman carried a number of Ohio’s Appalachian and Corn Belt counties, and suburban Cincinnati’s Butler County, J.D. Vance’s home county.
Today, Butler is so far to the right that one of its state senators, West Chester Republican George F. Lang, drew worldwide attention for saying last month at a Vance rally, “I’m afraid if we lose this one” – the Trump-Vance campaign– “it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.” After drawing searing criticism, Lang said he regretted his remarks. In any case, no way will the Harris-Walz ticket do what Harry Truman did: Carry Butler County.
My Republican Party is gone. America will follow under Trump. Ohio dismantling truth.
As for Carter’s 1976 Ohio victory, he carried the state by just slightly more than 11,000 votes over Republican Gerald R. Ford, in large part by carrying Appalachian counties that Democrats till then had seldom captured.
Then-Ohio House Speaker Vernal G. Riffe, a Scioto County Democrat, later said he’d left the 1976 Democratic National Convention with a spring in his step because he believed Carter, the party’s nominee, because of Carter’s Southern and Baptist heritage, would draw votes in parts of Ohio Democratic presidential candidates by then had seldom carried.
Riffe was correct: Democrat Carter (and running mate Walter Mondale) carried a number of Ohio’s Appalachian counties, helping him clinch Ohio.
Carter’s 1976 margin in some of those counties was about 12,700 votes, or 115% of his statewide edge (approximately 11,000 votes). That won the state for him.
How CAN Kamala Harris steal Ohio from Trump?
Now, though, consider what Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential vote share was in those pro-Carter Appalachian counties: Perry, 74%; Hocking, 70%; Vinton, 77%; Meigs and Jackson, 76% each; Pike 74%; Lawrence, 53%; Brown, 54%; Adams, 51%; and Scioto, 71%.
Is anything like that probable in the Ohio, 2024? The answer is obvious.
That’s why the main goals of the state’s Democrats – to have any hope of besting Trump and Vance – should be to boost voter turnout among Black Ohioans (which Harris’s candidacy will likely help) and in suburban Ohio communities.
Short of that, Ohio will be in November what it seems like it is today, if with less enthusiasm than in 2020: Trump Country.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Does Ohio belong to Donald Trump? How Kamala Harris can win it.
