Abortion, marijuana issues win in Trump counties, outperform 2020 Biden across Ohio

Ohio voters are far more willing to support protecting abortion access and legalizing marijuana than they are to elect Democratic candidates like President Joe Biden, according to an analysis of Tuesday's election results.

Issue 1, which added protections for abortion and reproductive decisions to the state constitution, and Issue 2, which legalized recreational marijuana, outperformed Biden's 2020 election results in every county, according to election night results. The final tallies will change slightly as provisional and mail-in ballots are counted.

The numbers show a disconnect between Democratic candidates, who largely back access to abortion and marijuana, and the issues themselves, which are popular with Democrats, independents and even some Republicans.

"Ohioans across the political spectrum don’t want government involved in their personal health care decisions," said Veronica Ingham, campaign manager of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights.

Issue campaigns and candidate campaigns aren't apples-to-apples comparisons, Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Walters said. But the 2023 results provide a roadmap for Democrats like U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2024.

"The work for us ahead is to continue to build the case and take our message to voters and to lay out for them what the stakes of the election are," Walters said.

More: 25 Ohio counties supported abortion Tuesday, 41 backed marijuana. Here they are on the map.

Where Ohio Issue 1 won

Statewide, 56.6% of Ohio voters backed the reproductive rights amendment, according to election night results. Michigan approved its 2022 abortion rights measure with an almost identical result, which underscores the popularity of abortion access with voters across political spectrums.

To no surprise, voters in Ohio's largest cities overwhelmingly backed Issue 1. Cleveland's Cuyahoga County supported Issue 1 with 74.4% of the vote, followed by Columbus' Franklin County at 72.8%, Akron's Summit County at 65.4%, Cincinnati's Hamilton County at 64.9% and Toledo's Lucas County at 63.8%.

Democrats almost unanimously backed Issue 1, according to Washington Post exit polls, but the abortion rights measure was also popular with independents (64% of whom voted for Issue 1) and had support from about 18% of Republicans.

The reproductive rights amendment also won in 18 suburban and rural counties that backed former President Donald Trump in 2020. They include Delaware County north of Columbus, which voted for Trump by 7 percentage points but voted 59-41% for the reproductive rights measure.

Issue 1 also prevailed in several northeastern Ohio counties that used to vote reliably Democratic in presidential races, such as Lorain, Lake and Mahoning. Near Cincinnati, Butler County narrowly supported Issue 1 and the measure only failed by 5 percentage points in Warren County, where 65% of the voters backed Trump in 2020.

Athens County, home of Ohio University, was an outlier in southeastern Ohio. About 71.7% of the vote in Athens County supported Issue 1 as surrounding counties voted "no" on the measure, some by double-digit margins.

Tuesday's outcome aligns with public polling that shows most Americans supported Roe v. Wade and want abortion to be accessible to some degree, said Cherie Strachan, a political scientist and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. And Ohio was the first red state to proactively vote for abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

"They wanted it to be available, they wanted it to be rare and then they didn’t want to talk about it anymore," Strachan said.

Tuesday's results were similar to an August special election when Republicans asked voters to make it harder to amend the state constitution − a direct attack on the abortion rights measure in November. The August issue failed, 57-43%.

Issue 1 backers called the special election an unnecessary, confusing hurdle.

"Let's be clear, anti-abortion politicians abused their power at every level of government to block this amendment, but together we overcame these challenges," Ingham said.

Where Ohio Issue 2 won

Democrats didn't offer the full-throated endorsement of marijuana that they did of reproductive rights. The Ohio Democratic Party did not back Issue 2 and Brown, though he voted for the measure, didn't campaign for it. Even Wednesday, Brown told MSNBC he hadn't thought much yet about the political impact of marijuana legalization.

Despite the silence from party leaders, Democrats in Ohio still showed up for Issue 2 on Tuesday. The measure passed with 68% of the vote in Franklin County, 67% in Cuyahoga County and 66% in Hamilton County, according to unofficial results. Issue 2 had the strongest showing in Athens County, where 69% of voters backed it.

But marijuana legalization had even more widespread support than Issue 1, and unofficial results show Issue 2 ultimately passed with 57% of the vote. A CNN exit poll found 30% of Republicans and 64% of independents backed Issue 2, in addition to 79% of Democrats. Thirty-three counties that went for Trump in 2020 voted for the marijuana law.

That included several Republican suburban strongholds and rural areas. Ohio's smallest county, Vinton County, approved Issue 2 with 52% of the vote after backing Trump by 55 points. Clermont County went for Trump by a 37-point margin in 2020 but supported Issue 2 with 57% of the vote. Fifty-two percent of voters in Geauga County approved Issue 2, while 61% supported Trump.

In Mahoning County − ground zero for blue-collar Republicans who used to vote for Democrats − Issue 2 got 52% of the vote.

While marijuana legalization does have bipartisan support, that's only one piece of the puzzle, said Doug Berman, executive director of the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at Ohio State University. Republicans themselves are divided on the issue, with social conservatives and establishment party members more likely to oppose it than their libertarian counterparts.

“To the extent there’s a Trump brand, I think it’s more of a 'don’t trust the government, leave me alone,' than the traditional social conservatives," Berman said.

Reporters Kayla Bennett and Dan Horn contributed.

Jessie Balmert and Haley BeMiller are reporters for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Issue 1, Issue 2 prevail in counties that went for Trump in 2020