The Monroe County (OH) Anomaly

[H. Ross Peron]

John Kasich (R-OH) easily won re-election for Governor of Ohio this year by a large margin winning even Democratic counties such as Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Franklin (Columbus), and Summit (Akron). Indeed there were only two counties in which the Democratic candidate, Ed FitzGerald, won namely-Athens and Monroe counties. Athens County wasn't much of a surprise as it is the home of Ohio University but Monroe County, IMO, was a rather odd result considering it has a 97.6% percent non-Hispanic white population and is fairly rural. Digging further into the records, I did find it was one of those ancestrally Democratic counties that has been increasingly trending Republican in recent years:

2004-54.9% D
2008-53.1% D
2012-44.6% D

So what made Monroe County return to its Democratic allegiance this year when we had a fairly unpopular Democratic gubernatorial candidate who had no ties to Monroe?

[Bacon King]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2014/11/05112014---fitz-loses-86-of-88.html

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also dem feels

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[Nhoj]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2014/11/05112014---fitz-loses-86-of-88.html

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also dem feels

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Consequence of that is that it also has the highest unemployment rate for any county in ohio at 10%

[H. Ross Peron]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2014/11/05112014---fitz-loses-86-of-88.html

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also dem feels

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Thanks for the link-its certainly a fascinating (and sad) story with important lessons for future Democratic campaigns.