Ohio Dems scramble to regroup

By JULIE CARR SMYTH

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

After Tuesday’s big losses and the resignation of their state party chairman, Ohio Democrats are scrambling to regroup.

Gov. John Kasich led a Republican sweep of statewide offices, two Ohio Supreme Court seats and GOP gains in the state Legislature. Among Democrats’ losses in the Ohio House was the seat held by Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern, who quickly resigned the party post.

Redfern had signed off on Cuyahoga County executive Ed FitzGerald as the party’s governor candidate. Negative revelations and campaign missteps by FitzGerald helped Kasich to the second-largest gubernatorial victory margin in modern Ohio history. Kasich won almost 64 percent of the vote to FitzGerald’s less than 33 percent, according to unofficial results.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio party’s highest ranking sitting official, tried to calm the seas after Tuesday’s defeats by throwing his support behind an old friend as chairman, but that didn’t go well either.

Denny Wojtanowski and Brown had spent eight years together in the Ohio House from 1975 to 1982, and Wojtanowski had been volunteering to help the party behind the scenes for months. But when it was discovered that he had previously lobbied for clients supported both parties, Wojtanowski was out.

“While I’m proud of my former work and have been transparent about it, my top priority is a strong and unified Democratic Party,” Wojtanowski said in a statement. “I am therefore removing my name from consideration.”

John Green, who heads the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, said such problems are to be expected.

“When parties suffer major defeats, there is a lot of disarray and generally the parties have to find new leadership and start to rebuild for the next election,” he said. “The Democrats in Ohio have some huge incentive to do that because the presidential election is right around the corner — and, in 2018, all the officials at the state level will be term-limited, so there will be a lot of opportunities there.”

Brown said he plans to help the party rebuild by listening to a diverse group of Democrats across the state who have ideas for strengthening the party.