How Trump won in Lorain County

To understand how President Donald Trump flipped Lorain County, it helps to divide the county into three parts. The first is the reliably Democratic cities of Elyria, Lorain and Oberlin. The second is the six other cities, most of which are suburbs. And the third is the villages and townships, which, as a whole, are reliably Republican. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, the Democratic nominees for president in 2016 and this year, respectively, both won the three reliably Democratic cities, but Biden won fewer votes than Clinton, even though more votes were cast there overall. (The greater number of votes reflected both higher registration and slightly higher turnout.) Clinton's lead in the three cities was barely enough to overcome her deficits in the two other parts of the county, the suburbs and the villages and townships collectively. She defeated Trump by a mere 131 votes, and that wasn't clear until after the count became official. Unofficial results posted the night of the election had showed Trump ahead. Unofficial results from last week's election show that Biden got 4 percent fewer votes than Clinton in the Democratic-leaning cities and that Trump outperformed himself, getting almost 16 percent more votes from Elyria, Lorain and Oberlin than he got in 2016. The combination shrank Trump's deficit there enough to make him the clear winner countywide because he dominated the rest of it again. His margin on Biden in the suburbs and the combined villages and townships, 14,670 votes, was almost the same as his margin in those two parts of the county against Clinton, 14,487 votes. Considered separately, though, the latter two parts of the county differed from each other more than they had in 2016. The suburbs gave Trump a smaller victory margin this year than they had in 2016. The contrast was starkest in Avon and Avon Lake, where his margin was less than half of what it had been four years earlier. Vermilion was the only one of the six cities to expand his victory margin this year. Like Vermilion, the villages and townships gave Trump a greater victory margin, too. Enough to offset the suburban decline. Trump's victory in the county no doubt helped local GOP candidates, in particular David Moore and Michelle Hung. They both beat incumbent Democrats on the county Board of Commissioners and together will constitute the first Republican majority on the three-member board in decades. Like Trump, they won the suburbs and the combined villages and townships, overcoming losses in Elyria, Lorain and Oberlin. Longer term, the impact of Trump's victory on the county is harder to gauge. Republicans no doubt will wrestle among themselves about whether to field a similar candidate for president four years hence. They could even field the same candidate, now that Biden has been declared this year's victor. Trump could run again in 2024, arguing, at least in the case of Ohio, that he'd be a lock to take it, having won it twice already by 8 percentage points. On the other hand, Republicans might not want to risk backing him or a candidate like him. (Does such a human being exist, or is Trump uniquely appealing to his base and appalling to others?) Still, more traditional Republicans — think of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine or former Gov. John Kasich — lack pizazz precisely because they're realists. Trump's win in the county and dominance of Ohio suggest that it's no longer a swing state. Maybe local Democrats' best hope going forward is to try to minimize the erosion of support in Elyria, Lorain and Oberlin and fan the embers of discontent with the GOP smoldering in the suburbs. At the moment, though, the county seems to be off the national party's radar. "For the first time I can remember," county Board of Elections Director Paul Adams told me by email Friday, "the national campaign did not have operatives on the ground here in Lorain County focused on turnout." Andy Young is editor emeritus of The Chronicle-Telegram. Contact him at (440) 329-7111 or ayoung@chroniclet.com.