Cuyahoga County until recently was Ohio’s most populous county and the main Democratic stronghold in Ohio. Hitting particular voting numbers there once was the be all and end all for any political campaign. (Remember when Karl Rove said he was waiting for those late returns in 2012?)
But the location U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign chose for an event marking the start of early voting this week shows the torch may have been passed downstate.
Brown held a parking-lot rally in Columbus Tuesday outside the Franklin County Board of Elections. In a speech there, Michael Sexton, the local Democratic Party chair, touted that the county had surpassed 900,000 registered voters, of which 60,000 had registered since the primary election in March. That exceeds the nearly 890,000 registered voters in Cuyahoga County.
Cuyahoga County was the top source of votes for Brown in 2018 and for President Joe Biden in 2020. But Franklin County gained Democratic vote share from Cuyahoga County over those two elections, and during the special election last November, the abortion-rights amendment got its most raw ‘yes’ votes in Franklin County.
Brown downplayed the venue choice when asked about it on Tuesday.
“If I’d gone to Cleveland you’d ask, ‘Why Cleveland’?” he said, noting his daughters live in Columbus. His campaign staff also are based there.
But everything in a campaign is highly planned. Brown’s Tuesday rally and his pronouncement last Friday that he plans to win Delaware County, a Columbus suburb that’s trended Democratic over the past decade, suggests Ohio’s electoral map is changing.
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Crossing the border line?
Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans for years have made illegal immigration, and suspicion about migrants in general, a cornerstone of their political strategy. But a few recent instances suggest Democrats are testing the same waters. A local Democratic Party official at a campaign event for Brown on Friday accused Brown’s Republican challenger, Bernie Moreno, of moving to the United States to “exploit the country” and said Moreno must be stopped from “invading” the Senate. Moreno moved to the United States from Colombia when he was about five years old and got into business and politics as an adult. The remark, which Signal reported first and exclusively, occurred against a backdrop of an ad from a top Democratic Super PAC that highlights Moreno’s “powerful Colombian family” and accuses them of sending “our money” to “Latin American banks.” Moreno called the ad “racist” on Tuesday, while Brown declined to comment on it or what the Delaware County Democratic Party chair said. Read more in our story here.
Illegal shift
On a related note, in my recent feature highlighting Ohio’s three most competitive congressional districts, I reported that a campaign ad for Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur included a graphic containing the phrase “penalties for hiring illegals.” It was describing her support for punishing companies that hire undocumented workers. The term “illegals” is a popular one for Republicans and offered a striking example of how Kaptur and other Democrats, who typically view the term as demeaning, are marketing themselves in a Republican-friendly way. Kaptur herself used the phrase “people who moved here illegally” as she narrated the ad.
After our story published, Kaptur’s campaign removed “illegals” and replaced it with “penalties for illegal hiring.” The campaign isn’t explaining its thinking behind the change.
Frankie goes to Washington?
The rumors have been prevalent in Capitol Square circles. But Secretary of State Frank LaRose acknowledged recently he’s thinking about his political future after he finished third in a three-candidate field in the Republican U.S. Senate primary election in March.
I asked LaRose about his plans following a campaign appearance in Columbus for Bernie Moreno last week. LaRose said he has the Nov. 5 election to worry about. He will remain Ohio’s top elections official through 2026, but he can’t run for reelection due to term limits.
“You’ve probably heard me say this. I’ve found you have to focus on the job in front of you,” LaRose said.
But LaRose did share some possible next steps. He expressed interest in filling U.S. Sen. JD Vance’s seat, which would become vacant if Vance is elected vice president this November. This would involve convincing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine that he’s the man for the job, since it’s the governor’s job to fill unexpired Senate terms. LaRose, or whoever, then would have to run for election in 2026 to fill the seat through 2028.
LaRose said another option could be to get some sort of job in a hypothetical Trump administration.
Another possibility? Some sort of run for statewide office, such as state auditor, he said. Current Auditor Keith Faber also is term-limited in 2026 and is expected to run for state attorney general.
But LaRose emphasized that he’s not making any kind of announcement about his next steps.
