Special Notice: Greg Landsman will have an in-person congressional town hall:
Madeira Library, Feb. 4 from 11 am to 12 pm
Please attend, ask questions, and share your thoughts!

…aaaand We’re Back!

You didn’t miss the December newsletter, there wasn’t one. Madeira Democrats took a break in December 2022: no meeting, no newsletter. Maybe it was needed. (Was that “just a midterm” in November?)

You’re getting our first 2023 newsletter just under the wire for January; too late to bother with resolutions, predictions, or “best of” lists. But we can celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Madeira Democrats’ digital newsletter!

In this issue, we review the 2022 election in Ohio and, specifically, Madeira. Later, we’ll recap our January meeting with speaker Isaac Goff-Mitchell, who shared additional insight into election results in Hamilton County. Isaac has been appointed Executive Director of the Hamilton County Democrats. Lastly, we’ll look ahead to February.

Election Recap

The newsletter won’t use a “wins and losses” assessment of Nov. ‘22 because that’s far too simplistic. (If this were baseball, we might call it “hits, runs, and errors.”) Instead, let’s take a look at some statistics, some highlights, and some areas to improve.

Where We Won

We had some great wins this year! Jessica Miranda won! Greg Landsman won! Katie Hofmann won her district seat on the state school board, and Rachel Baker won as state rep in neighboring District 27 (including Indian Hill). These are positives! Thanks again to everyone who campaigned in Madeira and the surrounding areas.

District 27 includes parts of Loveland, Symmes Township, Indian Hill, Terrace Park, Anderson Township, Newtown, Mt Lookout, Hyde Park, East Walnut Hills, Avondale, and Evanston.
Where We Ran

Where We Ran

No one wants to lose, but in our gerrymandered state, few races are fair. If you have the chance to thank a Democrat who ran and lost, do it! Running is a good thing. When R’s run unopposed for local and state elections, there is no discussion, no debate, and no choice.

In statewide elections, Democrats lost to some powerhouse political spenders like DeWine and LaRose, along with newcomer JD Vance. But did you know that Vance did not win Madeira? The total turnout in Madeira was 5,061 people or 69% of registered voters. Of those Madeira voters, 53% voted for Tim Ryan over JD Vance.

To view a similar comparison for other races, we’ve compiled statistics from the Board of Elections, presented in table format.

Note: The analysis conducted for Hamilton County, which Isaac Goff-Mitchell shared at the January meeting, was based on Nov. ’22 tallies. Statistics in these tables are from Jan. ’23 (and vary slightly from those posted in Nov. ’22).

Where We Will Improve

So, is your glass half-empty or half-full? Don’t be discouraged by any specific election result. Let’s use the time before the next election to continue creating change.

Republicans love the way our state is run. Ohio Republicans routinely defy laws, court orders, and the will of the majority of residents in our state. The R’s are beholden to special interest groups who poured money into winning local and state elections for years.

We’re making headway in Madeira! Next, you’ll learn from Isaac Goff-Mitchell about our results and the results in the rest of Hamilton County.

Hamilton County and Ohio Highlights:
Presentation by Isaac Goff-Mitchell

Isaac Goff-Mitchell is the new Executive Director of the Hamilton County Democrats. Most Madeirans know he served as Jessica Miranda’s campaign manager in 2022. He’s been working in politics since 2016 and has a master’s degree in Organizational Communication and Professional Development. His presentation at the Jan. 11 meeting of Madeira Democrats is paraphrased here.

To recap election results for Hamilton County, we secured a majority (of Democrats) on the State School Board, and although the Ohio State House Republicans are looking at ways to try to attack that majority, they have yet to succeed. 

Democrats extended our majority in Hamilton County on the Appeals Court. For context, the Appeals Court is the reason the six-week abortion ban in Ohio is not in place. (It was a Hamilton County Appeals Court judge who stopped that.) The Appeals Court is a very powerful role. 

Democrats won four out of the eight total judicial candidates that we ran. That was a 50% success rate, which is where I’m less happy. Hamilton County is blue. We should be able to win in the county; it should be rare that we lose, and it shouldn’t be 50%. But judicial drop-off was far higher than usual.

Drop-off is when people stop voting down the ballot. This year, more people stopped voting once they reached the bottom of the ballot. This is especially apparent for judicial candidates who don’t have a D or R next to their name. In good years, like 2018 and 2020, we got that number down to about 11%, meaning 11% of voters stopped voting when they reached the judges. This year the percentage was almost 20%. So about one in five people who voted did not vote for a judge at all.

What we know is that Republicans are more likely to vote straight ticket than Democrats. So we have to get that drop-off lower in order to succeed. We know that Republican judges are much harsher, particularly to people of color and women. So we can’t afford to allow them to maintain power.

Turnout

A final observation is that turnout was lower than projected in almost every single precinct across the entire county. So Cincinnati, Anderson Township, everywhere–what the DNC projected, what the Republicans projected, what the news projected, did not actually happen. The predicted surge of voting or additional women showing up because of the overturn of Roe v Wade did not happen. At least, it did not happen in Hamiton County. The data shows we had a lower turnout than in 2018.

Data Analysis

Looking at the results, I worked with two other volunteers to analyze Hamilton County data. We put together a PowerPoint and ranked every single municipality for Democratic performance. That gave us the chance to assemble some “top ten” lists.

For example, Lincoln Heights is the best place to be a Democrat right now in Hamilton County. If you run as a Democrat, you’ll get about 96% of the vote in Lincoln Heights–it is incredibly blue. On the other hand, North Bend, Harrison, Miami, you can try really hard, and you’re not going do too well as a Democrat there right now. In Harrison, for example, Democrats got 21% of the vote, and in Crosby, we got 22% of the vote. Whereas in Lincoln Heights, we got 95%, and in Woodlawn, 88%.

Madeira is not on either of these two top-ten lists. But the exciting list that Madeira does find itself on is the percentage growth of Democrats from 2012 to 2022.

We’re seeing what chunks of voters are Democrats versus Republicans that actually vote. And from 2012 to 2022, that percentage has grown by 18% in Madeira. So Democrats, on average, are getting 18% more of the vote in Madeira than they did 10 years ago. And I think that is likely due to folks who are in this meeting room and on this zoom call.

It’s a group of folks who mobilize a community. Obviously, there are demographic shifts impacting this as well, but demographics alone don’t explain an 18% shift.

The work that’s been done is also reflective of neighborhoods that we have near here. Terrace Park is our biggest Dem growth area in the county, with 24% growth. Montgomery is getting bluer; Indian Hill and Anderson also. Montgomery had an 18% shift. Indian Hill is 16% more Democrat than it was 10 years ago. Anderson Township had a 15% shift.

Again, there are demographic shifts. We’re seeing that more affluent people are leaning blue, and more working-class white people are starting to shift away from Democrats.

“We looked at this analysis, and I have a slide for every municipality in the county. Let’s look at Madeira.”

So Madeira’s total turnout was 5,061 people, a 69% turnout. Actually, Madeira was significantly better than the majority of the county when it came to turnout. Of those folks who voted, 53% voted for Tim Ryan over JD Vance. That’s kind of our top-of-the-ticket, the highest-performing Democrat.

We did see a drop-off, which is normal, between the top of the ticket and the middle of the ticket. Jessica Miranda got about 49% of the vote, losing Madeira by only 41 votes, which is huge progress. However, we’re not quite at the spot yet where a state rep has flipped Madeira.

“My prediction is that unless something radical happens in 2024, Jessica can flip Madeira. I mean, 41 votes are one more evening of canvassing.”

Maps and Gerrymandering
Republicans will give us a map when they want to. They could do it in a day. They could just pass a map today, or they could do it in early 2024. My prediction is we’ll get the map at the latest possible moment, so Democrats have the least amount of time to adjust.

Ohio Supreme Court
The state Supreme Court is supposed to provide checks and balances to re-districting. It did not go well in this recent election for the state Supreme Court. In fact, it went horribly. We lost all three seats that we were trying to win on the state Supreme Court. So legislatively, Republicans can do anything they want in Ohio.

Executive Director
A lot of people don’t realize our county party has one full-time paid staff member, the Executive Director, and it has traditionally been somebody in their early twenties. They do it for one or two years, and then they realize there are no promotions, there are no raises, and they leave. And when they leave, they take with them all their experience and knowledge and any systems they’ve built.

So one of my goals is to professionalize this role and the organization so we have onboarding and other systems and processes that outlast an individual.
The salary of the Executive Director position is funded by donations to the Hamilton County Democratic Party.
If you’re interested in financially supporting this work, you can consider a monthly donation to HCDP!

Look for the February issue of Madeira Democrats’ Newsletter, where we share more from our meeting with Isaac (it was only an hour!). We’ll share his goals for HCDP and plans to support more local municipality elections, including the Madeira City Council election in 2023!

Survey Participation Is Requested

Please help out a local high school senior with their APA research project!

If you’re a woman aged 25-50 and a Democrat residing in District 28, please fill out this survey; it is very brief. Madeira Dem Jodi Whitted is serving as advisor for the project.

Congratulations to our GOTV Contest Winner

The winner of the Get Out The Vote Contest is Ashley Schweickart! She received this distinctive (?) trophy and a gift certificate. Congratulations!!