Ohio’s true color revealed

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson didn’t just beat Democrat Jennifer Garrison in the 6th Congressional District race; he crushed her by 19.7 percentage points.

Yet among the 15 U.S. House races in Ohio with challengers on the Nov. 4 ballot — U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-7th, ran unopposed — it was by far the closest. The next closest race was in the 1st Congressional District that had incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot beat his Democratic challenger by 26.9 percentage points.

Garrison received 38.6 percent of the vote, which is the most for any congressional candidate on the ballot in Ohio.

In the 2012 6th District race, Johnson beat Democrat Charlie Wilson by 6.6 percentage points with the latter getting 46.7 percent of the vote. Johnson beat Wilson in 2010 by 5 percentage points when the latter was the incumbent and before redistricting made the 6th significantly less competitive.

Before the Nov. 4 election, there was talk that the 6th, which includes all of Columbiana and a portion of Mahoning among its 18 counties, was a competitive district.

But if Garrison — a moderate, some would say conservative, Democrat who served six years in the Ohio House representing counties in the district — loses by almost 20 percentage points, it’s time to stop thinking of the 6th as a competitive district.

Since it was the closest congressional district in the state, it’s time to stop thinking any of the 16 districts are competitive.

With every congressional race resulting in a blowout and fewer and fewer competitive state Legislature races, there are a few schools of thought: the Republican redistricting of congressional and state legislative lines clearly gives the GOP a huge advantage in a large majority of these races; President Barack Obama, who won Ohio in 2008 and 2012 is now very unpopular in the state; Ed FitzGerald as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate dragged down the rest of the ticket; and our “purple state” is now “red.”

It’s likely all of the above.

The anti-Obama sentiment among voters is obvious as is the gerrymandered districts. Talk continues in Columbus about a revised redistricting plan to give the minority party more of a voice.

FitzGerald at the top of the ticket was a disaster, but he can only receive so much of the blame.

As for Ohio being a purple state, meaning a mixture of red Republicans and blue Democrats, numbers in this last election show that is not the case.

Among the five executive-branch statewide seats on the ballot, only Democrat Connie Pillich broke 40 percent. She lost to Republican incumbent Josh Mandel in the state treasurer’s race 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent.

Mandel won 82 of the state’s 88 counties, including Trumbull County, a Democratic stronghold.

Yes, Obama won Ohio twice and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who may run for president in 2016, is very popular in this state, and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, beat Mandel two years ago in a race that saw more money pumped into a Republican candidate for Senate than anywhere else in the nation.

But as we sit here today with Republicans controlling all executive-branch positions as they have for most of the past two decades, all but one of the seats on the Supreme Court, 12 of 16 U.S. House seats, and huge majorities in the state House and Senate, what argument can be given to show that Ohio is anything but red?