Ohio wasn’t a swing state in 2024. Could it be one again?

By Mariah Alanskas/Kent State NewsLab

Ohio’s 17 electoral votes went toward President-elect Donald Trump in the November election. Although Ohio’s red results were expected in 2024, there were many decades when uncertainty surrounded which way Ohio voters would lean.

“For a time, Ohio was within three percentage points difference from election to election, no matter who it was,” said Daniel Birdsong, a political science professor at the University of Dayton.

Now, as Ohio gets redder, experts question whether Ohio could get back to its “battleground state” status.

Ohio’s evolution during the 21st century

The last time Ohio went blue, it was for former President Barack Obama’s re-election win in 2012. 

Zachary Morris, a fourth-year political science Ph.D. candidate at Kent State University with a focus in American politics, public policy and Republican party dynamics, credits Obama’s win in Ohio to his ability to reach the working class and industrial population that predominantly reside in rural areas.

“You really have to look at how Obama won and how it changed, because that’s the story of Ohio and why it’s now not considered a swing state,” Morris said. “[Obama] was able to do better in some of these more rural, blue-collar counties that Democrats now don’t have the ability to get.”

Ohio election results by comparison 

In 2024, nearly all counties that voted blue were home to a major Ohio city like Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Sandusky and Athens.

In 2012, Obama won those in addition to most of the counties bordering Lake Erie and on the Pennsylvania border.

Ohio is one of four states with the largest rural populations in the nation at nearly 2.8 million people, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. 

Data from the Pew Research center suggests that throughout the 21st century, Democratic voters have led urban areas and Republicans have led rural areas. Suburban areas are closely divided.

Megan Emerson, a Cleveland-based interior designer, voted blue in both 2020 and 2024. She feels that a large reason why Ohio trends red is the lack of mobility in rural areas.

“I think it’s the experience of leaving the town. A lot of Ohio towns are very rural, and people aren’t leaving,” Emerson said. “Cuyahoga County is blue because there are cities, and because there is such a mass amount of different backgrounds and people.”

Some urban or formerly urban counties have shifted toward Trump as well. Mahoning County is one county that really exemplifies Ohio’s right-wing turn, according to Morris. Youngstown’s home county — which has a population of 225,596, per 2023 census data — voted red in 2020 for the first time since 1972. Trump’s margin grew there in 2024. 

“You’re seeing this trend play out with a lot of these areas that have lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, including Mahoning County,” Morris said. Southeastern Ohio, “which used to be the very strong industrial base of the state, has experienced population decline, aging, a flight of brain drain, people leaving, and they just don’t believe that the Democratic Party, which once used to be a very vibrant party, and used to do very well in those areas, they don’t see them offering a solution.”

Nicholas Kanos is a lifelong resident and voter of Mahoning County, as well as a swing voter. He says he voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but voted for the Democratic tickets in 2020 and 2024. He also says his father is a lifelong Democrat, but voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

“My parents and [my wife’s] parents were all blue-collar factory workers,” Kanos said. “I have a feeling that the Democratic party doesn’t necessarily represent that class anymore, and I think that’s probably why it shifted [from blue to red].”

According to Birdsong, another part of the reason for Ohio’s recent red turn could be caused by a lack of focus, and “messaging and outreach” from the Democratic party during the election season in Ohio.

“2012 was really the last time we were heavily visited,” Birdsong said. “We didn’t get any visits, as far as I saw, for this year’s presidential rally visits. We did see that in 2020, and in 2016 to some degree, of [visits] to make sure the state voted for Trump.”

Can Ohio regain its “swing state” status?

In general, Black, women, college-educated and young voters consistently lean blue in both the nation and Ohio, according to polls. However, the 2024 election results showed Trump winning over more young voters and white women. 

“Overall we’re seeing women, especially post Roe v. Wade getting overturned, trending towards the Democratic Party,” Morris said. 

Morris said one demographic the Democratic ticket did well with nationally was women 65 and over. He says this trend can be seen as a “silver lining” for the Democrats to win over a demographic that in the past “voted Republican or didn’t vote at all.”  

Additionally, Birdsong says, Ohio voters have supported ballot initiatives that don’t align with the Republican Party platform.

“Statistics are candidate-centered, but last year, if you remember, in Ohio, we had two statewide ballots, one about reproductive rights and one about access or legalization of marijuana,” Birdsong said. “Both of those passed, and both of those are not what you would refer to as kind of conservative policies either, so we have these moments of somewhat bucking the trend.”

Morris says he can see Ohio becoming a swing state again, but not on any specific timeline. Rather, he feels it may be more reliant on future sets of issues that Ohio, at large, feels Democrats “will have a better plan for.”

“There’s a key concept in political science — that voters will exact their vengeance on the party if they feel the country’s going in the wrong direction,” Morris said. “At the polls, come Election Day in 2028, if the majority of people feel that the country is going in the wrong direction, you will see a blue wave.”

This story was originally published by the Kent State NewsLab, a collaborative news outlet publishing journalism by Kent State students.