T
he coming year looks to be full of intense national political battles, and we’re right in the middle of them. The 2016 presidential race is laser-focused on Ohio, and the state’s U.S. Senate race looks to be a pivotal one. And, oh yeah, we also have a governor running for president. Combine that with some interesting local issues and you’ve got one heck of an itinerary for politics junkies in 2016.
The Heart of it All
Have you heard? Ohio is so hot right now.
The 2016 election will almost certainly be a knock-down, drag-out fight between Democrats looking to maintain the presidency and the GOP, which now controls both houses of Congress. A large part of that battle will likely be fought here in the Heart of it All.
Last year, Republicans announced they’ll have their national convention, where they’ll officially choose their candidate for president, mid-July in Cleveland. That move looks likely to energize the GOP base here.
But that’s not the state’s only major political convention coming up. Cincinnati has been tapped for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s 2016 convention, traditionally a major rallying point for Democrats. It will also take place in mid-July. The civil rights group’s past election-year conventions have drawn major presidential candidates and national attention. The 2008 convention, also in Cincinnati, featured both then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.
Why so much love for the Buckeye State? Math and history. Ohio’s 18 electoral votes are vital in the path to the 270 needed to gain the presidency. Six other states have more electoral college votes — California has 55, for instance, and Texas has 38 — but most of them vote safely Democrat or Republican. Ohio, on the other hand, swings like a jazz band on New Year’s. It’s anybody’s game here.
That’s made the state vital to presidential hopefuls. No Republican candidate has ever taken the White House without the state. And not since Ohio went to Richard Nixon but the presidency went to John F. Kennedy in 1960 has a Democratic candidate won a presidential election without the Ohio’s electoral votes.
Ohio helped usher in President Barack Obama, voting for him in both 2008 and 2012. Obama took the state by some 266,000 votes in 2008. His margin of victory was 100,000 votes less healthy in 2012, perhaps in part because of a weakened Ohio Democratic Party. But we’ll get back to that.
The Democratic nominee — likely Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders — will wrangle with the winner of the free-for-all unfolding in the GOP featuring real estate mogul Donald Trump, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and others. As that happens, look for both parties to fight continuing ground wars over abortion rights, health care, immigration, racial issues and other political hot buttons in Ohio and Hamilton County, one of the most contested counties in the nation’s quintessential purple state.
It’s not just the presidency at stake in Ohio: A rager of a Senate race is shaping up between Republican incumbent Rob Portman and whoever wins the Democratic primary this coming spring. That could be former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, but Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld has remained stubborn in his primary challenge to Strickland. Sittenfeld doesn’t have Strickland’s name recognition, but he says his energy and new ideas will be more attractive to Ohio’s voters once they get to know him.
Sittenfeld has hit Strickland on progressive issues like climate change and gun control, has raised some money and held campaign events around Ohio, but has yet to have the breakout moment that would put him within striking distance of Strickland. So far, Strickland has the upper hand. A Quinnipiac poll released in the fall had Strickland up over Portman by a few percentage points. Portman, meanwhile, trounced Sittenfeld in that poll, 49 percent to 27 percent.
No matter who wins that primary, Democrats in Ohio will need all the help they can get next year as they fight to regain control of the Senate and keep control of the White House.
The still-weak Ohio Democratic Party is smarting from bruising defeats in last year’s gubernatorial race and other statewide contests. But the NAACP convention, an influx of attention from a Democratic presidential campaign in 2016 as well as the state’s big Senate race could help turn Democrat voters out on election day.
Meanwhile, Republicans will look to consolidate their advantages in the state at their convention in Cleveland. Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus has said the choice of convention site was about the city’s capacity to raise funds for the party and its ability to house and entertain visitors, but clearly Ohio’s status as a critical swing state was part of the equation. One of the other semifinalists for the party’s convention, after all, was Cincinnati.
Will Kasich beat the odds and make it to the big game?
Given the unprecedented zaniness of this year’s GOP presidential primary race, Ohio Gov. John Kasich was never going to have an easy ride. Real estate magnate Donald Trump has been the frontrunner in that race, after all — a man who wants to bar all Muslims from entering the U.S. and who has called Mexican immigrants rapists. And those right behind him in the polls aren’t much subtler. Former brain surgeon Ben Carson believes that biblical Joseph built the pyramids, for example, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who has taken a surge in polls recently, once cooked bacon by wrapping it around the barrel of a machine gun to underscore his stance on the Second Amendment.
Amid all the theatrics, how can a GOP establishment candidate stand out? Don’t ask Kasich, because he hasn’t figured that one out yet, either. So far, his campaign is fizzling much the same way his 1999 bid for the Republican presidential nomination did.
The guv has campaigned on his ability to win Ohio’s all-important electoral college votes and his extensive record as a career politician — from his time in Congress under the mid-1990s Newt Gingrich GOP revolution to his tenure as governor. Kasich claims to have taken Ohio from an $8 billion deficit to a $2 billion surplus in the latter stint. But Ohio’s economic growth has mostly mirrored or fallen behind much of the rest of the country’s post-recession recovery, and some of the state’s budget magic comes from Kasich’s shuffling taxes away from local governments toward the state’s general fund.
In a post-substance political world, those conservative policies haven’t helped him with the hardline GOP primary base anyway. Despite shifting Ohio’s tax structure toward the regressive side in a way that would have tears of joy trickling down any Reaganite’s cheeks, Kasich has consistently polled in the low single-digits for much of his primary campaign.
His debate performances also haven’t helped — he’s vacillated between a gentle, conciliatory tone that doesn’t play well with voters enraptured by Trump’s confrontational rhetoric and, in one debate at least, the polar opposite, constantly interrupting and shouting over other candidates in a frantic bid to get his share of air time. Other breakout attempts have also floundered — including picking Twitter fights with Trump and a quickly abandoned call to create a new federal agency to spread Judeo-Christian values throughout the Middle East.
So, now that the clock is ticking down, how much Kasich will we see in the 2016 race? His chances could all come down to New Hampshire. His campaign has indicated that if he doesn’t do well in the country’s second primary, which happens Feb. 9, he will bow out. Until recently, he was running in sixth place there. But a number of visits and an increase in campaign staff in the state might be paying off. A poll released Dec. 28 suggested Kasich has surged into third place in the pivotal state, behind only Trump and Rubio.
Ironically, the very things that have given Kasich trouble in the primary could make him a strong contender in the general election. His experience isn’t in vogue with the far-right, outsider-obsessed GOP primary voter, but could sway moderates on the fence. The same could be said of his occasional attempts at compassionate conservativism, such as his end-run around Ohio’s GOP-dominated legislature to usher in our state’s Medicaid expansion.
But Kasich will also have to account for some shady spots in his tenure as governor in the unlikely event he rises above the GOP’s presidential JV team. The most prominent among these: A charter school rating data-rigging scandal at the Ohio Department of Education that resulted in the dismissal of ODE official David Hansen, husband of Kasich’s former chief of staff and current head of his presidential campaign Beth Hansen.
Before the governor even starts worrying about explaining away that scandal to a national audience, he has to make himself a serious contender. Can Kasich pull a quick turnaround? Stay tuned.
Will Republicans continue to control the Hamilton County Commission?
Normally, county government is a sleepier corner of the political world: not as high-stakes as national elections and usually not quite as contentious or in the public eye as often as city council and mayoral elections. However, 2016 promises a Hamilton County Commission race that could change the balance of power on the currently Republican-dominated three-member group, which holds the reins of the county’s spending priorities. A shake-up could impact the county’s trajectory on transit, law enforcement, social services, historic preservation and other big issues.
Until recently, the commission had been made up of Republicans Chris Monzel and Greg Hartmann, with Hartmann acting as head of the group. Democrat Todd Portune rounds out the commission, but hasn’t been able to shift the county away from the conservative, budget-cutting approach favored by Monzel and Hartmann.
But Dems sense an opening. Hartmann was facing re-election in 2016, and Democrats have enlisted State Rep. Denise Driehaus to run for the seat. Driehaus is a big name in local politics. She’s represented Cincinnati in the state house since 2009 and is a familiar face at events supporting progressive issues. Her brother, Steve Driehaus, also spent a term representing much of the city and its western suburbs in Congress.
It seemed like an interesting matchup was set. Then, a plot twist: Earlier this month, Hartmann bowed out, saying he wouldn’t seek re-election. A number of local conservatives expressed some interest in running in his place, including Cincinnati City Council members Charlie Winburn and Amy Murray, both Republican, and Christopher Smitherman, an Independent. But other plans were afoot.
Cincinnati attorney and Colerain Township Trustee Dennis Deters threw his hat in the ring, and other GOP candidates backed off shortly afterward. What’s more, Hartmann subsequently resigned from his gig in the waning days of 2015. Under state law, the party represented by an outgoing official gets to decide that official’s replacement, and the Hamilton County GOP looks likely to tap Deters for the role.
“I couldn’t think of someone better to fill my spot,” Hartmann said after the news broke. “I think that he’s exactly what Hamilton County needs.”
That will give Deters almost a year of incumbency before the 2016 election. He also has name recognition going for him: His brother is Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, who is popular with conservatives and who will also be running for re-election in 2016.
Driehaus has shrugged off the Republican candidate shuffle.
“Regardless of who I’ll be running against — an elected incumbent, an appointed incumbent or a traditional Republican — I’m going to work passionately to win my fellow Hamilton County residents’ vote,” she said in a recent statement. “There’s too much at stake to get distracted by the backroom deal-making on the Republican side.”
Expect a hard-fought race ahead as the campaigns debate the merits of Driehaus’ more progressive politics and record versus the conservativism Deters brings to the table. The results could very well decide what Hamilton County looks like in the coming years.
The streetcar cometh… finally … and other local issues
2016 is the year the rubber meets the road — or actually, the steel wheels meet the steel rails — for Cincinnati’s streetcar. You’ve probably already seen it gliding around Over-the-Rhine and Downtown on empty test-runs like some space-age Flying Dutchman, and it’s set to begin serving real live passengers in September. And while the ongoing saga of the streetcar isn’t an electoral issue this year, you’d be hard pressed to make the argument that it isn’t political. So what’s ahead now that the streetcar is actually moving around town?
To be succinct: more fights about money. A recent analysis of the transit project’s operating income and expenses commissioned by City Manager Harry Black found that it could be more than $1 million over budget during its first few years. That’s including contingency funds promised by the nonprofit Haile/U.S. Bank Foundation. A deal that will allow developers along the streetcar route to increase the amount of time they enjoy tax abatements in exchange for contributing to the streetcar’s operating fund could fill some of that gap, but not all of it.
As you might expect, supporters of the project, including Cincinnati City Council Democrats like Vice Mayor David Mann, say they’re not worried and that there are plenty of ways to find the needed money. Meanwhile, streetcar opponents like Mayor John Cranley have highlighted the expected shortfall as a sign that the project will be a debacle. This probably all sounds very familiar if you’ve followed goings-on at City Hall over the past few years. Buckle up for at least one more year of it as supporters lobby to extend the project into Uptown and detractors continue to ask questions about the feasibility of the streetcar’s first phase.
There are other potentially huge items that voters may have to mull in 2016, including potential tax increases to pay for extending public preschool to low-income children in the city and a possible request by the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority to shore up the county’s bus service. There are big reasons to ask for these things: Cincinnati’s childhood poverty rate is an astounding 44 percent, and education in those kids’ pivotal formative years could help break the cycle of generational poverty that so many here are stuck in. Meanwhile, a recent study of Metro’s reach found that only 40 percent of jobs in the city are within one mile of Metro routes, meaning if you don’t have a car, you could find it very difficult to get to work in the city.
Neither of those efforts is 100 percent sure to result in a ballot initiative asking taxpayers to open their wallets, but both will very likely be expensive undertakings that will require public funds. Look for conversations around spending at the city and/or county level if so.
Happy new year. Are you ready for November? ©
This article appears in Dec 30, 2015 – Jan 5, 2016.