President Donald Trump winning Ohio by 8-points over his Democratic challenger two elections in a row has strategists wondering if Ohio is now a solidly red state.
The Trump Campaign says they built on the 2016 victory by getting more votes in historically Democratic strongholds, flipping blue counties such as Mahoning and Lorain.
Republican strategist Mark Weaver believes the results make Ohio less of a battleground state in future presidential elections.
"It's hard to make the case to come to Ohio as a swing state when the Republican candidate has won it with 8 points or better two cycles in a row," Weaver said.
Along with Trump's wins in 2016 and 2020, Ohio has seen a Republican sweep of the statewide executive races (governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor) since 2010.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is the only Democrat to consistently run a successful statewide campaign in Ohio in recent years. He says it's still a winnable state, but the party needs to do a better job of connecting with voters with a pro-worker message.
"In terms of being a red or blue state, we are clearly a state that's difficult to win for Democrats. But I won the state by a pretty healthy margin, 7%, and I'm not exactly a conservative, hide-in-the-corner, don't-speak-out, kind of Democrat. So I think it's still a winnable state," Brown said.
The only other Democrats to win statewide races in Ohio in the last decade have been four supreme court justices: Bill O'Neill, Michael Donnelly, Melody Stewart, and Jennifer Brunner.
Copyright 2020 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.
