Commentary: Ohio voters stood up for the power of the people this Election Day

Copious content will be written about what happened on Nov. 3, 2026, parsing the polls, interpreting the results, guessing what comes next.

There will be plenty of opportunity for political junkies like me to join the fray. But in the bleary-eyed morning after of a stunning midterm election night that ushered in a slew of historic firsts — including first elected woman governor of Ohio, Dr. Amy Acton — all I can think about are the voter lines.

You saw the pictures. They snaked out the door of many county boards of election and around the building before Election Day.

Vast numbers of Ohioans lined up and waited, sometimes for over an hour, to cast a ballot. Their determination punctured my cynicism about people not giving a damn about the ship of state or who helms it.

Apathy is generally the default setting of the electorate in our representative government unless an impending shipwreck threatens to sink the whole experiment. Then Americans focus. Time to save what must never be lost.

Ohioans rose to the occasion. Across the state, they stood in long lines to vote early. A record-breaking 1.7 million of them voted early in-person and by mail followed by millions more who showed up on Tuesday to cast a ballot. 

The emotional intensity of this referendum on the status quo, inextricably tied to the Trump regime, was off the charts. It surpassed the 2018 midterms, I think. It takes a mountain of pent-up steam to motivate masses of voters to the polls in an off-year election.

Fury drove turnout this year. It also energized an unprecedented nationwide, bipartisan voter movement. From Trump-supporting rural communities (especially bankrupted farmers) to Democrat-leaning urban constituencies, people were compelled to engage.

The state of the union was a hot mess. The cost-of-living crisis in the United States is oppressive. Stretching a buck is harder than it was two years ago when Trump promised he’d lower inflation, bring prices down and not start another war.

Today Ohioans pay more on everyday goods because Trump tariffs jacked up prices. His war of choice with Iran pushed Ohio gas prices to a record high on Election Day even with the state’s gas tax suspended.

Diesel prices (more than $2 a gallon higher than a year ago) remain elevated so Ohioans spend extra for anything trucked in from milk to lumber. Grocery prices rise every week.

Affordable healthcare is a pipe dream and new Medicaid work rules, under Trump’s signature rob-the-poor-give-to-the-rich legislation, could leave 356,000 Ohioans without health insurance after January. ACA premiums are expected to jump 13% next year.

As Ohio workers and those on fixed incomes scrimp to survive, the open corruption and brazen enrichment of the president and his family, has not escaped them.

While people struggle with more month than money and a stack of unpaid bills, Trump and his billionaire cronies are raking in obscene fortunes off the presidency.

It is also lost on no one that the addled 80-year-old, lording over pathetic Oval Office sycophants like a mob boss, is preoccupied with building monuments to himself.

Trump has zero interest in problem-solving. He doesn’t care about stanching the runaway costs his policies have inflicted on Americans. He is bored with the lost war he started (and can’t end) and indifferent to its $47.1 billion-and-counting price-tag.

When Trump isn’t dozing or golfing, the convicted felon works for he/him not Main Street. He makes money on ill-gotten gains and obsesses over a ballroom.

Before the midterms Trump traversed the country holding bizarre, incoherent rallies, including three in Ohio, to bask in the love of devotees, spew racist slurs for applause, and ogle Ohio U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s ass.

Trump riffed about the affordability “hoax,” downplayed sticker shock gas prices — up roughly 44% in Ohio since late February — claimed “inflation is solved,” and wrapped his rambling with “everything’s going good!” 

Not for ordinary Ohioans, it isn’t.

Trump brushed off their financial pain — “I’ll never apologize for $4 gas” — and called it a small price to pay for an illegal war. That’s a hard sell for strained families watching the Trump clan get rich while they cut coupons.

Trump pulled in at least $2 billion in the first year of his second term but folks working paycheck to paycheck can’t catch a break on skyrocketing expenses.

Their fury over broken promises pierced the charade of the Trump roadshow when it came to Ohio. Protests erupted among the red hats.

Righteous anger has stirred in the American soul for months. Ohioans and millions across the country channeled that anger into agency.

There was a sense of urgency with this election that went beyond economics, a failed war, or health care. Voters understood something bigger than control of Congress was on the ballot.

America was barreling toward an authoritarian abyss. A megalomaniac, unconstrained by a supine Republican majority on Capitol Hill, had to be checked.

Trump, who tried to overturn the 2020 election and did his best to manipulate this one, has no allegiance to the law or the republic he dangerously undermines in the 250th year of its founding.

His autocratic ambitions were enough to get pro-democracy Americans off the sidelines and into the streets.

Millions marched from coast to coast, in cities and rural villages, conservatives and liberals alike. No Kings was the outcry. No absolute rule, no dystopian playbooks, no paramilitary forces killing Americans with impunity.

If democratic institutions could not be bulwarks against tyranny, citizens would stand in the breach. And boy, did they ever.

On Nov. 3, 2026, they routed the enablers of the malignant narcissist who torched American exceptionalism, freedom, global leadership.

It was a wipeout election for the history books in Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Maine, Texas, South Carolina, Kansas and more. Trump-endorsed candidates who aligned themselves with his trademark hatefulness and cruelty were rejected by voters who aligned themselves with human dignity and decency.

The sovereign power of the people endured. May it always.