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Early voting continues for the two statewide issues on the November ballot, and the countdown is on toward a big election year in 2024.

I talk with the chairs of Ohio's two major political parties this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of ohio.

I'm karen kasler.

Though this is an odd year, elections, so no statewide candidates on the ballot.

It's been an unexpectedly busy few months in Ohio politics.

Both major parties have been involved in the August special election on issue one, the 60% voter approval threshold for constitutional amendments that was defeated and the upcoming issue one the Abortion and Reproductive Rights Amendment.

But they're also looking forward to next year's presidential and U.S. Senate primaries in March.

And they've both been watching the battle over who will lead the US House, which featured Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan as the Republican's nominee.

I talked to Ohio Republican Party chair Alex Trout, a fellow this week via Zoom, starting with issue one, the Ohio Republican Party hosted a get out the vote event at a party headquarters just before early voting started.

Data that featured Governor Mike DeWine, Attorney General Dave Yost, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senator Matt Dolan, the last two or four U.S. Senate candidates next year.

They all were speaking out against issue one.

Why is the party getting so involved in an issue that even some Republicans say they're on the other side of or that they're concerned about?

I noticed the Ohio Democratic Party is not as involved.

Why are why is the Ohio Republican Party is involved on issue one?

You know, life is a basic component of what we fight for as Republicans.

And this is one it's important to us.

It's important to our base.

We think what the Democrats are trying to do and what the issue one folks are trying to do is radical.

We think it's a departure even from what we had under Roe versus Wade.

So we believe it goes too far.

I think the governor was clear about that at our press event.

We've been clear about that.

This just goes way too far.

And we know we know there are some people that may be on the other side of this issue that might vote Republican.

There's a place for them in the Republican Party we would ask them to do is to look very carefully at what this legislation seeks to do and what this constitutional amendment seeks to do and make a decision based on that.

We think we've got more reasonable measures that can put into place.

We think fighting against this radical measure makes sense.

And again, the governor is the leader of our party in this state.

And it's important to the governor.

It's important to our party.

The party was openly supportive of issue one in August.

That was the one that would raise the voter approval threshold for constitutional amendments, including this one on abortion, reproductive rights.

On the November ballot, it was defeated.

Did that defeat of Issue one in August hurt your ability to get out the message on this new issue one?

Well, certainly we had a different perspective on what ought to happen with issue one, but I think they're totally different.

I believe they're different.

The issue won in August was difficult to explain internal sort of constitutional matter.

You know, I'm a lawyer.

I've been a lawyer my my whole career.

And for me, I understood it pretty readily.

I did believe that the August issue and again, it's ancient history was really not about abortion, was not about that.

It was about good government.

It was about making it harder to amend the state's foundational document.

Republicans were instrumental in putting that issue on the August ballot.

Is that confusing, do you think, to voters now who are trying to say, figure out what's going on here and think maybe, hey, didn't we already decide issue one?

Was that a mistake to put that ISSUE one on in August?

I don't think so.

Again, I was consistent.

That'll be consistent now.

I think that making our Constitution here in Ohio harder to amend and making it, frankly, not even as hard as it is to amend our federal Constitution was the right decision for a variety of reasons.

Abortion may have just been one of them.

And I know for a lot of folks that was a motivating factor.

But so, you know, look, I think voters are smarter than we always give them credit for.

And I think voters are going to go to the polls and understand that this issue, one really is about a radical abortion, a measure being proposed by the supporters of issue one.

And what we're doing here is simply pushing back.

And is sure to of course, we have the proposed law that would legalize recreational marijuana.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of active campaigning on that from either side.

Yet.

Where is the Ohio Republican Party on issue two, noting that there are some Republicans who are supportive of legalized recreational marijuana, including Representative Jamie Calendar, who sponsored a bipartisan bill that would have done that in the last General Assembly.

You know, there may be room to do marijuana legalization in this state.

That'll should be up to our representatives in a more, you know, a sort of more professional process of getting to the right call.

What I think, first of all, we came out against issue to the marijuana initiative unanimously as a state party and are at our September meeting.

And one of the I think one of the main motivators in there is to read the language carefully.

And we've asked, you know, anyone who's asked us about this, to read it carefully, it creates some social programs in there that actually give benefit that actually give benefit to people who maybe had previously been convicted of crimes around marijuana.

You know, it's a social justice program rather more than it is a legalization program.

I think once Ohioans get dive into the language one or two paragraphs deep on what's on their ballot, they're going to realize this goes beyond just legalization.

This is big outside special interest groups are, you know, who want to profit heavily off of marijuana.

We think if we're going to have legalization, there's got to be a better way to do it than this this measure.

I think a lot of strategists think that the turnout issue two helps issue one, potentially because there could be younger voters, there could be a benefit to issue one if issue two, turnout is is good.

Have you worried have you thought about the effect that issue two has on this you want?

Yes, we have.

And, you know, we've looked at some data, Karen, about how that works.

And, you know, what we've done is we're trying to message to the right kind of voters who understand we, you know, our perspective on this.

So, you know, it's I think this I think that what's going on in Washington, what's going on in our country, I think what's what's happened even internationally, will drive turnout more than some of these, you know, these individual issues here in Ohio.

So I think they're going to see a large turnout, frankly, in November election.

I think people are scared.

They're concerned about the future.

You know, ultimately, I think the election here in Ohio in 24, which of course, everyone's talking about, will be a referendum on Joe Biden, But I think it'll be heavy interest and, you know, again, will there be some some small changes in turnout?

Again, I'm a political scientist in my own way.

Those those may be small factors, but I don't think those are ultimately going to are going to be what drive the electorate in this election.

And I want to get to the 2024 election in just a minute.

But I want to ask you about your message in both the August special election and the November election is that you want people to vote early.

You've even said it's okay to vote that way.

So are you having trouble getting that message out to people, especially after President Trump blasted early voting?

Ohio presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has said that, you know, he's concerned about that.

And Election Day voting is the only way to go.

Have you have trouble getting that early voting message out.

A little bit?

I mean, a little bit.

The answer is, you know, we know we're running up against some of that and that messaging from outside of Ohio.

But I know this.

I know that we do it right in Ohio.

We have election integrity here in this state.

Yeah, there have been episodes of election fraud.

I've been on the board of elections for almost 16 years in my life.

I know that fraud does exist that has existed, but generally speaking, early vote is very safe in this state.

And we're going to we're going to do it.

Has it made it harder?

The answer is yes.

It has made it a little bit harder.

I think, you know, the fake ramaswamy somebody I've listened to very intently.

Of course, President Trump for many years has been vocal on this and other topics.

What I think they have said is, let's find a more uniform way to do it so the rules can't be changed by individual states.

And I'll leave that up to to other folks here in Ohio.

What we're trying to do is remind Republicans that it's okay to vote early because the Democrats have done better at that.

And we got to be honest with our voters about that.

You talk about 2024 in the contest for next year's U.S. Senate race.

All three of your candidates for U.S. Senate are behind incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown in terms of fundraising.

In fact, the three of them together have as much cash on hand as Brown does alone.

Ernie Moreno led your trio of candidates and raising $1.2 million, while Brown raised $4.7 million.

So is this something that you're worried about?

Well, you know, there may be a little bit maybe a little bit behind in the money game, but there are two of the three are ahead in the polling.

Right.

So certainly money matters in politics.

It's a big focus of what a candidate must do to be successful.

I know this.

I know that ultimately in 2024, this is going to be a referendum on Joe Biden's performance as president.

United States, these races every two years that pass and these federal cycles, these become more and more nationalized.

Sherrod Brown knows it.

That's why he's had to raise lots of special interest money.

He's the incumbent, so he's able to shake the trees from special interest in Washington.

Our guys are going to have to run on the ground.

They will earn it on the ground.

And Sherrod Brown knows that he's going to have the toughest reelection of his career.

He says it himself, and that's because he's so closely tied to Joe Biden.

He'll need all that money to try to explain away his record.

This primary is nationalized simply by the presence of a presidential primary coming up.

And former President Trump is on the ballot just a party still supporting him even after everything it's going on.

How do you what impact do you think he's going to have on the U.S. Senate primary?

Yes, we'll support President Trump.

He's a nominee, the Republican Party, make no mistake about that.

He's got lots of support here in Ohio.

You know, we as an organization have it technically endorsed anybody for president or anybody for for that matter, including the Senate race in 2024.

You know, those things have a process inside our party.

But I can tell you now that President Trump has strong, strong support in Ohio, he'll have strong support for me in this party if he's ultimately the nominee of the party.

And certainly back to what we started this conversation with, There is a leadership battle in the US House, but also in the Ohio House.

In both cases, it's Republicans fighting Republicans in Ohio, representing Derek Marron and two of his supporters are suing Speaker Jason Stevens over control of the House Republican caucus campaign account, which, of course, could be used in primaries next year, where you might have some lawmakers who supported Stevens, facing some people who are challenging them, who supported Darren or backed by Erin.

All that seems likely since the Ohio Republican Party censured the 22 Republicans who voted for Stevens, as well as Stevens himself.

This is not a good look for Republicans, is it?

Yeah, I don't like it.

I mean, I don't like the fact that we're engaging in this kind of public fighting.

But, you know, that's part of what means when you have as many seats as we have.

The Republicans have won a lot of seats here in Ohio.

And we have we have a lot of Republicans.

And sometimes we've got to get our house in order.

Here's the good news.

We passed, you know, a great budget for Ohioans.

We've passed great policy for Ohioans.

We've got the kind of a climate in Ohio that draws a company like Intel to come here and set up shop and create high paying jobs.

We've got steady leadership under Governor DeWine.

So, you know, some of these smaller issues that are, you know, certainly going to make the news.

I appreciate why they are.

But when voters take a step back and they look at the way this state's being run by Republicans, they have to be satisfied.

We've done a wonderful job as a Republican Party and as elected officials, again, led by our terrific governor, to do good things.

You look at somebody like Senator Vance, I think one of the few people still looking out for the people of East Palestine.

So I'm very comfortable with where we are.

We're going to have some of these squabbles in the party.

They're normal.

They happen in the Democratic Party as well.

And again, I come from a city where strongly Democratic, where they're fighting amongst themselves.

Sometimes that's going to occur.

But I think when the adults in the room step back and take a look at what we've done in the state, I'm proud to run on that record as a Republican.

And I spoke this week with Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters in our studio.

Again, starting with issue one, I've noticed the Ohio Democratic Party is not as heavily involved in issue one.

Why is that?

I don't actually think that's true.

We are super involved.

We have 63 county teams out knocking doors every weekend.

Right now, we're producing about 25,000 doors a week here, talking to voters across the state.

We are making phone calls to voters all over Ohio almost every evening through our virtual filmmaking process.

So we endorse early.

We help to get on the ballot.

We gathered about a quarter of the valid signatures.

So we're out there every day.

I think people are just kind of getting used to seeing us everywhere in this space because we are really taking up the mantle of grassroots organizing around Ohio.

The most important thing we can do is spend our time talking directly to voters, making sure that volunteers have the tools and the training they need to to feel effective and to be effective in their neighborhoods, in their communities.

And so that's what we're spending most of our time.

And you were against issue one and August.

Yes.

And did that give you the opportunity to get information, to reach out to people to do what you're doing now?

What did you learn from that successful campaign to try to bring it into this campaign?

Yeah, listen, I think in some ways it was for us learning the things we already knew, that the most powerful tool that we have in elections in Ohio is getting everyday Ohioans to talk to their friends, family and neighbors about the issues they care most about.

So in August, when the Republicans are trying to take away our constitutional rights, we mobilized hundreds of thousands of people around the state to vote no in August.

This November, we're voting yes to enshrine reproductive freedom in our state constitution because we know that that matters to Ohio families all over the state, regardless of partizanship, regardless of the kind of county they live in.

We are seeing support for this issue everywhere.

And so our main takeaway is that the most important thing we can spend our time doing is organizing all of our communities across the state to get out and make their plan to vote.

Voting is open in Ohio so people can vote yes on issue one any time between now and Election Day on November 7th.

On that note, the signs that I've seen, I've seen a lot of yes, on one signs, but they're all different.

Is there is there one unified message?

Why isn't there one unified message?

I think there are.

They're very much is, right.

Yes.

On one.

And we've all kind of been living in the same message frame.

I think really there's so much excitement on the.

Yes.

On one campaign that we have coalitions of people who just we can't get these things out fast enough.

I joke that you know, I feel like I'm running a black market for yard signs because they are so in demand.

And so really at this point, the more people willing to help get the message out, the the better.

And so every part of the campaign, for the most part, there's there's been one unified like symbol.

But at a certain point, we just had so many people wanting to get involved and by yard signs we said go for it as long as they say yes on issue one and gets people to vote.

That's what we care about.

Issue two, there doesn't seem to be a lot of active campaigning on that.

In general, where is the party on this?

You I'm told some Democrats even are concerned about legalizing recreational marijuana.

This isn't necessarily a party line issue.

Here is the Ohio Democratic Party on this.

So unfortunately, because of timing and when the language got approved, we didn't have another state central committee meeting planned in order to take a dormant vote on it.

As you'll recall, we were because we were a part of signature gathering for issue what is now issue one.

That endorsement happened on the issue months ago.

So really for us, it was just a matter of time.

We ran out of time to take up the issue.

We chose to and encouraged our county parties, our local electeds, to take the stance that made the most sense for their community.

Generally speaking, county parties all over Ohio are endorsing.

Yes, on to.

We really believe that anything that brings more justice into this space is important.

You know, some young kids shouldn't go to jail because somebody found a joint in this pocket.

And so we'll see how the election plays out.

I know we've seen like you have, that polling on this issue is pretty popular across Ohio.

I personally will be voting yes on issue two.

But I think what we just because of timing, we had to let local folks take whatever they could do on their own, happen.

These big issues, the 60% voter approval threshold that was rejected in August, the Abortion and reproductive Rights amendment coming up, the legalization of marijuana law coming up.

All of these things have they informed anybody in the Democratic Party that maybe the party should consider doing something to try to turn out voters next year or even later, like, for instance, gun regulations?

That's another issue that's very popular that that tends to bring people who are interested in to talking about it.

And he thought about the Democrats running something like that and trying to get another amendment out there.

Well, first and foremost, I think it's important for folks to remember that as the Democratic Party, our job is to elect Democrats.

That's what we exist to do.

There are a lot of coalitions out there thinking about a lot of issues.

Number one, at the top of that list is actually redistricting.

We've seen former Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor is taking up this issue, which we think is very important and just their legal structure.

It doesn't really make sense for the party to lead on an issue campaign for really real important legal and financial regulatory structure.

So, you know, whatever issues come onto the ballot next year, we will take those up as a body and consider them.

And I could put put money down that you'll see us engaging in other issues around the state next year, probably redistricting, maybe some other things that may come up.

But these are, you know, again, a party has a statement of values and voters want to know that when our values are on the ballot, we show up and we really back up all those things we say with action, which is why we've been such a big part of the coalition for the August special and now for reproductive rights this fall.

So I'm sure you'll see that again next year, but we'll see what comes out.

Democrats have been really good about getting their voters out early because the returns that we see typically show that Democratic issues are doing well in early voting.

Republicans are now pushing their voters to go out and vote early.

Do Democrats have a problem keeping that momentum going and getting their voters not only out early, but then again on Election Day for those who've missed voting early?

No, I don't think we have a problem.

Right.

The most important piece for us, what we focus on is making sure that we know what voters are going to vote when.

Right and making sure they have the information they need to show up and cast their ballot fairly and get get as much access as they can to to the early vote process, if that's what's for them.

Republicans in Ohio have made voting a little bit harder every year.

Governor DeWine, earlier this year signed a law that made the required photo ID for the first time in Ohio history, but specifically excluded college IDs as counting.

So our focus is not we're not to worry about voter showing up.

We're worried about making sure they can cast their ballot when they do so, making sure folks know the rules about how to get the ID they need, making sure they know how to vote absentee, if that's what works for their calendar, because they've got soccer games or Little League or whatever those things are that take up their schedule.

So a lot of our time is spent talking to voters about making sure they make their plan to vote on or before November 7th.

There is this leadership battle going on in the US House, but also there is a leadership battle going on in the Ohio House, both cases, Republicans fighting Republicans.

In Ohio.

Representative Derek Marron and two of his supporters are suing Speaker Jason Stevens over control of the House Republicans campaign account.

House Democrats backed Stevens and got him elected speaker.

Is there any regret on that since this battle has been going on for this entire year?

And also because some things that Democrats were really concerned about, like the 60% voter approval amendment, like a ban on trans athletes in girls sports, these things still went forward in the house anyway.

Listen, I think that our Democratic leadership is trying to do their best to make sure that whenever presented with the opportunity to govern effectively for the people of Ohio, to focus on the issues that matter most to them, things like grocery bills and prescription drug costs and making sure we have good schools, They're working in coalition with whoever might come to the table to try to to make that happen.

The extremism we're seeing out of both sides of this fight in the Republican House, like I can't really speak to that.

We're focused on leading for the people of Ohio and unfortunately, we're going to have to let their message play itself out.

Whoever comes tumbling out of that nasty battle, hopefully they'll come around to also joining us in the work, too, to work for working people in Ohio in the contest for next year's U.S. Senate race, because we have to talk about next year.

Already, all three of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate are well behind incumbent Sherrod Brown.

In fact, the three of them together have as much cash on hand as Brown does.

And Bernie Moreno leads the Republican candidates with $1.2 million raised, while Brown raised $4.7 million.

All this sounds really good to Democrats, but Brown has even said this is going to be the toughest election campaign he's run.

So are you worried?

Well, listen, we're going to focus really every day on what we need to do to reelect Sherrod Brown, reelect our frontline members of Congress, to reelect our Supreme Court candidates.

No election is easy.

No election is a given.

And we'd be foolish to treat it as such.

And I think you can see from Senator Brown, from the things he's been saying, he understands that and he takes earning the vote of Ohioans seriously when he runs for office.

But I think the other thing we're seeing in the Republican primary in particular is that it's just another messy gross primary with billionaires trying to buy their way into the US Senate.

And the only thing Ohio voters know about them right now is that they've spent the summer trying to take away our democracy and take away our fundamental freedoms.

As Ohioans.

So they're going to have a big hill to climb as they come out of the primary trying to help Ohioans understand why they spent all that time and money trying to take away our democracy and our freedom is Sherrod Brown doing things now, though, that maybe might cast some doubt on his progressive credentials to try to bring in Republican voters?

Listen.

Sherrod Brown has never been anything but authentic.

Voters know who he is, what he stands for.

You've we've never had a stronger fighter for human rights, for civil rights, for workers rights, for the dignity of work than Sherrod Brown.

Ohio voters know that.

It's why they trust him.

It's why they have so much faith in him.

And I think as you see the year play out, you're not going to see anything different than that from Sherrod Brown.

But being who he's always been, there's Donald Trump being on the presidential ballot, help Republicans, Democrats who I don't know if I could predict that, Alison.

I mean, a 91 times indicted, convicted felon is is that's a roll of the dice for for the Republican Party.

We'll see what happens on the US House Speaker battle true on TV, Lou said the Ohio Republican Party strongly supported Jim Jordan because he's a perfect contrast to President Biden.

Walter says the intraparty squabbles among Republicans in Congress have shown, quote, that these just aren't serious people.

There was a planned terrorist attack this week that was not real, but it was designed to avoid real panic and terror.

Later, our new state House correspondent, Sarah Donaldson, was there.

Tell me what you saw.

That's right, Karen.

So public safety, EMS and health agencies from across the state came together this week to participate in a three day biological terrorist attack simulation.

So it started north of Columbus, and that was just mostly central Ohio agencies.

And that's what I had the chance to observe.

And it went through Thursday.

And by that point, all of Ohio's counties were involved at the historic cruise stadium near the state fairgrounds in Columbus.

Trained emergency responders donned layers of protective gear to make sense of white powder and a chemical smell.

And here we are on scene to try to figure out what it is and mitigate that hazard.

In this mock exercise.

That hazard could be the biologic agent anthrax.

The United States last recorded in the anthrax attack in the weeks following 911, when laced letters mailed to U.S. senators and media outlets left five people dead and 17 more sick Two decades later, Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff says emergency preparedness drills like this one allow the state and localities to see how ready they are just in case.

All of us involved.

In this exercise.

Hope that we will never have to address these kinds of issues.

But the Department of Health has not been so lucky when it comes to other kinds of health emergencies.

The COVID 19 pandemic prompted stay at home orders and the need for wide scale vaccine distribution.

And after East Palestine, residents voiced their anxieties about the aftermath of the train derailment.

So the department offered a clinic.

OTOH, the National Guard, the FBI and Columbus Fire were on site Tuesday to participate in the initial phase of the simulation.

The exercise went on until Thursday.

The department says it takes years to pull a preparedness drill of this scale off with each of the state's 88 counties also playing a role, they are practicing the request and distribution process for how antibiotics would be distributed to the public within 48 hours of a bioterrorist attack.

After this, three day drill concludes, participating agencies will begin to look at what went right and what went wrong.

And Vanderhoff says that part can be most important.

Sarah Donaldson, Statehouse News Bureau.

And that is it for this week, my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our Web site at state News dot org or find us online by searching the state of Ohio show.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.