Left, Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens. Right, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman. (Photos by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Capital Journal. Republish only with original article.)
In an election in which Republicans dominated in Ohio, Democrats flipped two Ohio House seats, reducing the GOP supermajority, which still stands at a robust 65 seats out of 99. Democrats also won two Ohio Senate seats, leaving Republicans with 24 of 33 seats instead of 26.
There were about ten tight races in the House, with Democrats leading in nine of them throughout Tuesday evening. But by the time the unofficial results came in, only two seats flipped.
House Districts 10 and 41 were open seats previously held by Republicans, but Democrats got the wins. Democrat Mark Sigrist is replacing state Rep. Dave Dobos (R-Columbus) and Erika White is replacing state Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Monclova). Dobos chose not to run again, and Merrin narrowly lost in his bid to unseat longtime U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09).
For many regulations within the House, a two-thirds majority – 66 votes – is needed. In the 135th General Assembly, Republicans had 67. That meant that the GOP could do seemingly anything it wanted without bargaining with the Democrats for votes – such as adding an emergency clause to bills so that they start immediately and not after 90 days.
Republicans still have a veto-proof majority of 60 votes.
The state Senate also had some seat flips. State Rep. Willis Blackshear (D-Dayton) won an open seat previously held by state Sen. Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg). State Rep. Beth Liston (D-Dublin) will replace state Sen. Stephanie Kunze (R-Dublin) after the incumbent failed to flip Liston’s soon-to-be former seat in the House.
The Senate still has a total GOP supermajority. Twenty-two members make a large supermajority, and the GOP has 24 officeholders while the Democrats have nine.
House battle
The seat flips impact more than the House supermajority.
The most interesting political battle in Ohio has been between two Republicans vying for the same leadership position — and whichever side wins will determine the state’s conservative ideology. This election could impact if House Speaker Jason Stephens keeps his gavel or if Senate President Matt Huffman grabs it from him.
Stephens needed to maintain 50 votes Tuesday to keep speakership.
In 2022, the Republican caucus had chosen state Rep. Merrin as speaker. However, on the full House floor vote in Jan. 2023, Stephens won the speakership.
Twenty-two Republicans (known “affectionately” by the other faction as the “Blue 22”) and 32 Democrats voted for Stephens for speaker during the actual vote, while the majority of Republicans voted for Merrin. Stephens, still a conservative, is significantly more moderate than Merrin — he is also more moderate than Huffman.
A bitter rivalry has existed between the two GOP factions. Huffman has not been shy about his desire to replace Stephens.
Huffman has been in campaign talks for months, gaining support from a significant faction of House representatives and national and statewide groups looking to oust Stephens and his allies during the March primary.
Although the Democrats would prefer to have the majority, Stephens is the more moderate option for the party than Huffman.
Stephens supports public school funding, union rights and following what the voters chose in the November election on abortion and marijuana. Stephens supports the private school voucher system to an extent but wants to fund public education fully. He does not want to overhaul the college education system and didn’t think the August special election to make citizen ballot initiatives more difficult was a good idea. He has tried to protect against other “anti-Democratic” proposals that the Senate has sent to the House, such as making it more difficult for citizens to get issues on their local ballot. He is interested in lowering taxes but has not said anything about completely repealing the income tax – just that he supports a flat tax.
Huffman differs from Stephens on each of those issues. He did help fund public schools, but he is more interested in legislation around the voucher system. Also, he would likely eliminate the income tax, which could double the sales tax. Huffman does want to change universities to prevent so-called liberal bias and supported the August election from the beginning — even suggesting that the amendment to raise the threshold for ballot initiatives could be implemented in a future ballot. His leadership team has said that voters didn’t know what they were voting for when they legalized marijuana, so they should be able to change the policy.
It is expected Stephens will keep all the Democrats on his side.
Because the Democrats flipped two seats, he needs 34 Republicans to win the internal caucus vote. However, he would only need 16 Republicans to win the floor vote with Democrats.
The speakership vote is scheduled to take place Nov. 20.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook.
This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.