Tuesday's tallies prove Mahoning no longer dark blue county

YOUNGSTOWN

After another Republican sweep of statewide executive office seats, Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras said “it’s really going to be hard” for candidates from his political party to win Ohio in the 2020 presidential race.

Betras also said that “finding great candidates to run [statewide] in 2022 is going to be a huge obstacle, huge.”

“The state’s going to be permanently red,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll get presidential visits” as Ohio has lost its reputation as a purple state.

Betras said the days of Democrats counting on getting 65 percent of the vote in Mahoning County, once one of the party’s most reliable counties, “are over. I still think Democrats win here, but we’re going to have to work for it.”

Mahoning County Republican Party Chairman Mark Munroe agreed that those lopsided victories are a thing of the past.

Except for Eric Ungaro in the 59th Ohio House District and Shawna Roberts in the 6th Congressional District, Democrats won every nonjudicial race on Tuesday’s ballot in Mahoning County.

However, the margins of victory were a lot smaller than usual.

Democrat John Boccieri’s win of about 7,000 votes in Mahoning weren’t enough to overcome his 13,000-vote deficit to Republican Michael Rulli, who won the 33rd Ohio Senate District race.

Also, Democrats failed to find a candidate to challenge incumbent county Auditor Ralph T. Meacham, a Republican.

“No longer can you say Mahoning County is a dark blue county,” Munroe said. “It’s maybe a little bluish-purple."

Read more about the matter in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.