OHIO
State Profile
The following data and information about this state is taken from the 2006 Almanac of American Politics. The 2006 Almanac can be ordered online, or by phone at 1-800-356-4838.

State At A Glance  •  Key Elected Officials  •  Political History & Analysis

“Its split heritage made Ohio politically a closely divided state -- and a nationally pivotal one.”

At A Glance

• Size: 44,825 square miles
• Population in 2000: 11,353,140; 77.3% urban; 22.7% rural
• Population in 1990: 10,847,115
• Population Change: Up 4.7% 1990-2000; Up 0.5% 1980-1990
• Population Rank: 7th of 50; 4.0% of total U.S. population
• Most Populous Cities: Columbus (728,432); Cleveland (461,324); Cincinnati (317,361); Toledo (308,973); Akron (212,215)
• Registered Voters: No party registration
• State Senate: 22 R 11 D
• State House: 60 R 39 D
• State Legislative Term Limits: Yes

Key Elected Officials

• Gov. Bob Taft (R)
• Sen. Mike DeWine (R)
• Sen. George Voinovich (R)
• Representatives: (12 R, 6 D):

Steve Chabot   (R-01) Jean Schmidt   (R-02) Mike Turner   (R-03) Michael Oxley   (R-04) Paul Gillmor   (R-05) Ted Strickland   (D-06)

David Hobson   (R-07) John Boehner   (R-08) Marcy Kaptur   (D-09) Dennis Kucinich   (D-10) Stephanie Tubbs Jones   (D-11) Pat Tiberi   (R-12)

Sherrod Brown   (D-13) Steven LaTourette   (R-14) Deborah Pryce   (R-15) Ralph Regula   (R-16) Tim Ryan   (D-17) Bob Ney   (R-18)

About Ohio

Ohio was the first entirely American state, and one which ever since has seemed an epitome of American normalcy. The original 13 states started as British colonies, and the next three, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee, were spun off from them. But Ohio sprung Athena-like from the head of Congress, as the first state formed from the Northwest Territory. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established 6-by-6 mile square townships, which imposed geometric order on diverse American landscapes west to the Pacific; it set aside one square mile per township for public schools, and the landscape was soon peppered with schoolhouses and small colleges, the foundation stones of a literate republic. The Ordinance prohibited slavery, opening the way for free labor to clear fields, raise crops, build mills and factories, and in less than half a century, make this wilderness one of the most productive parts of western civilization. Ohio in the years after the Civil War became one of the great industrial states, the original headquarters of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the site of major steel mills along the narrow and languidly flowing Cuyahoga and Mahoning Rivers, and home of the biggest soap companies, machine tool makers, tire manufacturers and producers of safety glass. Dayton was the home of the Wright brothers, of James Ritty and James Patterson, the inventor and manufacturer of the cash register, of Charles Kettering, who invented the automobile starter and many other things. Akron was the home of Harvey Firestone, B. F. Goodrich and F. A. Seiberling, founder of Goodyear--the great tire manufacturers. They invented their devices and built their factories in a state that was culturally split, settled by New Englanders in the northeast in the Western Reserve and by Virginians in the south, split between the Southern-accented counties south of the National Road and U.S. 40 and the Northern-accented cities and towns to the north; between Butternut and Copperhead territory that didn't want to fight the Civil War and Yankee territory that fiercely prosecuted the War and Reconstruction afterwards.

This split heritage made Ohio politically a closely divided state--and a nationally pivotal one. A little more than a century ago Ohio produced the candidate and campaign manager--Governor and former Ways and Means Chairman William McKinley and iron and coal industrialist Mark Hanna; McKinley won the presidency in 1896 and 1900 and inaugurated a 34-year period of Republican national majorities. McKinley's Republicans were for high tariffs and hard money, had a friendly regard for workers and even some unions, but no patience with large union combinations and nascent socialism. They preached a nationalist Americanism tempered by a wariness about making major commitments abroad. Republicans were the majority in this increasingly industrial Ohio, losing rural Butternut counties but carrying the big industrial cities of the north.

Then came the Depression of the 1930s, and Ohio became the scene of something like class warfare, with sit-down strikes and victories for the CIO industrial unions in autos, steel and tires. CIO cities--Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Toledo--moved sharply toward the Democrats, while places with few CIO members--Cincinnati, Columbus, the dozens of small factory towns dotting the flat limestone plains of northern Ohio--stayed Republican. The political fighting was fierce and the stakes seemed high. CIO leaders hoped to organize the entire work force and build a Scandinavian-style welfare state; Republican leaders like Ohio's Senator Robert Taft feared union control of business would imperil freedoms and throttle the economy. In the 1930s and 1940s the unions made great gains. But Taft held them off, reducing union power with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, his own reelection to the Senate in 1950, and the election of his rival Dwight Eisenhower as president in 1952.

In the years since, Ohio has oscillated and been courted by national campaigns. In the 1990s Ohio swung to the Republicans. Bill Clinton did carry the state twice, but by the narrowest of his margins in any large state--40%-38% in 1992, 47%-41% in 1996--and Al Gore lost here 50%-46% in 2000. Ohio Republicans won smashing victories in 1994 and 1998 and held their own in 1996 and 2000. The leading figure was George Voinovich, elected governor in 1990 by 56%-44%, reelected in 1994 by 72%-25%--by far the biggest margin since 1826, when neither Republican nor Democratic parties existed--and elected senator by 56%-44% in 1998. But this has not just been a personal victory. From 1976 to 1994 Ohio was represented by two Democrats in the Senate, but when they retired they were replaced by Republicans: Mike DeWine and Voinovich, both of whom had run unsuccessfully for the Senate before. And in 1998 Republican Bob Taft, bearer of a great Ohio name, was elected governor over Democrat Lee Fisher by 50%-45%. Until Taft's 1998 victory, Ohio's governorship had been passed back and forth between the two parties, with neither holding it for more than eight years, since George K. Nash won in 1899. By 2006 Republicans will have held it for a longer period than any party since 1856-74. Republicans also hold every downballot statewide office, most of which were held by Democrats between 1970 to 1994, seemingly impervious margins in both houses of the legislature, and the majority of the U.S. House delegation. Twenty years ago Democrats had no difficulty finding candidates; they held most of the statewide offices and had legislators who represented swing districts and compiled records attractive to most voters. Recently they have had more difficulty. They hold no statewide offices and most of their legislators represent central city districts and have leftish records; mayors of shrinking central cities may become well known, but they too tend to tilt to the left.

The Republican trend has occurred in a state that is still more industrial than post-industrial, a state changed by the immigration of the early 20th century but little touched by the immigration of the late 20th century, a state where cultural liberalism has a far smaller constituency than it does on the East or West Coasts or even in nearby Illinois and Michigan. It used to be said that Ohio was a typical state, a great test market, for in income levels, urban-rural balance, and ethnic mix, as well as presidential percentages, it is not very far from the national average. But economically and culturally, it is different, a template perhaps for Indiana and Missouri but not for Oregon and Arizona. Ohio trails only California, three times as large, in manufacturing jobs, yet it has 400,000 fewer of them than it did in the peak year, 1969, and its population and income have been increasing at less than the national average; from 2000 to 2004 it had a lower rate of population growth than any state but West Virginia and North Dakota. The Ohio economy seems stuck in the 2001-02 recession. Employment peaked at 5,586,000 in April 2001, fell to 5,490,000 in September 2002 and by March 2005 had risen to only 5,548,000--below the level of four years before. The unemployment rate rose from 3.9% in April 2001 to 5.5% in January 2003 and was 6.3% in March 2005. This is much lower than during some past recessions and unemployment has been highest not in the big metro areas but in rural counties in the eastern, southern and western parts of the state. But pretty much gone is the old tradition of heading straight from high school and perhaps military service to a high-wage factory job.

Politically, there are two distinct parts of Ohio. One, call it Northeast Ohio, is the part where the CIO unions organized the big factories, the heavy industry area along Lake Erie and reaching south to the coal-mining counties across the Ohio River from West Virginia. In Northeast Ohio giant steel mills closed in Cleveland and the Mahoning Valley around Youngstown in the 1980s, and population declined as young people moved out. Politically, the Democratic voting habits instilled by the CIO unions are still evident, though there was no movement toward Democrats on cultural issues in the 1990s here, as there was in larger metro areas. George W. Bush lost the area 55%-41% in 2000; Bob Taft carried it by only 49%-48% in 2002; Bush lost it by a 54%-46% margin in 2004. The rest of the state, call it Southwest Ohio, is a more diversified industrial area, never so dependent on big industries like steel, tires and autos. It did not lose so many jobs or suffer such population loss in the early 1980s as Northeast Ohio. Instead it began building a new, more supple and adaptable manufacturing economy, with smaller factories, less rigid management and fewer union members, an economy which did reasonably well in the 1990s but has had only spotty growth since 2000. In this part of Ohio the cultural atmosphere in small towns and even its big cities become culturally much more liberal, with the possible exception of Columbus, Ohio's fastest-growing metro area, with something of a post-industrial, information-based economy. Politically, this area was and is heavily Republican; the old Butternut Democratic tradition in southern Ohio has largely disappeared. George W. Bush carried this part of the state 56%-40% in 2000 and 60%-40% in 2004 and Bob Taft carried it 65%-31% in 2002. Moreover, this part of the state is becoming more important politically. Between 1980 and 2000 turnout in Northeast Ohio rose only 3%, while it rose 16% in Southwest Ohio; in 2004 the Democrats' heroic efforts increased turnout in Northeast Ohio 18% over 2000, but the Bush campaign's efforts helped increase turnout in Southwest Ohio 21%.

So where does Ohio stand in history? Is it New Deal Ohio, with ethnic factory workers arranged against small town businessmen, ethnic Catholics versus rural Protestants, all engaged in a contest to see how far and in what ways government should be enlarged? Or is it McKinley's Ohio, with mechanical tinkerers and can-do manufacturers, adaptive businessmen and employees, striving to work hard, raise families and serve communities that feel little class conflict or economic envy? The results of recent elections, the continuing though sometimes narrow Republican victories here, suggest that it is, despite highly publicized manufacturing losses, more McKinley's Ohio. But in 2006 the governorship will be open after a record 16 years of Republican dominance, and Ohio's Democrats will have a chance to advance an alternative vision of Ohio.