(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

Election 2024 is in the books.

Ohio has a new US senator, and we'll be looking to fill VP elect JD Vance's Senate seat.

Joining us in studio, Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, Dr. David Jackson from BGSU, and from Columbus, the host of "The State of Ohio," Karen Kasler.

Welcome all of you.

Dr. Hughes, Ohio today versus November 5th.

Big difference, no difference.

Business as usual?

What's the story after November 5th?

- I think for a lot of people it is business as usual.

Ohio today looks exactly like it did a couple weeks ago, and it looks exactly like it did a couple weeks before that.

We've seen kind of these longer changes over time, but I don't think the election results were terribly surprising.

I think maybe some of the gaps and, like, kind of where things ended up percentage-wise, were a little bit bigger than we might have expected, but I think the overall outcome of the election was not necessarily that surprising.

- And Karen, down in Columbus, obviously there's gonna be a little bit of change in the legislature, the general assembly.

But again, not a great deal of change.

Would that be a correct way to look at it?

- [Karen] Yeah, Democrats picked up two seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.

In the Senate that's a big deal because they were in the deep, deep, super minority.

But what this has to do more with, this has to do more with the redrawing of district lines in 2023 than it does with, I think, any major change in people's attitude in politics.

When I look at the results of, say, the US Senate race, where incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown was running against newcomer Bernie Moreno, who was Trump endorsed, it's interesting to look back, and Brown had said all along that this was going to be his toughest reelection campaign ever.

And it turns out that he underperformed himself in basically every part of the state from how he had done the last time he ran in 2018.

So the state has definitely continued moving toward the right when you look at the actual data here, and that's pretty evident, I think.

- [Steve] And Dr. Jackson, I know when we were talking in previous shows, you talked about the fact that JD Vance, or, excuse me, Sherrod Brown would have to outperform the rest of the ticket in Ohio, which he's traditionally had to do the last several elections.

Obvious this time that did not happen the way, Trump won by 11%, Brown only lost by 4%.

So he did make those inroads into the Republican side, as you described he would need to do, but just not enough.

- Yeah, to lose by 4 up against 11 point headwinds is in some ways, you know, a performance, you know, short of the purpose of running a campaign, which is winning, (laughs) it was somewhat impressive to pull it within, you know, that four points.

The other thing that's interesting is a couple different points.

One is here north of us in the Ninth District, which is about a Trump plus seven district, Representative Marcy Kaptur is up by about 1000, 1100 votes.

And so she did the same thing in terms of basically beating by seven points the trend in the area.

But these are two Democratic long-term elected officials who are in their 70s, and they're the only ones right now it looks like who could do what they did.

Now, of course, Sherrod lost, but, you know, Kaptur is in all likelihood going to win.

So one of the real questions for the Democrats, you know, is who's next, who could do that?

Who could, you know, win or come close to winning in this environment?

The other thing about Sherrod Brown's race, of course, is his previous elections were much more favorable for Democrats nationally.

So, you know, in 2018 you had the midterms.

2012, you had the Obama second election, 2006, you had the midterm.

And so this was the first red wave election that he had to run in and it certainly showed.

The other thing that's interesting is at the presidential level in Ohio, and I know that people get tired of me always bringing up the state to the north of us.

But in Michigan, of course was, you know, a competitive state in the presidential election, whereas Ohio wasn't.

But Ohio had the most expensive Senate election in the country.

There was a Senate race up in Michigan too.

Turnout overall in those two states, Michigan and Ohio, is essentially tied despite the fact that Michigan has 1.7 million fewer people than Ohio does.

So I think something is very interesting and worthy of investigating, and my colleagues and I are gonna continue doing that, about the differences in those two states.

And we know what they are is that Michigan does everything it can to promote voter turnout, whereas in Ohio, the interest is more, you know, in purging and excessive concerns for electoral security where there aren't really any problems.

- [Steve] Well, and I noticed during the election, well, after the election too, the discussion about drop boxes, that maybe that would be the next thing to eliminate, because there was the case where somebody firebombed a drop box and now there's concerns about security there.

Karen, I know you've talked to various people too about why things happened or why the outcomes were different than maybe what some people anticipated in terms of margins.

In Columbus, what's the feel of the general assembly?

Are they seeing this as a mandate now to move forward between now and the end of the year to take care of some, in their mind, unfinished business?

Or are they going to wait until after January and even to some degree, maybe an even more stronger majority for them, a more more aligned majority steps in?

- Well, I think there's a lot of factors at play here.

I think first of all, this has been one of the most unproductive legislatures in decades when it comes to the actual number of bills that have been passed.

So there's a lot of bills, over 1000 bills, that are sitting around waiting for action.

Well, I think just under 1000 bills rather.

A lot, of course won't go through, and that's typical for any legislative session.

But there are some bills that are headline making, considered pretty controversial, that may move forward.

We may talk about Senate Bill 83, which is the one that specifically affects higher education.

That one seems likely to move forward in the House according to conversations that I've had with the Senate sponsor.

But I think, you know, some of these bills are ready to go and they may just go ahead and move, since Republicans will maintain a super majority in the House and Senate, or maybe some of these bills just, they'll run out of time and they'll have to start them over.

I also expect to see a big Christmas tree bill, which we call it a Christmas tree bill 'cause there's something in it for everybody, present for everybody.

And so that could be a bill that a lot of things are thrown into because it will pass.

So we get one of those every lame duck session.

But that one could be very interesting to watch too.

But, you know, I think that there's no hurry now.

I mean, Democrats did not gain a significant number of seats.

There's a feeling that there is a mandate, according to some Republicans.

So there's no hurry to get things done, but they'll get what done what they wanna get done, I think.

- Okay, well, and we come back, let's talk about the fact too, that Issue One, the redistricting, its way to change the panel that was doing redistricting, you know, lost by 8%.

And I know it looked, up until close to the election, like it was going to win slightly.

What that means too.

Because obviously that means we're not gonna see a lot of dramatic change in the way we draw districts in Ohio.

So we come back, maybe get each of your opinion on what that means moving forward for Ohio, with regard to how we draw our districts.

Back in just a moment here on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with me on "The Journal."

Our guests are Karen Kasler, host of "The State of Ohio," Dr. David Jackson's of BGSU's Department of Political Science and Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, also from the BGSU Department of Political Science.

Dr. Kalaf-Hughes, Issue One, lots of activity, lots of discussion ahead of time, lots of advertising.

In the end, Ohioans said, "No, we like our redistricting system just the way we have it now."

So what does that look like and what does that mean for Ohio moving forward?

- Okay, so just to kind of give people, like, really the briefest of overviews, what Issue One would've done is it would've created a citizens redistricting commission, essentially, made up of five Democrats, five Republicans, and five independents.

And they would've been redrawing the lines for our legislative districts in Ohio.

And the idea being that it would take it out of the hands of politicians.

That was kind of the goal of Issue One.

It was written by the former Ohio State Supreme Court Chief Justice, who had actually voted down a lot of these unconstitutional districts that we have now.

And so that was put on the ballot as an initiative, and it needed 50% of the vote to pass, which it did not get.

And while some of the data that we kind of had seen ahead of time showed it polling where people were actually in favor of it, it ended up with, I think, a bigger gap than I probably expected.

But I wasn't surprised that it failed.

Initiatives generally are really, really hard to pass.

All of, kinda, like, the political science literature and the scholarship on it says initiatives are far more likely to fail than pass because failure is status quo.

So if you're not sure on something, and we know voting can be hard, there's a lot of stuff on there.

If you're not sure, or if it's confusing or you don't know the cost, the easiest vote is no, because you know what that no looks like.

- [Steve] You know what that means.

- It looks like our current system, there's very little risk in that.

So the yes vote is always gonna be steeper no matter what it is.

For this one in particular, it was really challenging for voters, because a lot of voters are not necessarily aware of the intricacies of redistricting.

And what made it on the ballot was so intentionally opaque that it was actually harder for voters to understand.

Even voters who, like, wanted to read the three full pages of ballot language.

So part of it wasn't just the fact that it was an initiative, but the fact that it was three pages of complicated ballot initiatives that you had to click through, not with the next button, but with the-- - [Steve] The arrow.

- The special arrow button at the bottom, which even I missed the first time, knowing it was gonna be there.

And so I think that kind of made it a little bit harder and a little bit of a steeper hill to climb.

So I think it isn't so much necessarily an embrace of the current system.

I'm some people it is an embrace of the current system, because let's not forget that one of the No On One taglines was, "Keep Ohio red."

So, like, for some people that is their goal.

But for other people, they just didn't understand it, and so it was easier to skip it.

Or it was safer because they know what the current system is and this amorphous idea of unelected people drawing the lines, there was a lot of, I think, uncertainty around that.

There has been some discussion even with Governor DeWine has said, "Well, people don't like the system, so maybe we will try something new."

Karen may have different opinions on this, but I don't know that the political appetite for that is necessarily there, because if you're in power with the current system, what's your incentive to change it?

Why would you draw lines that are gonna get you out of a job?

And so I think we're going to see our current system stick around for a little bit longer.

- [Steve] Yeah, and Karen, obviously the clips that you were showing on your show of the night of the election when there were people embracing Issue One's defeat as basically a win for Ohio, they were celebrating the fact that we aren't gonna change the system.

And so whether people are confused by it or not, it appears a lot of the people in Columbus who are in power say this this basically reaffirms the fact that Ohioans don't necessarily dislike our redistricting system.

- Well, and it's also the messaging from the Republican party.

Republican office holders were completely, for the most part, opposed to Issue One.

That was their message that they sent out.

And while Issue One did not lose by as much as Trump won, it still was very close in the sense that people who voted for Trump most likely voted against Issue One, at least when you look at the results.

And so, I think that's a big part of it.

The language that some people said was confusing was a part of it.

We had heard from people who said they wanted the system to change, but when they went in, they read the language and then they voted no because they didn't understand it.

That was language that was written by Republican Secretary of State Frank Rose and approved by the Republicans on the ballot board.

So the question about whether we could get a new system, I mean, I don't know whether there's any rush.

I mean, I think that it's not gonna come up anytime soon.

Not gonna come up during lame duck.

I'm pretty sure of that.

(Steve laughing) - Well, and the other thing is too, I guess, it's unlikely that anything done by the current redistricting panel will be found unconstitutional.

Would that be a reasonable statement to make?

Given that now these State Supreme Court is now heavily controlled by, there's no 4-3 whatever.

It's basically 6-1 Republicans, and they've conditionally always, with the exception of the person who kind of wrote language for this redistricting issue, the one Supreme Court Justice have always supported those unconstitutional maps.

So that's not likely to change, right, Dr. Jackson?

- [David] No, it's really unlikely to change given the six to one, I think, majority now in the Supreme Court.

A couple other things about Issue One that were interesting, of course there was the deceptive ballot description that confused people and it was very hard to do polling on that because you can't give people three single space pages to read on a survey because they'll quit the survey.

But then that actually does in some ways mimic what people probably did in the voting booth, which is to get to the complicated thing and skip it or vote no, because that was the safer choice.

The other interesting thing about it would be if people are going to try to do this again, maybe it wasn't the best idea strategically to have Issue One during a presidential year when you have massive turnout.

You know, massive turnout is good.

Because you want, you know, legitimacy.

- [Steve] People turn out to vote.

- But if you want win on something like this, what we saw with the constitutional amendment language last year with the marijuana referendum and the abortion referendum, you have much lower turnout in odd numbered year special elections, in which case the energized side has more of a chance to succeed.

- [Steve] Because people really interested will turn out, other people will not bother to show up because they're not interested.

- [David] And certainly the question of, you know, reproductive freedom and marijuana have a level of salience to the public that's different than the level of interest that comes from the topic of gerrymandering.

And I guess the last point would be there's anecdotal evidence and has been sort of hinted at here that there were people who voted against their preference on the topic because of the complicated ballot language.

And so just kind of a difficult situation to read the meaning of.

Had it gone the other way, I think it would've sent a signal to the current legislature to consider moderation.

But since it went the other way, the signal can be read by the majority as no need to moderate.

- [Steve] Do what you're doing.

Yeah.

- Full steam ahead.

Yeah.

- [Karen] Can I add really quick that there was a fall off from the presidential vote?

About 283,000 fewer votes in Issue One than in the presidential race.

So there definitely was a little bit of a fallout there.

- Right, and I know too, if you were at a polling place, you know, the language is laid out on a table and it made, I don't know, I'm not sure what, it made "War and Peace" look like a short document.

I mean, it was amazing.

And people would, because the lines were long, people would stand and watch and they'd look at it and you could tell after about the first two or three pages of the 38 page display, it's like, "Okay, well I've read enough of this."

So yeah, a lot of things came into play that weren't necessarily maybe about the issue itself.

We'll be back in just a moment with more on election 2024, the recap, and where we move forward.

We'll talk about who's gonna replace JD Vance.

There's a lot of people interested.

Back in just a moment here on "The Journal."

You're with us on "The Journal," and we're talking about recapping election 2024 with David Jackson, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, and Karen Kasler.

Karen obviously, JD Vance is now the VP elect, which means Ohio is gonna have two fairly new senators and we're gonna have to find a replacement for him.

So who's lining up in Columbus and elsewhere around the state for that opportunity to be a US senator and replace JD Vance after his long tenure as a US Senator?

- Well, everybody is lining up.

Every Republican is lining up.

There have been some, I think, facetious suggestions that DeWine appoint Sherrod Brown (laughs) since Brown just lost, but of course that's-- - [Steve] Not likely.

- Billy at this point.

But you've got a lot of Republicans.

I mean, an open Senate seat is a big deal.

And so DeWine has said that he knows what it takes to be a good US senator.

He himself was one until he lost to Sherrod Brown in 2006.

And so he's looking for somebody who can run and win.

And it's gonna have to be somebody who can raise a lot of money too.

This person is gonna have to run in 2026 in a special election and then run for their full six year term in 2028.

So this is gonna take a lot of money.

Every US Senate race seems to be more expensive than the last, so we're talking tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars that the candidate, him or herself is gonna have to raise.

And so some of the names I've been hearing are former Republican party chair Jane Timken.

I've heard people like Lieutenant Governor John Husted, who had been in the gubernatorial possibility to run for governor in 2026.

Hearing all sorts of people, Republican strategists, current members of Congress.

This is part of what you get when one party has really been in charge for a very long time.

When an opportunity comes up, a lot of people from that one party are very, very interested.

- [Steve] Yeah, and Dr. Hughes?

- [Nicole] Well, yeah, and I think the one thing that if we look at Ohio history makes this even kind of more interesting is if you look at, for the past 40 or 50 years of when Ohio has had to fill a Senate seat for whatever reason and the governor appoints someone and they then have to run two years later, and then again to fill the regular six year term, they have not been successful in that following election.

And so some of this is, I think Ohio is much more red now than it has been in the past, but there is a risk.

Because you're going to be evaluated in a special election two years from now, and you won't really have had an opportunity to do much, right?

These are six year terms in the Senate normally, and you're gonna be limited.

And when Ohio is sending two brand new junior senators to the Senate, they are not going to be well positioned, regardless of them as individuals or partisanship, to bring federal benefits back to Ohio.

And that's a lot of what the Senate does, is they go and they bring things back.

They should be bringing, you know, essentially representation back to the state of Ohio.

And so whoever is selected who does have to then run again in two years, is going to have to really move quickly if they wanna kind of buck tradition and actually get reelected.

- [Steve] Get reelected after that appointment.

Yeah.

- [Karen] One name that is out of the mix right now is Vivek Ramaswamy, who had run for president.

He's from Ohio, he's now joined up with Elon Musk to the two of them heading the Department of Government Efficiency.

And so he had been talked about as a possible candidate for governor, US Senate.

That kind of opens some of the opportunities here.

One person who said he will not accept is Attorney General Dave Yost.

He said if he's appointed he wouldn't accept the appointment.

And he seems to be looking at governor, but so is John Husted.

So we've got a lot of moving around here, which is a problem the Democrats don't have.

They're really, I think, looking to try to figure out who they're gonna put up in 2026 for all five of those executive offices, including governor.

- Which I know, David, when you talked before, the fact that because Democrats have been out of power for so long, who do they turn to in 2026 to run against whoever the appointed candidate is, the appointed Senator by Governor DeWine?

- Well, the fact that lots of Democrats are talking on social media, hoping that Sherrod Brown runs for the seat in 2026, tells us a lot about, you know, the nature of the bench on the Democratic side.

Now, I mean, things can change.

People can go from unknown statewide to known, with enough money and enough, but, you know, the fact that Sherrod Brown is considered by some to be the best candidate and a front runner for the position has also been, you know, rumored, you know, speculative talk on social media about Sherrod Brown being the right person to take over the Democratic National Committee, based on the premise that Democrats need to win back working class voters and that that concept of the dignity of work has been central to Sherrod Brown's career.

And so again, these are things that people say on social media, (laughs) maybe more so than what actually might be going on in the rest of the world.

But that's some thinking that I've been, you know, reading about a little bit.

- [Steve] Yeah, well, and Karen too, if you look at, in Columbus, who from the General Assembly on the Democratic side would be a potential Senate candidate?

Is there a name?

I mean, is there anybody that comes to mind, that stands out among any of the people down there?

Because there's no statewide office holders to lean back on.

So that would seemingly be the next group, would be somebody who's in state government that has at least some name recognition.

- Yeah, that's been the problem that Democrats have faced now because these five executive offices, governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer, we knew they were gonna be open because all five of the people in those offices are term limited.

So this is something I'm sure Democrats have been thinking about for a while.

You've got House Minority Leader Alison Russo, you've got some other folks that have maybe local name recognition.

But getting that statewide name recognition is a big deal.

And because the party has been consistently trying to rebuild, but losing ground in these statewide elections, they just don't have any names that are well known besides Sherrod Brown.

And now they only have one Democrat in statewide elected office and that's Justice Jennifer Bruner.

- Right, well, and real quick, 'cause we've got about two minutes, how does it, if you look at that, how does a Democrat, 'cause basically you look at the map of Ohio, it's urban centers where Democrats are being elected or reelected or whatever.

The problem is, how does a person like that appeal to somebody in a rural county like Preble County or name a county outside of Franklin County, Cuyahoga County, Lucas County, whatever.

What message do they bring other than Sherrod Brown's dignity of work message?

Because that's where the rubber's meeting the road in Ohio right now is not necessarily in the urban areas, but in the other 80 county that aren't an urban center.

- Well, yeah, I mean, looking at the situation, I think one thing is Donald Trump, assuming, you know, he chooses to abide by the Constitution, will never be on the ballot again.

And so we are trying to figure out how much of what's going on is driven by, you know, the power of his personality and movement.

And is there going to be Trumpism after Trump?

Now clearly there is.

I mean, this is a movement, this is something that's bigger than him as an individual.

Does JD Vance or somebody else have the same, you know, charisma and ability to carry people that way?

And so in 2026 typically, you know, the party out of power does better in the midterms.

And so, you know, anything I suppose is possible, (laughs) given that he will not be on the ballot in 2026.

- [Steve] Yeah, well, and Dr. Kalaf-Hughes, I'll give you the last words, we have about a minute and a half or a minute or so.

Post-Trump, who's the Republican, who's the leader in the clubhouse when Donald Trump isn't around?

What names come to mind?

Obviously it'll be like lining up for the US Senate seat.

A lot of people.

- I think that's the answer, is I think it's gonna be a lot of people, and I think you saw that a little bit with the Republican primary for president.

And I think you're going to see that even at state level elections as I think it's going to be a lot of people, because a lot of people are gonna look at this and say, "I have an opening now is my shot."

And they're gonna go for it and they're gonna see how it shakes out.

And for some of them, it does work out really well, even if they aren't successful.

And so we see some of these people who haven't necessarily been successful in the race they've been running, at least right now, getting nominated to positions.

- [Steve] Secretary appointments in the cabinet.

- Yep, and so I think you have some people who even if they know their chance of winning a seat or whatever position it is that they're running for, even if they know their chance isn't great, getting any election to get your name out there often works out well, not always.

And we can think of examples where it hasn't.

But I think they'll see their shot and take it.

- [David] Nikki Haley's not gonna get anything.

- [Steve] Apparently not.

Apparently not.

Well, we'll have to leave it there until we get together again in a few more weeks or another month or so, after the lame duck session, maybe after, you know, the whole settle of transfer of power in Washington, all of that and see where this all shakes out and see who is appointed to JD Vance's Senate seat.

You can check us out at wbgu.org, you can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock at WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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