Post Election Politics – Republican Sweep

The Zanesville Muskingum County Chamber of Commerce hosted a post election politics lunch this afternoon.

It featured enterprise editor for the media network of central Ohio, Benjamin Lanka, who gave a presentation about post election politics in the state of Ohio and the reasons why the republican party took the sweep.

"One of the biggest reasons is democrats really had, especially in Ohio, had no reason to vote. I mean, there was no energy behind the party and behind many of the candidates, so the incentive to get out and vote was low. I mean obviously the governor’s campaign was fairly disastrous, the nation apathy or kind of malaise with the president kind of didn’t give them a reason to come out and so obviously republicans did and so they came out stronger and that’s why a lot of their candidates won."

Lanka says the next step is seeing what the republicans will do with this new super majority in Ohio.

"They don’t need democrats to pass anything, but usually when one party dominates then divides in that party become more prominent. So we’ll see whether the governor gets what he wants in terms of Medicaid expansion through a republican legislature, that will be one of the biggest tests."

Lanka says the democratic votes are out there, but first they need someone who will get people out to the polls.