Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which is published weekly by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, discussed political trends and consequences with the Cleveland Club on April 20. The author – as well as co-author with the Center’s Larry Sabato – of several books on politics and voting trends, Kondik discoursed on Ohio and national voting affairs.

Raised in Independence and a graduate of Ohio University as well as its Scripps School of Journalism, Kondik offered all manner of statistics on recent elections and some speculation on future ones.

Reflecting on Ohio politically – which he said could also stand in general for the Upper Midwest – he noted a “Democratic collapse outside large cities.” He observed that Ohio’s three largest counties – Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Franklin (Columbus) and Hamilton (Cincinnati) -- make up about 30% of the state’s vote, the other 85 counties composing 70%. Biden did 66,000 votes better than Obama’s 2012 total in the three big counties in 2020, he noted, but more than 700,000 worse in the other counties. “Democrats used to count on such cities as Warren and Youngstown, but not anymore,” Kondik said.

“There are lots of voter shifts going on,” Kondik said, “but the one most notable to me concerns the four-year college degree. Voters without a four-year degree used to be Democratic but have been trending Republican while those with a four-year degree used to be Republican but are trending Democratic. And in a state like Ohio there are more voters without a four-year degree than those with one.” To make Ohio competitive again for Democrats, he said, Democrats have to do better in the big city suburbs and claw back among the whiter, rural counties. These trends echo in Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania are affected more than Ohio by their mega-cities and higher percentages of four-year college degrees. Besides higher education, Kondik noted a cultural divide: cultural liberalism vs cultural conservatism, with persons who used to vote Democratic loosening their loyalties -- perhaps associated with unionism – to the party on account of cultural issues. He also noted “negative partisanship,” the tendency to vote against a party or candidate rather than for one.

Other points Kondik offered or made in response to questions:

About Ohio

• State offices are likely to remain Republican in 2022. Rob Portman’s U. S. Senate seat likely will remain Republican though Ohio historically elects a moderate Republican to the Senate rather than one more to the fringes of the party.

• Democrats could peg their hopes on 1) Republican votes declining without Trump on the ticket (because some Trump voters are loyal to the man rather than the party’s positions), and 2) growth being larger in the three major cities than in rural areas.

• Kondik lamented the diminishing resources of local newspapers including ones in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. He noted that people are relying less on mainstream media and that trust in government and media is low.

About the nation

• Political polling has not been as reliable as in the past, some states such as Florida and Nevada being considerably difficult to poll accurately.

• Redistricting on account of the 2020 census will likely help Republicans. Neither house of the U. S. Congress is guaranteed to flip, but of the two the House is the more likely to go Republican.

• Redistricting will likely reduce Ohio’s House seats to 15 [proven correct on April 26] (population in the state is growing but slower than in some other parts of the country) and the district likely to disappear is the one Cong. Tim Ryan now holds. Kondik foresees a 12-3 or 11-4 Republican-Democrat mix for U. S. House representation.

• Owing to demographic changes, Georgia will become increasingly Democratic.

For more on Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter and the University of Virginia Center for Politics, see: https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/.