Ohio, A Political Bellwether No More.
“Amid the larger, pro-Republican trends in the Industrial North, there has been some pro-Democratic movement in the region’s collar counties — movement that was vital in Joe Biden’s efforts to reclaim some of these states in 2020. For instance, some of the still-red Milwaukee collar counties — Waukesha and Ozaukee, two of the state’s three so-called WOW counties —both saw their GOP presidential margins drop double-digits from 2012 to 2020. In Michigan, the Detroit satellites of Oakland and Washtenaw counties got bluer, and in southeast Pennsylvania, the Democratic margin in Philadelphia’s northwest neighbor, Montgomery County, nearly doubled. Overall, the trade-offs were still good for Trump in this region, but his erosion from Mitt Romney’s performance in some key suburban places contributed to his narrow losses in the old “Blue Wall” in 2020.”
I grew up in Northern Ohio, the suburbs of Toledo to be exact. The city and metro area were always Democratic from my recollection. My father, however, was always staunchly Republican and I recall several intense political discussions with family and neighbors and him being the decidedly odd man out. Ohio was always the average American place to live and rode the waves of broader American sentiments regarding religion, politics and the like. No more apparently, after the Obama Presidency, or maybe during, things changed, and Ohio began losing ground in the prosperity department largely due to lower rates of education among its population. As the income and overall wellbeing began falling the politics moved to aggrieved voting category, casting votes against the ‘elites’ that have caused this quagmire of declining quality of living. There is stands, Ohio the Presidential kingmaker no more.
