Some people like to stare at the map from '16 (see above tweet), and conclude that Dems just can't win Ohio
Others like to talk to a few white male voters somewhere in Ohio & conclude, "see, it's Trump country."
And when they do that, they are making two big mistakes:
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A major shift has occurred in Ohio since 2016.
And by staring at that old map, and only talking to a few white men, folks miss it entirely.
And that shift is that the large suburbs of our state have been on a major trajectory to the center and left for about a decade...
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...and it's been driven largely by women.
Trump has dramatically accelerated that shift.
To actually see that shift, you must do two things, but neither is very difficult.
First, you must look at Ohio maps AFTER 2016.
Second, you actually must talk to women.
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If you do those things, you will see the shift.
First, you see it in the fact that Sherrod Brown won reelection in '18 by even more than he did in '12 (Obama was on the ballot!) Why? Big numbers in the suburbs
Second, Ohio Dems hadn't flipped a single statehouse district...
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...all decade. Gerrymandering made most seats unwinnable, until....
2018, when we flipped six House seats and a State Senate seat.
Where? Suburbs.
Why? Women -- voting, running, and winning.
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Overall, on the strength of that shift, the breakdown in statehouse races was 50%-49%, and the breakdown in our US House races was 52%-48%. (gerrymandering masks that fact, creating supermajorities for the GOP).
We also won both Supreme Court seats.
A red Ohio? Nope.
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Now we didn't win everything we wanted in 2018. On the strength of directly appealing to women (and a Kasich endorsement), Gov. DeWine did better in the suburbs than Trump, so he held on to win by 3.7.
But even then, our '18 Senate/Gov result (+7/-3.5) was better..
...than other swing states, such as Arizona (+2.4/-14) and Florida (-/-)
But back to the suburban swing. This isn't some rounding error. It's the largest voting bloc in Ohio, & the fastest growing voting bloc
And it's gone from being the GOP base a decade ago to blue now.
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Now, it's time to look at another map.
2019.
Did the trend continue?
Um, hell yeah it did. In local races across the state, we saw wins in previously GOP suburbs. New mayors. New councilmembers. New council majorities.
All over.
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Take a look at Reynoldsburg, a long-time GOP suburb of Columbus.
Democrats won every race on the ballot, from Mayor to Law Director to Council, including making history by electing 3 phenomenal Black women to the ballot.
To win Ohio, we must first & foremost engage our base--our largest cities and counties--to inspire the higher, most inspired turnout we've ever seen
This is job 1 in our current effort
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The good news is we are currently seeing strong energy in our core cities & counties in early vote
Record numbers of applications, in fact, w far higher % of the requests coming from Ds than past years. Higher % than some other swing states
And we are just getting started
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And we must narrow the gap in rural & small towns across Ohio. The 75-25 loss in 2016 was unacceptably high
But given the woeful economic picture in Ohio in 2019 (the worst jobs year since 2009, w losses in manufacturing and construction), we saw rural gains in '19 too
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In Ironton, Norwalk, Coshocton and Archbold, all small towns Trump won 60-40 in 2016, Dem mayors defeated GOP incumbents by 60-40 or better
In Ironton, our 28-year old Democratic ousted the incumbent 70-30!
It's clear Trump will contest the result of any close election.
He will seize on any delay to snap victory out of the jaws of clear defeat.
It could become one of the most challenging times in our country's history.
And all of this makes Ohio's even more critical.
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Why?
1) from an electoral college standpoint, a blue Ohio ends it. Everyone knows it. Ask Karl Rove.
2) unlike many states, the vast majority of our early votes are counted & released early (by 8 p.m.) on election night (those still in the mail are announced later)
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3) We have a GOP Sec. of State and a GOP Governor here, who have both made clear that Ohio's early vote will not and has never been susceptible to fraud.
So Trump can not claim "Dems rigged" an Ohio loss.
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Add it all up...w 50 days to go, the data makes clear that Ohio is less red than we've been any year since 2006/2008.
The polls remain tied after much Trump spending and little spending by national Dems
And a win here is an early win, and one Trump can't claim was rigged
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Bottom line: win here and it's done. The election.
Few authors have more informed (and reshaped) my understanding of American history than Isabel Wilkerson.
I had the honor and thrill of hearing her speak the other night, and she shared a story and lesson I will never forget.
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I couldn’t take notes as she told it, but I will capture it as best I can, having done a little research to fill it out.
In the early to mid-1900s, millions of Black Americans migrated north, escaping the punishing life and crushing poverty of the Jim Crow south.
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As Wilkerson describes, these families were basically defectors: “American citizens [who] had to flee the place of their birth just to be recognized as the citizens they had always been. It was the seeking of political asylum from within the borders of one’s own country.”
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According to Strength in Numbers, “search interest for “Cancel Disney+” has hit an all-time high — even higher than the boycott movements from when Disney “went woke” in 2020-2022.
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The current Disney boycott is now 4x as large as any over the last 5 years, gauged by search interest.”
And those searches were just the beginning:
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And yesterday, we saw the result of that fierce consumer backlash:
A few weeks ago, when discussing the raid of John Bolton’s home, Vance kept describing the investigation with the words “we” and “our.”
It showed that Project 2025’s goal of erasing any independence of the FBI has happened.
And the true danger of that red line…
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…being crossed is playing out right now, amid the Kirk investigation.
“We.”
“Our.”
Trump. Vance. Miller. Bondi. Patel.
When it comes to an FBI investigation, they are all now one and the same.
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Which of course means that those who have already decided and announced who’s to blame and who should be punished are also the ones overseeing the investigation and, according to Trump yesterday, charges that follow.
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