Ohio Republicans Lose Support of County They’ve Held for Over 100 Years
By Giulia Carbonaro
On August 9, 2023
Voters in Ohio have rejected state Republicans‘ attempt to make it more difficult for citizens to amend their constitution, a move that was widely interpreted as aimed at blocking a key vote on abortion rights in November.
Crucially, among the districts who voted “no” to Issue 1, a GOP-back proposal that would have raised the threshold required to pass ballot measures from a simple majority to a supermajority of 60 percent, was Delaware County—a place that has been a Republican bastion for over a century.
“It looks like Ohio Issue 1 is going to fail in Delaware Co. (northern Columbus burbs), which has voted Republican in every presidential race since 1916 and didn’t even vote for Sherrod Brown in 2018,” wrote Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Some 58 percent of voters in Delaware County cast their ballot against Issue 1, while 42 percent voted in favor of it. At a state level, 57 percent (1,744,094) of Ohioans opposed the Republicans’ proposal, while 43 percent (1,315,346) supported it. A total of 3,059,440 cast their ballot on Tuesday.
Ballotpedia describes Delaware County as a “solid Republican county,” having voted Republican in three consecutive presidential elections from 2012 to 2020, with a majority of 61 percent supporting Mitt Romney in 2021, 54.5 percent voting for Donald Trump in 2016, and 52.5 percent in 2020.
Despite failing to gain the support of Delaware County on Issue 1, the GOP retains firm control of the state of Ohio, with the office of governors, secretary of state, attorney general, and both chambers of the state legislature all held by Republicans.
According to Ballotpedia, 43.4 percent of Ohioans lived in one of the state’s 71 Solid Republican counties following the 2020 presidential election, while 37.7 percent lived in one of six Solid Democratic counties.
The introduction of Issue 1 would have made it harder for a November ballot called by a coalition of abortion rights groups earlier this year to fail to pass the revised threshold. At the moment, abortion in Ohio is allowed until 22 weeks of gestation, thanks to a state judge who temporarily blocked a 2019 six-week ban on abortion that would have automatically become law after the end of Roe v. Wade following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dodd v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
President Joe Biden celebrated the result of the Ohio special election on Tuesday, writing on X: “Today, Ohio voters rejected an effort by Republican lawmakers and special interests to change the state’s constitutional amendment process.”
He added: “This measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters’ voices and further erode the freedom of women to make their own healthcare decisions. Ohioans spoke loud and clear, and tonight democracy won.”
This piece was republished from News Week.