At the same time, fellow Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, a Trump supporter, was begging Ohioans to wear masks and refrain from getting together, preaching a united front to knock down the raging virus.
Trump’s stance appeared to be a weakness heading into Election Day as the state and country remain ravaged by COVID-19. More than 230,000 Americans have died because of it, including more than 5,400 Ohioans.
But Trump’s stance on the virus wasn’t a weakness in Ohio. He handily defeated Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden by roughly the same 8-percentage point margin he won in 2016, despite public polling showing a close matchup between the two. Biden said this election served as a mandate on Trump. In Ohio, that mandate was clearly in Trump’s favor – and potentially against DeWine’s coronavirus restrictions.
It’s difficult to parse exactly how people feel about restrictions since most of the information on public opinion comes from polling. Ohio’s current restrictions include a statewide mask mandate, requiring 6 feet of social distancing indoors and limiting crowd sizes.
Since the onset of the pandemic in March, DeWine has faced pushback from conservatives – Trump supporters – over restrictions. DeWine’s approach has been at odds with Trump’s since the beginning, though he refrains from any criticism of the president and, by all accounts, the two get along. DeWine even served as a co-chair of Trump’s Ohio campaign.
Trump’s resounding victory in Ohio, however, complicates the response. More so if Biden ends up winning the presidency. That race is still too close to call, but Biden currently leads in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, which would put him at 270 Electoral College votes, the number needed to win the presidential race.
In an interview Wednesday, DeWine said the results of the election wouldn’t change how he governs on the coronavirus. The situation remains unchanged, with Ohioans needing to limit spread until a vaccine can be deployed and the economy can start recovering once more.
Thus far, DeWine has been unwilling to reimpose any restrictions since he allowed businesses to reopen in May, even as cases spike higher. But there remains a very real prospect that the state may go back into some kind of shutdown mode if spread continues to run rampant. DeWine said so himself.
“Here’s what’s at stake: our schools staying open, our hospitals functioning well and our loved ones in nursing homes being protected,” DeWine said. “That’s what’s at stake.”
When DeWine shut down the state in the Spring, protesters started showing up to the Statehouse demanding restrictions be rescinded. Dr. Amy Acton, DeWine’s director of the Ohio Department of Health, was the recipient of anti-Semitic vitriol and was assigned a protective detail after her house was picketed. The environment got to be so toxic that Acton resigned her post. It remains so toxic that her replacement pulled out of the job less than a day after DeWine announced it and the position remains unfilled.
Republican lawmakers – all of whom vigorously support Trump – have tried to hamstring DeWine’s response at just about every possible turn, attacking his actions via legislation.
State Rep. John Becker went so far as to call for DeWine’s arrest. At face value, it’s a laughable prospect. When coupled with the fact that the Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating claims of a plot to kidnap DeWine and extrajudicially try him for “tyranny,” it puts the precarious nature of the government response to coronavirus into context.
Those sentiments aren’t likely to disappear once the election is finalized. In fact, there remains a real risk that they’re exacerbated as Trump and his supporters try to delegitimize the election by calling it fraudulent.
The results of the election made one thing perfectly clear: the nation is more polarized than ever. Conventional wisdom and political fundamentals – particularly a struggling economy that was brought on by the virus – pointed to a tight race in Ohio.
Ohio, though, is clearly in Trump’s corner. Ohioans like what he has to say. Coronavirus was the most litigated issue in the presidential election, so it’s probably a safe assumption that the majority of Ohioans also agreed with Trump’s approach to the virus.
An emboldened Trump electorate could very well start pushing back more.
DeWine said he didn’t think this would be the case.
“If you look at any kind of polling of Ohioans, I don’t think that comes across,” DeWine said. “I think Ohioans want to get the economy moving and want to be safe. I don’t think this was the deciding issue for most voters. I just don’t think it was the deciding issue for most Trump voters.”
DeWine cited other factors for Trump’s success in Ohio, including the president’s court appointees, his performance on the economy pre-pandemic and Trump generally showing he cared about the state as evidenced by his numerous visits.
DeWine is correct that polling showed the anti-virus protesters were in the minority. But polling also showed a toss-up race in Ohio, and it didn’t turn out that way. The election results tell a completely different story.
And continued delegitimization and polarization makes it much less likely that Trump supporters are going to listen to Biden’s inevitable frank talk about the coronavirus – including masks and a need to control it – if he does win the election. A lot of conservatives already accuse DeWine of being a “fake Republican” and the fact that Biden and DeWine would pretty much sound in lockstep may only complicate that matter.
DeWine did say that much of the response to the virus is already set in motion, including progress on a vaccine, which health officials say could be widely available by the middle of next year.
“A lot of this over the next several months is going to be key,” DeWine said. “I think decisions were made by the Trump administration early on in regard to a vaccine. That’s going to run its course. We’re going to get a vaccine and that’s not going to matter at this point who is the president.”
He didn’t want to speculate on what could come of the reaction to the election results or what they potentially mean for coronavirus mitigation. However, he said he remained optimistic that Americans would accept the election results and continue to realize the dangers of the virus.
“My message is this virus doesn’t care if we voted for Trump or Biden,” he said. “This virus is coming after us. We have a common enemy and we have to understand who that enemy is. It’s in our national interest and the interest of the people of the state of Ohio to pull together. I’m going to continue to say that.”
(c)2020 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
