Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Mike Thick]

Tedbessell, 2036 electoral map prediction? PV margin? Thank you!

New York (I assume Governor?) Elise Stefanik is the Republican nominee.

TD has posted the electoral map somewhere already -- I'll try and find it when I do the rest of the write-ups tomorrow.

[Mike Thick]

Don't mean to be rude, but I hope this isn't overlooked in the flurry of activity and back-and-forth about Illinois tonight.

So BuckeyeNut gonna be a nut about the Buckeye state, especially since The God of the West is willing to go in deep down ticket. (And I can't find answers to these questions.)

1: Who was Cordray's Lt. Governor?
2: Did Cordray's Lt. Governor succeed at running for re-election in 2026? 2030? (Ohio hasn't had 3 or more terms of Democratic governance since the '30's.)
3: Did Sherrod Brown run for re-election in 2024, or did he step down? I think we know a Democrat won that election, but who?

I'm waiting to post further write-ups til' tomorrow, but all will be answered.

[Mike Thick]

YAS GOVERNOR RILEY!

He was in IRC tonight, but I didn't mention it because volunteering that I made him Governor of West Virginia would have been awk

[Mike Thick]

Here's Ohio.


2026 Ohio Gubernatorial Election:
Governor Lou Gentile/State Senator Nick Celebrezze
1,818,723 - 58.12%
Fmr. State Representative Dorothy Pelanda/Activist Dan Brown
1,158,137 - 37.01%
Other
152,395 - 4.87%

2030 Ohio Gubernatorial Election:
Governor Lou Gentile/Lieutenant Governor Nick Celebrezze
1,580,274 - 50.00%
Former Secretary of State Frank LaRose/State Senator Bill Maury
1,511,374 - 47.82%
Others
68,900 - 2.18%

Upon Richard Cordray's election to the White House, Lieutenant Governor Lou Gentile became Governor of Ohio. Cordray had picked the former State Senator as his running mate due to his reputation for winning tough races in the State's rural, poor South. Gentile had done his job, shoring up support for his boss and propelling him to two comfortable wins. Now, it was his time to shine.

2026 was, in summary, a cakewalk. Backed by Cordray's powerful national machine and boasting sky-high approval ratings, Governor Gentile scared off all major potential challengers, and won election to a full term 58%-37% over Dorothy Pelanda, a little-known State Representative who had failed in a bid for Secretary of State earlier that year, posting massive margins in his native Ohio Valley as well as Northern Ohio. Gentile, as well as Lieutenant Governor-elect Nick Celebrezze, were seen as rising stars of a national caliber.

However, come 2030, the landscape was much more grim. Gentile's approval ratings had sunk along with President Cordray's, and Republicans who smelled blood in the water eagerly jumped in to challenge him. State Attorney General Keith Faber jumped in the race, as did former Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Congressman Ryan Wilson, and State Senator/former State House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger. Despite its clear clown-car-iness, the primary was not ugly, and LaRose narrowly emerged as the winner over Wilson (not coincidentally, both prodigious fundraisers). He selected as his running mate State Senator Bill Maury, a rare African-American Republican from the Columbus suburbs, and they geared up for the biggest political showdown the state had seen in twenty years.

Gentile was no stranger to tough races, but this was going to be his most difficult yet -- due to national Democratic fatigue, his approval ratings had crashed in critical suburban areas, and LaRose was the best candidate Ohio had seen in decades. Top Democratic recruits for statewide office were staying away (wary of a bloodbath), donations to the Ohio Democratic Party had dried up, and the Governor was trailing by as much as sixteen points in some polls. As the Krazens of the world celebrated and LaRose held massive rallies with prominent national politicos in Akron and Cincinnati, Gentile got to work, crisscrossing dining halls and coffee shops across the state (especially his beloved, native, Ohio Valley). Gradually, the deficit was chipped away from the mid-teens to the mid-single digits. However, going into election day, LaRose still held a 5.4% lead in the RCP average.

What happened next shocked everyone.

As expected, Gentile crashed in essentially every suburban area in the state. His losses were particularly acute in the Northern areas of the state, which saw some areas experience swings of twenty points to LaRose. However, as returns from other areas rolled in, Gentile began to catch up, maintaining the Democrats' usual edge in big cities and keeping his losses in the Columbus and Cleveland Metro areas to a reasonable minimum. The biggest shock of the night came from -- you guessed it -- the Ohio Valley, where Gentile had not just held most of his monster margins from 2026, but actually improved in some of the areas that LaRose had neglected in favor of the North and the burbs. When all the votes were counted, Gentile had eked out a narrow (50-48) reelection victory, and was widely touted as a potential successor to Cordray in 2032 (before eventually declining to run, and accepting the role of Secretary of the Interior under President Castro).

[Mike Thick]

Huzzah! Beautiful write up, Ted Bessell. And frankly, pretty believable.

Still curious about who replaced Sherrod in the Senate (unless he becomes the 2nd 4 term Senator from Ohio, ever) when Cordray carries the State in 2024. But that's a subject that can definitely be deferred in favor of other's requests.

I'm not going to do a huge write-up of that, but since Tim Ryan is Speaker of the House, we'll say that Dave Leland wins comfortably but loses reelection in the 2030 wave.

[Mike Thick]

Worth noting that the Democratic wave of 1974 (which hasn’t been replicated in scope by either party since) came only two years before Ford nearly won re-election, and only six years before Reagan’s new realigning coalition came along.