Why is Ohio so much different than it was in 08 and 2012?

[redstateblues]

It was close for sure but this time around all the pundits are saying it is going red-although I noticed Hillary is there today so they obviously haven't given up on it. Anyone have a little insight?

[Buzz Clik]

1. this is the difference:

[geek tragedy]

4. I'd say for 2008 and 2012 it wasn't him but, respectively, these guys

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. It's not

Hillary will win Ohio.

[Joe941]

17. this

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. It probably isn't any different.

Most likely he will lose Ohio in the end.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. I haven't seen a post-debate poll yet.

I found an unscientific one that was done only in Cuyahoga County, and it gave Clinton a 3% bump after the debate.

If she gained 3% across the state, she might be winning! Why no recent polls?! Did I just miss them?

If Trump wins Ohio in November, I suspect it's mostly related to this state losing many manufacturing jobs over the years and the blaming of trade deals. Trump blamed trade deals right out of the gate of his campaign, and that probably found an audience among many Ohioans.

I still don't accept the notion that Trump will win Ohio, though!

[geek tragedy]

6. Ohio has a disproporationate number of uneducated white voters.

Uneducated white men across the country love Donald Trump. A lot of them dream about not only wealth and fame, but also being able to treat women like disposable sex toys and to say what they really think of racial minorities.

He appeals to them in a way that Mitt Romney didn't--Obama buried Romney has an effete, out of touch plutocrat there--ran a campaign strategy of discouraging Republican-leaning WWC voters from voting.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. Ugh. Not true.

There's a higher percentage of college grads in Ohio compared to California, for example.

Ohio doesn't have an especially large percentage of white evangelicals either.

It's Trump's complaints about past trade deals that probably helped him somewhat, at least here.

[geek tragedy]

15. The key metric isn't voters without degrees, it's white voters without degrees

The white population, though, merits further examination because polls show Trump consistently overperforming Mitt Romney with whites who do not have at least a bachelor’s degree (particularly among men in that group) while underperforming Romney amongst whites who do have a bachelor’s degree. That tradeoff might ultimately not work out in Trump’s favor amongst the national electorate, but it might in Ohio, which is less educated than the country. Nationally, about 29% of Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree, while just about 26% of Ohioans do.

According to the Upshot at the New York Times, the national electorate should be nearly 45% non-college educated white and nearly 30% college-educated white (that site generally believes that exit polls overstate the percentage of nonwhites and college graduates in the electorate). In Ohio, based on the New York Times’ analysis and our own research, the Ohio electorate should be about half non-college white in 2016 and about a third college-educated white. In other words, the gap between non-college and college-educated whites in Ohio is a little bit larger than the national gap, so a growing educational difference in white voter preference — with Trump overperforming with non-college graduates and underperforming with college graduates — probably works more to Trump’s advantage in Ohio than it might in some other states.

So for historical and demographic reasons, we should expect Trump to do better in Ohio than he does nationally. By how much is the key question. Currently, polling averages show Trump doing about five points better, in terms of margin, in Ohio than nationally. That would be the biggest difference between Ohio’s margin and the national margin since, yes, 1960, when Nixon won the state by about 6.5 points in what effectively was a tied race nationally (Kennedy won the national vote by two-tenths of a point that year).

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/why-trump-will-do-better-in-ohio-than-he-does-nationally/

There's also the simpler explanation, that Ohio usually leans to the right of the country as a whole by 1-3%.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

19. I would be more interested in which group was more affected by loss of manufacturing jobs.

It's a safe bet that white Ohioans without college degrees were hit the hardest by those job losses.

Pointing out a slightly lower percentage of college grads in Ohio compared to the national average strikes me as pointless when there's bluer states with a lower percentage.

I agree that Ohio tends to lean Republican, especially in less populated areas.

[geek tragedy]

24. Trump supporters are no worse off than non-Trump supporters

three variables--education, race, gender--drive the vast majority of it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/12/a-massive-new-study-debunks-a-widespread-theory-for-donald-trumps-success/

Trump's supporters do live and work in economies reliant on manufacturing that have been exposed to intense competition from China. They themselves believe their personal finances have been negatively affected by trade: A poll by the Pew Research Center during the primary found that 60 percent of Trump's supporters said trade had hurt their family's finances, compared with 42 percent of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's supporters and 36 percent of those supporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).

Yet the Gallup analysis shows that Americans who live in places where employment in manufacturing has declined since 1990 are not more favorable to Trump. Rothwell did not find a relationship when he focused only on white respondents, either, or even specifically on white Republicans.


Trump's supporters have many other traits in common with the factory workers whose economic prospects have been negatively affected by automation and global trade. They tend to be less educated men who hold blue-collar occupations.

Yet those two broad trends in factory work do not account for Trump's appeal, Rothwell's analysis suggests. In fact, among those who share other traits, those who live in districts with more manufacturing are less favorably disposed toward Trump.

Rothwell even found that evidence that people in places affected by Chinese competition viewed Trump more unfavorably. Rothwell, however, was less confident in this finding because of statistical uncertainty.

It seems pretty obvious that Trump's base is unenlightened white men.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

25. Interesting. I stand corrected then.

It's especially interesting that Trump's primary supporters claimed to be most hurt by loss of manufacturing jobs, but that areas most affected by such losses didn't support him as much.

[geek tragedy]

27. the politics of white grievance is what Nixon rode to the White House.

the alleged assailants of white America have changed--hippies, blacks, feminists, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, blacks again, Arabs, gays/lesbians, refugees, Muslims, transpeople, blacks again--but the sense of victimhood remains constant. Particularly exaggerated amongst evangelicals, who make it seem like they're being burned at the stake because they can't use schools to proselytize.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

31. Yeah, I'm aware.

I've worked in factories and saw people brainwashed by Republican propagandists in recent years too.

Limbaugh told them that business owners could pay more if they didn't have to pay such high taxes, with black welfare recipients mostly to blame. Not that it was accurate at all, but it was an "answer" they heard for why their parents had less of a financial struggle.

EDIT: I even had a lowly paid white co-worker argue that "hand outs" were to blame while he also argued that the wealthy should pay far lower taxes because "they're the ones who give us jobs."
It reminded me of someone from the Middle Ages arguing in favor of royalty because it was Kings and Queens who allowed them to be serfs!

[whatthehey]

22. Sadly not

22% to 29%. Ohio is lower end of the main pack in education rather than the basement though at 38th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_educational_attainment

It's also a bit more Christian and evangelical than the nation but not the "worst" at 73 and 29 opposed to 70 and 25 on average

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

Little bit whiter than the norm at 83 but again not much above median

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/white-population-percentage

And again a bit poorer than the norm at 35th in median income - still within broad mainstream bunch though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income

So overall if you wanted to identify states by how "Republican" they trended this year, Ohio would seem to be what it is polled as - one likely to be a bit more R than D as it's whiter, more religious, lower middle class and a bit less educated than the average.

No surprises really but I think the difference is the direction. Most states are getting more diverse less religious and more educated, with the exception of conservative hellholes. Ohio isn't close to being one of them right now, but it's starting to tip a little bit towards that. The black poulation of Ohio increased by 15.9% between 2000 and 2016. It increased nationally by 19.8%, so Ohio is "underperforming" the increasing diversity metric, even though its black population right now is almost exactly average

[Buckeye_Democrat]

29. Okay.

Ohio ranked 25th in percentage of college grads in 2010 according to the Dept. of Education, but that was among younger adults:
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/new-state-state-college-attainment-numbers-show-progress-toward-2020-goal

I can imagine that many older Ohioans never graduated from college, though. Lots of them probably never thought it was necessary with plentiful well-paying factory jobs in the past.

[whatthehey]

36. That's also a poor sign I'm afraid

If a higher ratio of young people have degrees than older people, obviously that means Ohio is exporting graduates. Now part of that is having an extremely large public university system, and part is that Ohio ranks quite highly in keeping college-bound HS seniors in in-state institutions (the two are related of course) but it's also because educated young adults with sheepskin in hand look elsewhere for jobs and settled homes.

There is a huge range in this metric. 74% of WV graduates leave and the same percentage of WA graduates stay. OH again is middle of the pack, a bit worse than average. There seems to be only vague drivers to this pattern. "Empty" states like ND and NE do very badly as do those without major cities like ID and DE. The Midwest in general suffers a bit possibly due to inclement weather and uninspiring natural attractions. OH has large cities and hardly the worst weather in the nation but it's not going to compete with the cosmopolitan mega-cities or the sunbelt. So what happens? Population gets less well-educated over time.

The manufacturing employment loss is national, with only a few isolated havens getting better like the southern states' auto manufacturing boom and a couple of medical device and biotech hubs. But this is not really a political issue any more than it's a local one. The US manufactures more in real dollars now than we did in the 70s, but we manufacture fewer labor-intensive low-cost necessities like underwear and more capital-intensive high ticket items like factory machines. We need fewer people to make the latter, and cannot afford to pay people $15 an hour to make the former.

OH isn't like KS by any means. They are very very slowly only just starting on that path. It would take a long unbroken tenure of unchallenged RWNJ theo-crazy legislatures and governors to tip the balance to becoming a red state hellhole, and I don't see that happening right now. But it might. Once the ball starts rolling it's hard to stop, as a more conservative population elects more RW officials, who make the place worse for moderates and liberals, who leave and make a more conservative population who.... ad infinitum. Nationally we have to hope that the pattern of blue-state migration and increasing diversity into places which currently ARE RW hellholes but could one day tip the other way like NC, SC or AZ will override the RWNJ-ization of the Midwest and Plains states. In a generation I could easily see the Republican L becoming a Republican bar right through the middle.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

37. Lots of college grads leave here, from what I've observed.

I'm not sure if statewide data would support my anecdotal observations, but it wouldn't surprise me. EDIT: Sorry, I missed your answer to this question when I skimmed your reply earlier.

I probably would have left Ohio years ago to accept a job offer at Los Alamos. I was concerned about the care of my elderly parents, however. As it turned out, all of my older siblings moved back here later!

[jcgoldie]

7. I still like her chances but

One big difference is Donald Trump's (racist) appeal with working class whites and his anti-trade message play a lot better in places like Ohio than Mitt Romney the 47%er.

[Fast Walker 52]

20. yes, that's seems to be the conventional explanation, which makes sense

[s-cubed]

8. Ohio trends whiter, older, less ducted. Urban areas are different,

and will probably outweigh the rural.

[maxsolomon]

9. economic anxiety is somehow greater

and it's been laid at democrat's feet by the RW media that controls local information (and my Ohio father's brain).

I doubt there's many Trump voters who know the definitions of
1. Obstruction
2. Keynesian Stimulus

[geek tragedy]

11. it's curious how this "economic anxiety" seems to manifest itself most strongly

in poorly educated white racists though.

[maxsolomon]

14. very cogent point

but, to use my only example of an Ohio trump voter (my 80 year old dad), he's

1. not particularly racist
2. retired with a pension
3. college educated

he's more brainwashed by decades of RW claptrap (Faux, WLW, his golfing buddies) and unwilling to listen to his 4 far-left children, all of whom have steady jobs and are not 'takers'. he gets angry and defensive at about the 3rd question, when the rationale for Trump breaks down.

[brush]

10. They don't know anymore than we do. Trump is polling at 0% in Detroit. Cleveland is propably close

to that. Trump is losing white, suburban women as well. Other POC and also leaning towards Clinton so unless Trump's racist, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-handicapped supporters outnumber Clinton's voters, I don't see why Ohio should be much different than in '08 and '12 when Romney and McCain had a much larger percentage of suburban women.

FUD is being spread about.

[dawg]

13. Ohio was close every time.

Iowa is the state that has gone completely off the rails. (And Virginia, from a Republican perspective.)

[SharonClark]

16. I agree and I live there

How embarrassing if Iowa goes with Trump. The inexplicably popular Charles Grassley is running a lot of puke-worthy ads that lie about his record of being 'non-partisan' and Grassley endorsed Trump. I've heard that Iowa is ideal for Trump with many under-educated white male workers.

[exboyfil]

33. I don't watch alot of television ads

but I have to wonder why Judge is not trying to wrap Trump around Grassley's neck. Same goes for Vernon (which is my Congressional district).

I notice a lot of yard signs don't include Trump-Pence (they have the state races, some of the Senate and Congressional races, but very few Presidential/VP signs).

[greatlaurel]

18. These articles saying HRC cannot win Ohio are laying the groundwork for election theft.

The Ohio Republican Party is extraordinarily corrupt. They are robbing the citizens of Ohio blind. It gets no national media attention and the local broadcast and print media outlets are controlled by right wing loons who support and benefit by the Republican thefts of tax dollars and public property.

The election theft was planned in Ohio for the 2012 election and many of the same media stories were planted to lay cover for the election theft. Remember Karl Rove's on air melt down over the Ohio results with Megyn Kelly in 2012? The Obama administration was watching them and the local Rethugs chickened out of whatever shenanigans were planned since the national election was not close and Ohio was not going to be the difference in the election.

Ohio does have a lot of conservative voters, especially in the rural and suburban areas filled with frightened white people who are easily manipulated by the corrupt media that pushes the right wing racist and sexist themes to keep them terrified and voting against their economic self interests. However, there are more than enough Democratic Party voters to overcome those low information voters, if they can get to the polls and if their votes are counted. Ohio routinely has more Democratic votes, but sends more Rethugs to Congress due to extreme gerrymandering and massive voter suppression.

Please note the corrupt Jon Husted, Ohio's Srecretay of State, who thinks he is going to be promoted for complying with election theft, does not want any federal aid to make sure the vote in Ohio is protected. Why is he so upset with federal help to protect the vote in Ohio from the very real prospect of voter hacking for which he does not have the resources to prevent? Here is a link to an article in which he demands the fed stay out of Ohio.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/husted-warns-against-federal-overreach-in-election/nshJK/

[Fast Walker 52]

21. good points! And Ohio was always Ground Zero for electronic vote theft scenarios

[greatlaurel]

30. Thanks, I just wish the national Democratic Party would spend some time investigating Ohio.

The scandals in Ohio are multiplying exponentially, but no one with any authority is paying attention. The Ohio pension funds are being robbed, the public schools are being robbed, the state parks and preserve systems are being robbed, the state prison system farms are closed and the lands will be sold off to the enrichment of some crony capitalist and the inmates' food will be purchased from some corporate outfit that will further enrich Kasich and his pals. The prison farms being sold is clearly theft. The inmates were raising their own food, meat, dairy and vegetables, with enough surplus to provide food to local food pantries. Now, they will be forced to eat corporate swill infested with maggots, oops, that already happened here in Ohio.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/prison-maggots-food_n_5588439.html

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2014/07/maggots_found_in_three_ohio_pr.html

http://www.10tv.com/article/more-maggots-reported-food-ohio-prison

Oh and by the way, one of the excuses for closing the prison farms was that the farms were not training inmates for good jobs. Guess what the number one industry is in Ohio? Agriculture!!!!!

Strip mining a state nature preserve and turning over a site with critical salamander habitat to a developer are just a couple of the scandals under Kasich for our state parks and nature preserves.

https://thinkprogress.org/ohio-supreme-court-its-ok-to-strip-mine-state-wildlife-areas-397e9d79c4e9#.bh5x17an2 (This ruling came from an almost all Republican elected Ohio Supreme Court, the judges races are usually funded by right wing money grubbers.)

http://sierraclub.org/ohio/blog/2016/09/save-sawmill-wetlands

http://www.theoec.org/SawmillWetlands

Sorry for the rant, but Ohio's future is being stolen. It is easy to destroy, so hard to repair!

[exboyfil]

34. Still my brother and his wife are giddy for Trump

She is an R.N. He is medical equipment technician. They are also small business owners (an ice cream shop). They hated George W. Bush.

They live in the Youngstown area and work in a hospital there. One observation my brother made to me (we don't discuss politics) was the "insane" amount of expense associated with treating black shooting victims in the hospital - most of that being billed out to Medicaid.

I would not call my brother racist, but they are definitely looking at Trump's law and order rhetoric.

[Fast Walker 52]

39. but but but John Kasich seems like such a reasonable Republican!

[0rganism]

23. maybe there's down-ballot drag from Strickland?

i've seen some comments to the effect that his senate campaign is not going well. maybe some of that is turning into a liability for HRC?

[FarPoint]

26. Gun laws...

Open carry, Fox News only media source as local news only plays Fox updates/ sub news all Fox based etc.. in rural areas,ammosexuals, loss of manufacturing jobs....

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

28. Projected turnout in Cleveland, Columbus etc

Obama's huge numbers among minorities was a firewall to the rural idiots.

[greatlaurel]

32. Bingo! But there are many good Democrats living and working in rural areas working for votes

Thanks! We need every vote to turn Ohio blue!

[hollowdweller]

35. Not that much has gotten better in OH since then

If the economy in the more rural areas had picked up....or if there had been a bunch more gov't jobs for people to have, then it would be different.

[MyNameIsKhan]

38. I do not buy this, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton will produce all the votes needed to win Ohio.