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Is Biden Bucking the Buckeye State?

Risky presidential strategies afoot in Ohio.

by Mark Angelides | May 23, 2024


The Ohio Democratic Party has been put on notice that President Joe Biden risks not being on the November ballot. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose this week issued the latest in a string of warnings that unless the party gets its act together, the commander-in-chief might just miss out on the deadline to file as a candidate.

Ohio law requires that candidates are certified by their parties at least 90 days before voters go to the polls; however, the Democratic Party Convention will not take place until August 19, when attendees will converge on Chicago – just 65 days before Election Day. The question has become: Who will jump first?

Is Biden the Nominee or Not?

Officially, Joe Biden will not become the nominee for his party until the national convention, which means he will miss the certification cut-off date. LaRose warned in a statement that:

“I’ve said from here to Colorado that it’s in the best interest of voters to have a choice in the race for president. I’m also duty-bound to follow the law as Ohio’s chief elections officer.

“As it stands today, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee will not be on the Ohio ballot. That is not my choice. It’s due to a conflict in the law created by the party, and the party has so far offered no legally acceptable remedy.”

One might argue that the state could change its rules to accommodate the sitting president, but there appears no such appetite in the Ohio legislature for this action. The process for doing so, however, was already nixed by local leadership.

Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens, a Republican, said: “There’s just not the will to do that from the legislature.” His position was echoed by his Democrat counterpart, Minority Leader Allison Russo, who held out little hope that a solution would come through bipartisan legislation. “We’ve seen the dysfunction here in this place,” she stated. “And I think we’ve seen that folks have not been able to put aside partisanship and hyper-partisanship and infighting… I think at this point, you’re probably going to see either, you know, some sort of inner party effects or perhaps court action.”

The Governor Disagrees

Republican Governor Mike DeWine believes that the state apparatus can resolve the situation, however. He argued:

“I have every confidence that it’s going to get done. No one should worry, they’re going to be able to vote for the president or the former president, whoever they want to vote for. You know, this is not going to be a situation where the president’s name is not on the ballot. So, it’s either going to be done by the court, or it’s going to be done by the legislature.”

While the legislature has been working towards a solution, efforts in that arena are currently stalled.

New banner Perpective 1A Biden spokesman assured voters in response to LaRose’s plea that all would be well come Election Day. “Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states,” he said. “Election after election, states across the country have acted in line with the bipartisan consensus and taken the necessary steps to ensure the presidential nominees from both parties will be on the ballot.”

Indeed, Alabama faced a similar situation earlier this month and came to an agreement to move the certification deadline from 82 days before the election to 74.

But what can the American public glean about the players in this quasi-farcical comedy of errors?

Ohio Matters

As Kyle Kondik – managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball – writes in his book The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President, the Buckeye State has only deviated by roughly two points from the national voting average in the last 30 presidential election cycles. In fact, Ohio has the best track record of electing presidents of any other state since 1896 – missing out on only Thomas Dewy in 1944, Richard Nixon in 1960, and Donald Trump in 2020.



Why would Joe Biden take any risk whatsoever with missing out on what some describe as the Ultimate Bellwether?

The lack of action to the repeated requests by Secretary of State LaRose hints at a hubris within the administration and the state Democratic Party, almost a sense of entitlement that states should fall in line behind the federal government’s lead. Yet, this presents a fundamental misunderstanding of how the nation works.

It is not one grand election for the president of the United States but rather 50 state elections. It is not the states’ responsibility to ensure that a candidate has access to the electorate, but the candidate’s duty to ensure he or she complies with the individual rules.

https://www.libertynation.com/is-biden-bucking-the-buckeye-state/