2022 doesn't have to be a bloodbath in Ohio. People are treating it as fait accompli, but there are things we can do to avert that which go way beyond picking the "right" candidates. The more important year isn't 2022, it's 2021. Two thoughts:

At least 3 major metros (Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Toledo) have mayoral elections in 2021. I don't know about the other two, but low voter turnout has been the stock and trade of keeping the Democratic machine in power. It's great for local democrats, devastating statewide.

If we can have extremely robust mayoral campaigns in these cities around real issues, it could go a long way in solving the turnout problem from major cities that we see time and time again destroy Democrats' chances statewide.

This also means that people like Kevin Kelley, who have gone out of their way to suppress democracy in Cleveland, have no business whatsoever being our next mayor, even setting aside their policy agenda which will absolutely be terrible.

The second thing is cutting into the rural margins. Democrats don't need to win every rural county, but they can't keep getting rinsed. I've been harping on the rural-urban narrative for a while, and I will continue to do so.

Democrats don't need to just propose real solutions to rural issues, they need to illustrate how those issues are in many cases the SELF-SAME issues facing urban residents, with the suburbs being the outlier, and have very similar solutions.

There are a lot of other factors: what is redistricting going to look like? Will that reform help at all or is it a big sham? What do we do in places like Parma and Brookpark that went for Trump?

But the 2021 mayorals and the urban-rural divide is what I'm thinking about.

Bonus addition: Cleveland Heights will have its FIRST EVER mayoral election in 2021, concurrent with Cleveland's. I'm not sure what C. Heights general election turnout numbers usually look like, but same shit applies.