I am thrilled, relieved and gratified that Ohio voters stepped up with such fierceness to overwhelmingly defeat the Republican effort to strip away our rights.
I am also really pleased that so many Ohio women were instrumental in this victory and happy to see Ohio’s white women lean in so hard.
This is especially satisfying coming less than a year after the midterms in which a majority of Ohio’s white women voted to reelect Gov. Mike DeWine and to make JD Vance Ohio’s junior senator.*
Much of the shift between last year and now was likely because Issue 1 was so obviously intended to lay the groundwork for making it impossible for Ohio voters to protect reproductive rights in November, that everyone got it and got on board.
But this threat to women and others should have been apparent during last year’s midterms, yet a majority of white women in the state voted for an openly anti-choice governor and senator just a few months ago.
But better late than never …
I’m sure that women of all races will again rise to the occasion this November to approve the Ohio constitutional amendment that will protect women’s reproductive rights.
But then what?
Will these victories and the campaigns that led up to them open the eyes of those white women who previously supported anti-choice, anti-civil rights and often openly racist candidates when they thought they wouldn’t be personally harmed by their policies?
Will these women realize that it will be absolutely critical to vote Blue up and down the ticket, because while Trump is often the object of their ire, he is not really the problem. He’s just the most obvious symptom.
The real problem is the Republican Parry has sold itself lock stock and barrel to the most extreme elements in the country, with the complicity of “good Republicans” who have silently gone along with it.
As a Black woman who has been in this fight for longer than I care to say, I am glad that so many white women joined the effort and linked arms with women of color to beat back this threat. I now beg my white sisters not to take a victory lap and then leave the field to return to their places of comfort and privilege, holding their tongues for the sake of politeness and neighborliness, tuning out future battles because they think the outcome won’t harm them.
PLEASE stay in the fight and vote Blue (Go Sherrod!), drive Republicans out of state and local offices, and fight racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, wherever and in whoever it arises.
The Ohio Issue 1 fight showed you what you’re made of and that if you stand with us, we can move mountains and stop the flood.
Source,: NBC News: “Ohio Governor Election Results 2022” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/ohio-senate-results