For more than 200 years, the Democratic Party has represented the interests of working families, fighting for equal opportunities and justice for men, women and children of all colors, beliefs and social backgrounds. Party founders believed that wealth and social status were not an entitlement to rule, but rather that a stable government could only be successful if built upon a broad, popular base of the people.
The Beginning: The Party of Everyday People
From its inception, the Democratic Party emphasized the rights of everyday people — a message that resonated well with farmers and factory workers. Ohioans identified with these principles and for the first quarter century of statehood, the majority of candidates running for office were Democrats.
Changing Political Landscape: Democratic Politics in the 20th Century
In January 1902, the Ohio Democratic Party opened its first permanent state headquarters in Columbus. Building a strong statewide organization proved to be instrumental when Democrats won the following four consecutive gubernatorial elections.
In 1912, Ohio voted for Woodrow Wilson, the first Democratic president in the 20th century. Economic and social hardships during the Great Depression resulted in a national political realignment. The coalition of labor unions, people of color, and progressives allowed Democrats to gain even more prominence in Ohio electoral politics.
The steady growth of organized labor paired with an increasingly diverse population helped the Democratic Party grow during the next few decades. In 1958, Democrats made their biggest gains in 20 years, winning every statewide office on the ballot except Secretary of State. Democrats also won control of the state legislature.
With former Governor John Gilligan at the top of the 1970 ticket, the Ohio Democratic Party entered a two-decade period of unprecedented success. Democrats won four statewide offices: Governor, Attorney General, State Auditor, and State Treasurer. In 1972, Democrats won control of the Ohio House and would remain the majority for eleven consecutive sessions. In 1974, astronaut John Glenn was elected to the United States Senate; two years later, Howard Metzenbaum beat Bob Taft and joined Glenn in Washington. For the next 18 years, Glenn and Metzenbaum held the state’s two seats in the U.S. Senate.
Richard Celeste was elected governor in 1982, a landslide year for Democrats. Democrats held control of the Ohio House, won back the Ohio Senate from Republicans, and swept all statewide offices. In 1986, Celeste won re-election, and Democrats held control of all statewide offices. During his eight years in office, Governor Celeste worked with Ohio Democratic Party Chairman James Ruvolo to build an extremely effective Democratic state organization that raised a tremendous amount of money to support party operations and candidates.
A New Vision: Democrats’ Resurgence in Ohio
In 2005, State Representative Chris Redfern became Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. Under his leadership, the Party focused on building an 88-county statewide organization with the capability to win in every part of Ohio. In 2006, the Ohio Democratic Party made history, shattering sixteen years of Republican rule and electing a Democratic U.S. Senator, Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and State Treasurer. Democrats won at every level, including a seven seat pick up in the Ohio House of Representatives.
In 2007, the Ohio Democratic Party relocated its headquarters to 340 East Fulton Street in Columbus to better accommodate volunteers and the largest permanent staff in Party history. Ohio was called for Barack Obama at 9:23pm on election night in 2008, and at that time everyone around the world knew that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States. Democrats also took back the Ohio House of Representatives for the first time in 14 years. It was the first time in Ohio history that a Party won back a chamber under district lines drawn by the opposing Party.
Looking Ahead: The Roadmap to Victory
The Ohio Democratic Party has focused its efforts on creating a Roadmap to Victory in 2010, which involves building grassroots support in all 88 counties, energizing and empowering local communities, and developing a powerful infrastructure to deliver Democratic victories up and down the ticket.
Building on the success of the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, the Ohio Democratic Party is determined to deliver the same kind of winning results to all Democratic candidates in 2010 and beyond.
New Strategy: The Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party
David Pepper was unanimously elected Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party on December 17, 2014 and began his term on January 1, 2015.
In his first 100 days, Chairman Pepper traveled thousands of miles across the state meeting with stakeholders, activists, donors and elected officials to gather input — while also looking at best practices from around the nation — on what needs to be done to win elections now and in the future.
And what did your input reveal? You are hungry for change. You want a Democratic Party that is clear about what it stands for, that fights for what it stands for and that delivers results — not just to win elections, but to improve lives. You want a true 88-county strategy that enables us to modernize, strengthen and sustain a statewide infrastructure. You want us to do a much better job of building and promoting our bench of strong candidates. And you believe that by working together, we will win!
Our “1618 Strategy” consists of restructuring, re-energizing and reconfiguring the Party, so we can take advantage of the huge opportunities in front of us in 2016 and 2018. If we do our job and faithfully execute our strategy, we will be the state that secures the White House and U.S. Senate for Democrats in 2016, wins back seats on our state Supreme Court in 2016, re-elects Senator Sherrod Brown in 2018, and sweeps Ohio’s statewide offices in 2018 — giving us the opportunity to, finally, draw fair districts for the next decade.
Build & Promote a Bench of Candidates
All great ideas and great candidates start at the local level. So beginning with the Main Street Initiative, launched in January, we will recruit and support candidates for local races across the state. Already, we are training and supporting candidates for the 2015 cycle.
Once elected, we will use our Next Gen “Farm Team” Program to educate and empower these officeholders with the tools and knowledge necessary to create meaningful change and achieve results on the issues that matter most in their communities.
And from now on, we will do a much better job touting the bench we have. The truth is, we can be proud of many strong Democratic officeholders across our state — from mayors, members of Congress, county commissioners, city council members and state legislators.
Strengthening & Sustaining Our Infrastructure
Winning once every four years is simply not good enough. The party must invest in strengthening and activating its infrastructure to do a better job of inspiring people to vote in every election. This involves a number of key steps:
- We will invest heavily in data analysis and targeting to create an 88-county, precinct-by-precinct strategy of how to create a Blue Ohio. We will set clear expectations for people at all levels of the party infrastructure — from precinct executive to county chair — and through training and new technology we will empower them to meet these new expectations.
- Knowing the entire nation is counting on us, we will vigorously fight to expand access to the ballot box and protect the right to vote for ALL Ohioans.
- We will place greater emphasis on organizing, communicating with and serving the critical constituency groups that make up the Democratic family but neglected until the few months before an election when we need votes. Central to our efforts and the principle foundation of everything we do is our commitment to diversity.
- We will create more opportunities and easier access to those opportunities for activists who want to take part in critical election and party-building activities. Currently, few people feel as though they are part of the ODP or even know how they can play a role.
- And we will combine all this work, along with best practices from around the country, to build the ground game that will deliver the vote in 2016 and 2018.
Make It Clear What We Stand For — Then Fight for It
Our message must be crystal clear going forward, and at the heart of our message must be that we are Democrats because we believe in economic opportunity for all Ohioans. This is why we fight so hard for good jobs, living wages, investments in public education, college affordability, access to quality, affordable health care, equal pay, discrimination-free workplaces and communities, the right to collectively bargain and other key issues. They are all critical ingredients to our core vision of a strong, middle-class, opportunity-driven economy.
But we can’t simply talk about this message. As Democrats, we must ACT.
Whenever Democrats get into office, they must fight to enact policies that actually improve the lives of their constituents. ODP will help ensure this happens by revitalizing the Democratic Leadership Institute (DLI) and creating working committees that will circulate to our officeholders and candidates proven ideas and best practices on how Democrats at every level can make a difference on issues of economic opportunity and access to high-quality education.
Finally, our 1618 Strategy is focused on internal messaging. The new Ohio Democratic Party is committed to keeping our members and local grassroots activists informed about what the Party is doing and how they can get involved.
If we execute this properly, Democrats will be fighting, successfully, for economic opportunity every single day, and our message will be clear long before we even know who our gubernatorial candidate is in 2018.
This plan is just the beginning of a new Ohio Democratic Party. Executing the plan will be key to our success — and we want you to be a partner in that success!