For Lucas County Democratic Party Chairman Kurt Young, Tuesday was a tale of two nights.
Locally and on the national stage, Democrats had cause to celebrate as the party defended three countywide elected offices and watched more than two dozen U.S. House seats across the nation go from red to blue.
Yet despite also sending county Democrats to the state House and Senate, Mr. Young and party members were disappointed to see the GOP take the governorship and executive offices in Ohio, even as their party won in Lucas County and other urban Democratic strongholds.
To some observers, Tuesday’s results signaled a reddening of Ohio — even as Lucas County continues to bleed blue.
Former Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson, a Democrat who ran uncontested for the 44th House District in Toledo, said with the GOP maintaining a veto-proof majority in the state legislature she’s committed to working with Republicans — even if they introduce bills to ban abortion and other legislation that she doesn’t support. Gov.-elect DeWine has said that, unlike Mr. Kasich, he won’t veto a “heartbeat bill” to ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected.
“While you may not stop a heartbeat bill, you can make sure there’s funding available and [that women] have a full opportunity for health and education,” she said.
While she’s not worried about a majority of legislation that comes from Republicans, “I’m concerned about the few items where Ohio looks really extreme on the scale of common sense,” she said, adding, however, that GOP lawmakers worked with her to pass human trafficking legislation.
But to accomplish something like charter-school reform that Democrats talked about on the campaign trail would take a constitutional amendment since Republicans won’t “uproot what’s wrong and fix it,” Ms. Fedor said.
Pointing to the close margin in the governor’s race — Mr. DeWine won by 4 percentage points — and other down ballot races, Ms. Fedor said she doesn’t see a red wave.
“It was close and and we had more people engaged,” she said. “[Ohio is] still purple.”
First Published November 10, 2018, 12:57 a.m.
