On August 8, 2023, Ohio held a special election to vote on a ballot proposition referred to as Issue 1 (not to be confused with the November 2023 Ohio Issue 1). The August 2023 Issue 1 would have increased the threshold for the passage of future ballot propositions in Ohio from 50% to 60%, and required signatures for future ballot propositions to come from all 88 Ohio counties instead of the 44 that are currently required. This second requirement would have disadvantaged Democratic groups, since Joe Biden won only seven of Ohio’s 88 counties in the 2020 Presidential election.
The August 2023 Issue 1 was widely seen as a proxy referendum on the legality of abortion in Ohio, since supporters of legal abortion had already submitted signatures for a referendum to repeal the abortion ban that the Ohio Legislature (which is controlled by Republicans) had implemented in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Republicans in the Ohio Legislature who put the August 2023 Issue 1 on the ballot did so in order to reduce the chance that the repeal of Ohio’s abortion ban would pass – the chief sponsor of the August 2023 Issue 1, Republican Brian Stewart of Pickaway County (south of Columbus), admitted this in an interview.
Ohio is widely seen as a Republican-leaning state, as Donald Trump won it in the 2020 Presidential election by a margin of 8 percent. However, the August 2023 Issue 1 failed by a significant margin – roughly 57 percent to 43 percent – meaning that a significant number of Republicans and Trump voters must have voted against it. But what patterns can be gleaned from examining the results?
Despite all the red in the rural areas on the above map, there is actually significantly more blue than in most Democrat vs. Republican maps, especially in suburban areas. It’s really kind of amazing how strongly No performed in the suburbs of Ohio — Republican strongholds like Beavercreek (!), Liberty Township in Butler County (!!), and even Miami Township in Clermont County (!!!) voted no. This massive suburban rejection of August Issue 1 occurred both in places where Biden did better than Obama (like Hudson, Summit County) and where he did not (like Brunswick, Medina County). Each of those municipalities by itself has a similar population to entire rural counties, which should make it clear how the massive No vote in suburbs like those easily overwhelmed the rural Yes vote.
In order to further illustrate just how terribly August Issue 1 performed in suburban areas, I’ve made a map comparing it with the results of the 2012 Presidential election, where Obama won Ohio by a margin of 3 percent:
The full extent of the suburban lurch to the left is on clear display here. A large number of suburban cities and townships swung more than 20% to the left between the 2012 presidential election and the 2023 August Issue 1. This massive suburban shift was enough to flip Medina, Geauga, Lake, Delaware, and Greene counties from the 2012 presidential election, and almost flipped several more, including Butler, Warren, Fairfield, and Licking. On the flip side, Sandusky County, a rural county southeast of Toledo, was the only county that flipped from Obama to Yes.
Apart from the rural areas, several inner-city wards with mostly African-American populations swung modestly away from Democrats. This is largely because 1) Obama did extremely well in these places, getting >99% in some of them, and matching that for a referendum was always going to be very difficult, and 2) African-American turnout was generally lower than white turnout in the referendum.
As it happened, Republicans were right to be concerned that Ohio would vote to legalize abortion in November 2023. That referendum (which, confusingly, is also called Issue 1, and where a Yes vote was the pro-choice position) passed by almost the same margin by which August Issue 1 failed. If August Issue 1 had passed, then the 57 percent of the vote that November Issue 1 received would not have been enough to legalize abortion. I will analyze the November 2023 results, and compare them to the results of the August Issue 1 referendum, in the near future.
I hope these maps helped give you a better understanding of the August 2023 Ohio Issue 1 election results, and the vote shifts and patterns behind them. As always, please leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Gregory Naigles 