Today, I am going to looking at two Obama-Trump districts in the Ohio state house: HD 36, which is located near Akron, and HD 43, which covers part of Montgomery County (home to Dayton), as well as all of Preble County, which is a far more rural county that borders Indiana.
Both of these districts voted similarly to the state of OH as a whole during the 2012 and 2016 election cycles. HD 36 went from supporting Barack Obama by about 4 points (about a percentage point better than his statewide margin) to supporting Donald Trump by a little less than 8 points (about half a percentage point worse than his statewide margin.) HD 43 was slightly bluer (in 2012 and 2016), with Obama performing almost two points better (than he did in HD 36), and Trump performing about a percentage point worse (than he did in HD 36). For 2020, these districts were seen as fairly good-pickup opportunities for Democrats, given that both of them were open, as the Republican incumbent in HD 36, Anthony DeVitis was term-limited, while the Republican incumbent in HD 43, J. Todd Smith, unofficially dropped out after being primaried. While DeVitis was reelected by a fairly decent margin (almost 11 points) in 2018, the statewide results were considerably better for Democrats, with Dem Richard Cordray actually carrying the district by nearly 2 points in the 2018 Governor’s race (while losing statewide), and Dem Sherrod Brown carrying the district by over 9 points in the 2018 U.S. Senate race (outperforming his statewide margin by a few points). HD 43, on the other hand, featured an incredibly close state house race in 2018, with Smith narrowly winning by less than 200 votes (less than half a percentage point). Smith had been appointed to this seat a few months prior to the 2018 election after the previous Republican incumbent resigned, so this was sort of like an open seat in 2018, as well. However, the 2018 statewide results were less impressive for Dems (when compared to HD 36). In particular, Cordray lost HD 43 by nearly 5 points, doing about a percentage point worse than he did statewide, in contrast to HD 36, which he was able to flip back. Brown carried HD 43 by about 6 points (on-par with his statewide margin).
In the end, Republicans held both seats in 2020. HD 36 featured the closer state house race of the two, with Republican Bob Young defeating Democrat Matt Shaughnessy by between 4 and 5 points, a decent improvement for Dems (in comparison the 2018 state house race). On the other hand, Democrat Amy Cox lost the HD 43 state house race to Republican Rodney Creech by over 8 points, a considerably worse result for Democrats (again, in comparison to the 2018 state house race). It should be noted that the 2020 Dem challengers (in both districts) outperformed Biden by about 1-2 points (which isn’t that atypical amongst Obama/Trump districts). Despite having similar trends at the presidential level between 2012 and 2016, the presidential trends were quite different for these two districts in 2020, with the Dems rebounding a bit in HD 36 (as Trump did about 2 points worse in the district than he did in 2016), but Trump actually improving on his 2016 margins by over 3 points in HD 43. So why did these districts experience different trends in 2020? One reason could be due to differences in demographics. According to recent Census estimates, HD 36 has a considerably higher percentage of college educated individuals (those with a bachelor’s degree or higher) than HD 43 (30% vs 19%), while HD 43 is considerably more diverse than HD 36, with African Americans making up about 25% of the former district’s population. (Non-Hispanic Whites make up over 91% of HD 36’s total population, but under 69% of HD 43’s total population.) Given that the 2020 election was even more polarized among education, it makes some sense that Trump would improve his margins in HD 43, but not necessarily in HD 36. The only reason that HD 43 didn’t swing even more to Trump to begin with (in 2016) is likely due to the large black population in the district, a demographic that Biden didn’t particularly improve on in comparison to Hillary Clinton, unlike college-educated whites.
The implications of redistricting (with regards to these two districts) are also worth discussing. Given that 2022 will be a Biden midterm (which means there’s a good chance the national environment won’t be particularly favorable to Dems) and the fact that both of seats have generally been trending away from the Dems, it would seem that Republicans would be fairly heavily favored to hold both of them, assuming they are drawn in a similar manner to their current incarnations. However, it’s possible that these districts will be radically redrawn, especially given the various population changes in the state (which would lead to some districts being reapportioned to different parts of the state). In the case of HD 43, the best-case scenario for Democrats would probably be either if it is combined with another district due to potential population loss (with the excess district being redistributed to a more Dem leaning portion of the state) or if it is redrawn to be more Dayton-centric. If the Dayton area loses a seat, it seems good for Dems regardless, since either this means that two Republican seats will be combined together, or one of the Republican seats will be combined with HD 39, the only Dem leaning seat in the area, which is so blue already (it gave Biden nearly 78% of the vote), that even combining with a Republican leaning seat would still result in a reliably Dem seat. (Currently, the Dayton area is already pretty much gerrymandered as aggressively as possible to favor Republicans). It’s harder to predict how HD 36 will be affected by redistricting. The current HD 36 borders a variety of different districts: HD 34 on the west, which is a reliably Dem seat that supported Biden by over 50 points; HD 37 on the north, which is a blue-trending Romney/Clinton/Biden district that the Dems flipped in 2018; HD 75 on the east, another Obama/Trump district that Republicans flipped in 2020, as well as several others, including a few double-digit Trump districts. Given that various different trends of the surrounding districts, it seems like redistricting could affect HD 36 (and the Akron area in general) in a variety of different ways.
Thanks to Daily Kos Elections (for the 2012, 2016, and 2018 calculations) and Ryan Brune (for the 2020 calculations, which were posted on the cnanalysis website.)