This week, we are talking about the mood of the Ohio voter. But there could be news on redistricting. By law, Ohio has to redraw its 15 congressional districts. Right now, Republicans hold 10 seats and Democrats hold 5. Republicans want to widen the gap, while Democrats are trying to hold on to whatever they can.
It looked like supermajority Republicans were going to steamroll a heavily gerrymandered map, but there is word of a compromise among Democrats and Republicans on the redistricting commission. Whatever happens, we’ll talk about it next week.
Next week is Election Day, and in Ohio, there are only local issues on the ballot and no statewide issues. Lots of school board seats, city council seats, township trustees and tax levies are on the ballot. If you’re mad about property taxes, or if you think your property taxes are money well spent, this is the election to show up.
But most probably won’t.
Once this election is out of the way, we can turn our full attention to the 2026 election. OK, much of our attention is already focused on 2026, but now we won’t have to feel guilty about it.
Here in Ohio, voters next year will decide races for governor, U.S. Senate, members of Congress, the state legislature and statewide offices. There may also be a couple of statewide questions on the ballot.
While President Trump is not on the ballot, the incumbent president always casts a big shadow over a midterm election. And the 47th president casts a really big shadow.
We have a good snapshot of how Ohio voters are feeling, a year out from the election that will decide the governor’s office and Congress. Bowling Green State University is out with its latest poll.
The top takeaways: President Trump’s popularity has dipped since he took office 10 months ago, and the races for governor and U.S. Senate appear very close, at least for now.
The director of the poll is Robert Alexander. He leads Bowling Green’s Democracy and Public Policy Network.
Snollygoster of the week
In the three federal elections since 2018, there were 16 million votes cast in Ohio.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose says that in those elections, 167 non-citizens voted illegally. That’s 167 out of 16 million — one one-thousandth of a percent.
But a crime is a crime. So LaRose referred those cases to county prosecutors, who did not see fit to charge those voters with a crime. Franklin County said there was not enough evidence.
Now, LaRose is sending the cases to the U.S. Justice Department to see if federal prosecutors will bring charges.
LaRose told reporters there does not appear to be a pattern to the cases, but it is unusual. True, it happens only one one-thousandth of a percent of the time.