The New York Times published an analysis of the state today, trying to figure out what the 2016 election and Ohio’s reputation as a “purple state” would mean for the 2018 midterm election, the gubernatorial race in particular. In 2016, many working-class democrats flipped parties to vote for Trump, a candidate who promised to add jobs that would benefit average, working-class Americans.
In Ohio, Trump said employers “weren’t hiring for years and years and years,” when in fact, the unemployment rate was 4.8 percent when he took office — close to what economists consider “full employment.” He also said during his visit back in May that “all of a sudden, we have jobs,” even though the number of job openings has been steadily increasing since mid-2009.
There has been a 20 percent increase since he’s taken office, but as Fact Check stated on inauguration day, “Trump won the election while claiming ‘our country is stagnant,’ even though he inherited an economy that was experiencing steady if unspectacular growth in output, jobs and incomes.” The reality of the situation is that the job market was on the rise before Trump even took office.
It’s no surprise that Trump won Ohio on his platform of adding more working-class means of employment, because the average Ohio voter (and citizen) is older, whiter and less likely to be college educated than the rest of the country, according to state statistics. This demographic is representative of those who are employed working with steel or coal, both dying industries Trump claimed he would bring back to life.
Ohio Voter Project, an organization that documents as much information on Ohio Voters as possible, recently updated their database to show that the voter registration population is over-represented by older age groups, and under-represented by younger age groups. A shame, considering the younger age groups are the ones that will feel a longer impact on voting decisions made by the older generations.
An estimated 7,990,319 people are registered to vote in the state of Ohio, but only 751,729 of those people are between the ages of 18-24 compared to the 3,224,205 from voters that are age-eligible to receive senior citizen discounts at restaurants (55+).
What is interesting, however, is that Ohio Voter project also reports that over twice as many registered voters with established party affiliations in Ohio are registered as non-affiliated. There are more republicans registered than democrats, but non-affiliated registrations completely eclipse both parties.
According to state statistics, the state is 81.6 percent white and only 27.5 percent of citizens have completed some form of higher education. As is well-known, the major reason that Ohio tends to be a swing-state, rather than a guaranteed blue or red state, is the liberal pockets in and around Ohio’s major cities. Why do these pockets exist in the first place?
Population diversity.
Cuyahoga County, Franklin County and Hamilton County (representing Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, respectively) are the three most populated cities in the state, and are also the homes of the most diverse populations. Diverse populations equate to more liberal and progressive voters, even in deep red states.
On the high end, 40 percent of Cuyahoga County residents are part of a minority group. Comparatively, Holmes County, which serves as the home to the second largest Amish community in the country, is 98 percent white. Despite Cuyahoga County being the most diverse county in the state, it remains one of the most segregated. Warrensville Heights has a population that is made up of 95.5 percent of minority citizens, while Independence is 96.1 percent white.
Last year, in the November general election, only 273,383 of Cuyahoga County’s 883,890 registered voters went to the polls. Meaning nearly 70 percent of registered voters in the most diverse county in the state didn’t vote.
The same happened in Franklin County, where only 23.72 percent of registered voters showed up, and Hamilton County boasted similar numbers to Cuyahoga with 31.22 percent.
So what does this mean in terms of voting? It means that statistically, older white people with only a high school diploma make election decisions that impact the rest of the population, often times, parts of the population they will never interact with.
Getting to the polls is not always an easy thing for people, due to limitations with employment, transportation, child-care and access to registration in the first place. Fortunately, there have been a variety of efforts this year to help get people to the polls. Lyft is offering free and discounted rides to the polls, UHBikes is offering free rides to anyone choosing to vote early.
If citizens want change is to occur, it will only be done with voting power. Statistically speaking, the “average Ohio voter” demographic is going to turn out to the polls regardless if progressives do or not.
This article appears in Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2018.
BJ, do you even KNOW any old white geezers who didn’t finish college or never went at all? They are not all stupid, ignorant, conservative sheeple, as you seem to think. “Old , white, and without higher education” is your headline, and “You can’t fix stupid” is the image below it. Coincidental? I don’t think so!
Plenty of of white geezers who never got a degree are progressive Democrats, and some are even liberal land lean left. And you don’t need a degree to be in the trades or to hold certain technical and industrial jobs. A lot of electricians and construction people never went to college, and some engineering tech positions only require on-the-job training. Most of these people are union, and union people vote….usually Democrat.
Yet you seem to imply that all the white Boomers are Trump supporters, and that unless the Millennials get off their asses and vote the other way, the old farts are going to make decisions that will send Ohio back to the Stone Age. Whose fault is it that the younger voting-age population has rejected both parties and has turned their backs on electoral politics? Nobody’s fault but their own. “You can’t fix stupid” is right!
Yes, it’s true that older voters, those who actually VOTE in every election, select the candidates in the primaries and help make the decisions that will affect the youngest the most. What happens in the next few election cycles will shape the lives of those still alive for the next 40-50-60 years, long after today’s voters are dead and forgotten. Why the hell don’t young voters understand simple demographics? If they want to change their futures, they need to do so NOW. WTF are they waiting for? it’s not going to get better if they refuse to play. Just the opposite.
But calling older voters stupid reactionaries isn’t going to make things better, either. You’ll be 55 or 60 before you know what hit you, BJ. At your age, time just marches on. Pretty soon, it will start to run as fast as hell, and you’ll wonder where it all went. It all goes by too fast. Then you can bitch about the kids who haven’t been born yet, or who are still in their cribs.
But since you just take everything that other people write, and run with it, and put your byline on it, maybe calling you out is being too hard on you. But you ‘re young and tough and you can take it, right?
“When former president Barack Obama won the state of Ohio in the electoral college, he did so by earning 23 percent more votes than Mitt Romney in 2012. However, just four years later, the current sitting president Donald Trump won the state by six points. “
Those figures are only for Trumbull County (the Youngstown area), NOT the entire state. BIG mistake!
Maybe, maybe not. Just stick to the facts…and troll one person at a time, rather than the whole staff. It’s highly unlikely she’s a Commie, when there are only about two or three thousand Party members in the WHOLE COUNTRY. I bet there aren’t even fifty die-hard Communists in the whole state. Oh, and she outed herself as a lesbian, some time ago. So she IS gay. Do your homework before you troll. Then maybe it won’t get deleted in a day.
Shirley, you jest…
Only one of the four political parties fielding candidates in this gubernatorial race in Ohio actually has Diversity as one of its Ten Key Values–that is the Green Party with our candidate Constance Gadell-Newton. She is also the only woman running with a political party. Voters of Ohio deserve a diversity of choices. That is one reason so many are now affiliated with no Party at all, they are tired of the same two Parties that have been governing Ohio for the past 100 years. What most people in this election don’t know is that if the Green Party doesn’t get at least 3% of the vote for Constance, it will be disbanded thanks to a law passed by the Republicans. Vote Green in 2018!
BJ is gone. Her messages of division and hate will no longer be spread by this magazine.
She had a great opportunity which she wasted on social justice lunacy.
Would like to believe you, and would also know why. Had to be more than just the constant barrage of negative critcism…that’s usally not enough of a reason. Maybe she pissed somebody off once too often, so one was found. But unless you actually called and were told “She no longer works here…” it’s still only rumor and conjecture, even after ten days. If she was merely on hiatus, someone’s gonna look like a real doofus.