A “thoroughly red state” doesn’t repeatedly elect a Democratic senator. Nor would it give more support to the Democrat running for Rob Portman’s old seat than the Republican candidate. North Carolina is similar — we have a Democratic governor and the race to replace Republican Senator Richard Burr is a dead heat between the right wing Ted Budd and Cheri Beasley, an African American woman who was our Supreme Court Chief Justice and has twice won statewide election to our Supreme Court. I have lived in both states in both, unlike thoroughly red Texas, where I have also lived, Democrats regularly get elected to statewide offices.
No, especially when you consider that voting trends show that Ohio breaks 54% Republican and 46% Democrat. There are many instances where more people vote for Democrats in Ohio but Republicans still win because of how Republicans gerrymandered the state after the 2010 census.
I think suburban white voters, especially the women, who are the reason Democrats can get elected in both Ohio and North Carolina. Here in NC there has been a definite move away from rightwingers in that group of voters in the last two elections. My suburban area went for Biden which was a shock since it has never gone for a Democrat in the almost thirty years I have lived here. The area in northern Ohio where I lived before moving here is also showing the same kind of shift among suburban voters.
That does not explain why Ohio is a thoroughly red state that backed Trump in the primary in both 2016 and 2020.
A “thoroughly red state” doesn’t repeatedly elect a Democratic senator. Nor would it give more support to the Democrat running for Rob Portman’s old seat than the Republican candidate. North Carolina is similar — we have a Democratic governor and the race to replace Republican Senator Richard Burr is a dead heat between the right wing Ted Budd and Cheri Beasley, an African American woman who was our Supreme Court Chief Justice and has twice won statewide election to our Supreme Court. I have lived in both states in both, unlike thoroughly red Texas, where I have also lived, Democrats regularly get elected to statewide offices.
No, especially when you consider that voting trends show that Ohio breaks 54% Republican and 46% Democrat. There are many instances where more people vote for Democrats in Ohio but Republicans still win because of how Republicans gerrymandered the state after the 2010 census.
New constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018 were supposed to fix that but it turns out the carrots built into the new redistricting commission aren't working. Jane Meyer did an excellent writeup of this recently in The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy
All that matters is how it ends. Women have lost in Ohio.
A link to an article behind a paywall is useless to me.
I think suburban white voters, especially the women, who are the reason Democrats can get elected in both Ohio and North Carolina. Here in NC there has been a definite move away from rightwingers in that group of voters in the last two elections. My suburban area went for Biden which was a shock since it has never gone for a Democrat in the almost thirty years I have lived here. The area in northern Ohio where I lived before moving here is also showing the same kind of shift among suburban voters.