Ohio Democrats say they’ve yet to hear from their Republican colleagues about their plans for congressional redistricting. But the Democrats, which are a small minority in the legislature, tried to spark the conversation on Tuesday by proposing a longshot congressional map.
The map, unveiled by legislative leaders during a Statehouse news conference, would give Democrats a realistic chance of winning as many as seven of Ohio’s 15 congressional districts, up from the five districts they hold under the current maps.
It proposes doing so by drawing a second solidly Democratic district in the Columbus area, a reconfiguration of the current Republican-drawn map that combines the city’s western and suburbs with rural Dayton.
The map draws a second slightly Democratic-leaning district by joining Cleveland’s western and southern suburbs with Medina County, a more conservative leaning exurban area.
Both design choices likely would result in one or two GOP congressmen losing their seats. That will likely make it dead on arrival with Republicans, whose majority gives them the upper hand in the map making process.
Ohio Republicans are considering doing just the opposite by using their power to create even more Republican leaning districts. The most likely path would involve adding additional Republican-leaning communities to districts represented by two Democrats: Rep. Marcy Kaptur, of Toledo, and Rep. Emilia Sykes, of Akron.
Oliva Wile, a spokesperson for House Speaker Matt Huffman, said Tuesday that Ohio House Republicans aren’t commenting on specific maps given that the process is still in its early stages.
Democrats tout map as fair
Nationally, President Donald Trump set off an arms race by pushing for early redrawing of maps in Texas, Indiana and Missouri. Democrats have responded by threatening to redraw districts in California and New York, where they hold majorities.
The skirmish has laid bare what majority parties tend to do when they’re in charge of drawing political districts: design maps to win as many seats as possible.
However, Ohio Democrats on Tuesday called their proposal the fairest Ohio has seen in recent memory.
They said they designed it while keeping Ohio’s political makeup in mind. Republicans have won around 55% of the vote since 2016, while the Democratic proposal favors Republicans to win 53% of Ohio’s congressional seats. Currently, Republicans hold 66% of Ohio’s congressional seats.
Cincinnati Rep. Dani Isaacsohn, who recently took over as the top Democrat in the Ohio House, said Democrats could have blocked Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill had the current maps been in place, since the legislation passed by only four votes in the House.
“People are suffering. We are introducing a fair map, because it has real world consequences for the people of this state,” Isaacsohn said.
Democrats also said they don’t think Ohio’s current congressional map is fair. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected versions of it several times during a prolonged redistricting fight earlier this decade.
In a statement, John Fortney, a spokesperson for Republican Senate President Rob McColley said: “It’s important to remember that the current map is constitutional based on the U.S. Supreme Court vacating the narrow 4-3 O’Connor ruling. We are still very early in the process.”
Looking further under the hood
The Democratic map includes some clear trade-offs, both in raw political terms and for communities who hypothetically would live in it.
For instance, it splits Washington County – home of Marietta – to make a couple geographically sprawling districts. Half of the county would be drawn into a district that includes Columbus’ fast-growing suburbs in Delaware and Licking counties. The other half would connect northward to Kent and the rest of Portage County.
The new map also would consolidate the heavily Democratic Hamilton County into a single district, while drawing two areas where Democrats have made gains recently – the Cincinnati suburbs and the Dayton area – into solid Republican districts.
Democrats said the map is more compact than Ohio’s current one.
They also said it keeps Cuyahoga County as a majority-minority district while getting close to drawing a second one in Franklin County.
What’s next in the redistricting process
Republicans who control the Ohio House and Senate have until the end of September to approve a congressional map plan. But under Ohio’s rules, they will need to get Democratic votes to pass something this month. Republicans have yet to publicly unveil a map and have said little about their plans recently.
If there’s no map this month, the Ohio Redistricting Commission, a Republican-controlled panel of seven elected officials, will have the month of October to approve a map. Again, they would have to get votes from the commission’s two Democratic members.
If there’s no map by November, Republicans no longer will have to get Democratic votes to approve something. But they’ll have to get something in place in time for the primary election in May.
