Ohio
What do Ohio’s election results mean? Diving deeper into national, statewide and local races
Election Day is over, but the implications of Tuesday’s results will play out for years to come.
Republicans had a big day statewide and nationally, while on the local level Franklin County Democrats are celebrating. Here’s what we’re following in the election’s wake:
Donald Trump defeats VP Kamala Harris in Ohio, the biggest win for president in 40 years
Ohio voters picked former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in a double-digit victory – a result that underscored Ohio’s shift from a presidential bellwether to a solid Republican state.
Trump easily won Ohio in 2016 and 2020, so his victory in 2024 is not surprising. But the margin was impressive.
Trump’s 11-point lead was the largest for a presidential candidate in Ohio in 40 years.
Now that JD Vance will be VP, what happens to his Ohio Senate seat?
The next vice president of the United States will be a senator from Ohio.
Former president Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance defeated Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in the presidential election called Wednesday morning by the Associated Press. Trump and Vance will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, just two years after Vance took the oath of office for his first Senate term.
Now, Ohio has a Senate seat to fill (again).
Here’s what happens next.
Here’s why Ohio Issue 1, a proposal to end gerrymandering, failed
Ohio voters resoundingly rejected Issue 1, a proposal to replace elected officials with a citizen commission to draw congressional and state legislative districts.
Republicans overcame a massive fundraising deficit to convince Ohioans that Issue 1 was too confusing and too flawed to pass. The measure failed as Republicans swept statewide races in Ohio, including victories for former President Donald Trump and Senate challenger Bernie Moreno.
But Issue 1 backers say Ohio voters were duped by GOP-crafted ballot language and deceptive campaigning against their measure.
Read more here.
Republican Bernie Moreno unseats Sherrod Brown in key Ohio Senate race. How did he do it?
Sen. Sherrod Brown repeated the same refrain as he navigated the toughest campaign of his political career: “It’s always been Ohio.”
On Tuesday, it was Ohio that helped Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate by ousting Brown from office and electing Republican businessman Bernie Moreno
Here are four takeaways from Moreno’s win over Brown.
Springfield, Ohio was flung into the spotlight during the election because of immigration. How did they vote?
Two months ago, Springfield, Ohio, was in the national political spotlight after now President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance spread baseless rumors that Haitian immigrants in the community were eating pets and wildlife.
Local officials were quick to refute the rumors and show their support for the city’s small immigrant community.
Here’s how Clark County residents, including the city of Springfield, voted in Tuesday’s election.
The Ohio Supreme Court now has a 6-1 Republican majority. What will that mean for abortion rights?
Republicans expanded their control of Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday by sweeping three races, giving the GOP six of seven seats beginning in January.
The GOP wins come as justices will decide cases involving the abortion rights amendment that voters approved last year. Ohio Right to Life endorsed the three Republicans for supreme court.
Here’s what to know.
Incumbents thrive in Ohio Congressional races
All of Ohio’s 15 incumbents will apparently remain in Congress based on unofficial election results from The Associated Press.
In Ohio’s 9th District, incumbent Democrat Marcy Kaptur, of Toledo, was in a see-saw race with Republican challenger Derek Merrin. But unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State showed that Kaptur captured a narrow lead of 1,193 votes with 100% of the votes counted as of 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Here’s a bigger look at the future of the delegation.
How the Ohio Statehouse will look different after Election Day
The Ohio Statehouse remained in Republican hands when final results rolled in Wednesday morning, but a few Democratic hopefuls upped their party’s numbers and changed the power plays of the Legislature, if only slightly.
Democrats gained two seats in the state Senate, and needed to flip two seats to shift the state House away from the two-thirds GOP supermajority that allows them certain privileges without having to consider the opposing party. They did, thanks in part to the most recent iteration of the ever messy Ohio redistricting saga creating a few new toss-up districts across the Buckeye State, some of which are in central Ohio.
Most of the flipped seats occurred in central Ohio. Here’s what to know about how things shifted.
What happened on Election Day in Columbus?
The Dispatch also has plenty of coverage of local races, issues and their implications, with more to come. Get caught up with these highlights:
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
Have a question for Just Askin’? Email us.
The Just Askin’ series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, except maybe Google.
Do you have a question you want answered? Send it to us at justaskin@enquirer.com, ideally with Just Askin’ in the subject line.
It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
-
Entertainment6 minutes agoWriters Guild staff union reaches deal, ending strike after nearly three months
-
Lifestyle12 minutes agoHe’s your ex, not your son. Unconditional love does not apply
-
Politics18 minutes agoCommentary: For all the chatter by mayoral candidates, can anyone fix L.A.’s enduring problems?
-
Sports30 minutes agoPrep talk: Southern Section Division 1 semifinals features matchup of boys’ volleyball powers
-
World42 minutes agoEurope Day: 40 years of ties between Spain and the European Union
-
News1 hour agoFrontier Airlines plane hits person on runway during takeoff at Denver airport
-
New York3 hours agoMan Dies in Subway Attack; Mamdani Orders Inquiry Into Suspect’s Release From Bellevue
-
Detroit, MI3 hours agoPatchy dense fog turns to stronger thunderstorms for Metro Detroit to start the weekend