Elections in Ohio are held on a county, state, and federal level. The Republicans are strongest in the rural Northwest, the affluent Cincinnati and Columbus suburbs, and have made gains in Appalachian Southeast Ohio and the industrial, working-class Northeast in the 21st century. The Democrats rely on the state's major cities, and have made gains in educated suburban areas in recent years. The state was strongly Republican from the party's inception, as it voted Republican in every election from 1856 to 1908. The northern Union-aligned part of the state kept the state Republican, and consistently narrowed edged out the Democratic and Appalachia-influenced southern Ohio. Since 1896, however, Ohio has voted for the winning candidate, except for Franklin D Roosevelt in 1944, John F Kennedy in 1960, and Joe Biden in 2020. This was due to Democratic gains in the northeastern part of the state. The state has not backed a losing candidate in consecutive elections since 1848. Due to a close split in party registration, it has been key

battleground state In American politics, the term swing state (also known as battleground state or purple state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to pre ...

. No Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio. In 2004, Ohio was the tipping point state, as Bush won the state with 51% of the vote, giving him its 20 electoral votes and the margin he needed in the Electoral College for re-election. The state was closely contested in 2008 and 2012, with

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

winning narrowly on both occasions. Ohio has been a

bellwether A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.bellwether
" ''Cambridge Dictionary''. Ret ...

state in presidential elections. Since 2016, Ohio's bellwether status has been questioned given that Donald Trump won it by 8 points, the largest margin for each party since 1988, and then won the state by a similar margin in 2020 despite losing nationwide. In a 2020 study, Ohio was ranked as the 17th hardest state for citizens to vote in.

Federal elections

*House:

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

, 2006,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, 2010,

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

* Senate:

, 2006, 2010,

*Presidential primary: 2008 Democratic 2008 Republican 2012 Republican 2016 Democratic 2016 Republican 2020 Democratic 2020 Republican

State elections

* Ohio Attorney General elections * Ohio State Auditor elections *

Ohio gubernatorial elections The voters of the U.S. state of Ohio elect a governor for a four-year term. There is a term limit of two consecutive terms as governor. Bold type indicates victor. ''Italic type'' indicates incumbent. Starting in 1978, the nominees for governor and ...

* Ohio lieutenant gubernatorial elections * Ohio Secretary of State elections * Ohio Supreme Court elections * Ohio State Treasurer elections

Local elections

City Council of Cincinnati, Ohio elections The Cincinnati City Council is the lawmaking body of Cincinnati, Ohio. The nine-member city council is elected at-large in a single election in which each voter chooses nine candidates from the field. The nine top vote-getters win seats on the cou ...

* City Commission of Dayton, Ohio elections * Politics of Dayton, Ohio * Montgomery County, Ohio elections

Election security

In the leadup to the 2020 Ohio elections, by February 2020, eight Ohio counties had failed to complete an election security checklist required by Ohio's top election official. One county, Van Wert County Board of Elections, was placed on administrative oversight because it provided no plan for complying with the directive.https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200205/8-ohio-counties-fail-to-meet-election-security-deadline

References

External links

Elections & Voting
at the Ohio Secretary of State official website * * * * (State affiliate of the U.S. League of Women Voters) * . (Also
1995 & 19961997 & 19981999 & 20002001 & 20022003 & 2004

2005 & 20062007 & 20082009 & 20102011 & 20122013 & 20142015 & 20162017 & 2018
. *

Digital Public Library of America The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a US project aimed at providing public access to digital holdings in order to create a large-scale public digital library. It officially launched on April 18, 2013, after two and a half years of dev ...