Athens County: Ohio’s political outlier

Photo via Ohio University Digital Archives

By Lily Franks & Claire Lovinski

The last time a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote in Athens County, Ohio University was preparing to welcome Daryll Hall & John Oates to the Convocation Center’s stage.

It was November 2, 1984. With election night only four days away, a crowd of 300 marched down Court Street to rally against incumbent president Ronald Reagan outside the county courthouse. Students, professors and Athens locals voiced concerns about the environment, the Equal Rights Amendment, foreign policy and federal student aid.

Athens resident Pam Thomas said she was “dismayed” to see students supporting Reagan, The Post reported in a November issue from 1984. Former Student Senate President Scott Treibitz expressed similar sentiments.

“Student aid has been cut 21% since Reagan got in. Close to a million kids have been affected, and still some students are voting for him,” Treibitz told The Post.

Reagan won in a landslide. The two-term president won 525 electoral votes, leaving only 13 for his opponent, Walter Mondale. Reagan had won in Ohio four years prior without the help of Athens County. In 1984, though, he picked up the county despite the usually left-leaning college town at its county seat.

William Hoffman, the Director of the Athens County Board of Elections at the time, predicted that the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which Reagan signed into law raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 earlier that year, would drive student turnout. But The Post reported a student turnout that was “lighter than expected,” with around 56.6% favoring Reagan compared to 52.6% of the countywide voters.

Speaking to The Post the day after the election, Athens County Democratic Party Chair Pete Lalich and Republican Party Chair Larry Payne weighed in.

“It was a Republican victory on campus and in the country today,” Payne said. Lalich called the election a victory for Democrats at the local level, and The Post noted that “local Democrats won every incumbent seat, added a judgeship, won a county commissioner seat and retained their state representative.” Meanwhile, Payne noted that Republicans gained control of the State Senate.

The student vote in Athens County

The Republican victory proved to be an exception, but the 1984 election illustrates the exceptional role of the student vote in Athens County nonetheless.

Electorally, Athens County stands out from other Ohio counties that are home to college towns. Compared with Oxford and Kent — college towns with similar populations — Athens represents a significantly larger proportion of its county’s population.

Oxford, Kent and Athens have respective populations of 22,340, 27,601, and 24,673. Oxford makes up around 5.68% of Butler County’s total population of 393,043, and Kent accounts for about 16.97% of Portage County’s population of 162,665. Meanwhile, the population of the City of Athens makes up 39.35% of the county’s total population of 62,706 — over a third.

A decade before Reagan won Athens County, it was one of only two blue counties favoring George McGovern over incumbent President Richard Nixon in 1972. An article published in The Post two days after Nixon’s victory credited student voters with county-wide outcomes favoring Democrats.

The Post reported that turnout in student-dominated precincts “averaged 84.5 percent while the total county turnout was 82.5 percent.” A staff writer for the Post concluded that “students provided a strong Democratic base in an area which traditionally held strong Republican ties.”

The future of blue Athens County

Today, there is no doubt that Athens is a strong blue county. Every city official, including the mayor, auditor, law director, treasurer, municipal court judge and all members of the City Council are registered as Democrats.

This uniformity is indicative and reflective of the overwhelmingly liberal political atmosphere in Athens. Only time will tell if these attitudes are upheld with nine of the city’s thirteen officials facing term limits at the end of 2025.

Despite this, the political landscape in Athens is not entirely one-sided. In the November election, Kevin Ritter, a Republican candidate running to represent the 94th district in the Ohio House of Representatives, became the only Republican in the county to win against an opponent. Ritter was able to secure a 55.50% victory over his opponent Wenda Sheard, a Democrat. In addition to Ritter’s victory, two other Republicans, Jason P. Smith and Mike Hess, won unopposed races running as judges in Ohio’s Fourth District Court of Appeals.

As Athens approaches a new year with new elections, the question that arises is: do these individual Republican successes indicate a potential shift toward a more conservative county that follows along with the current national political climate? Or, will Athens continue its long-standing pattern of electing Democrats to key positions?

Though it is most likely the case that Athens will stick with its roots and remain a liberal county, the 2025 city official elections will be a key moment in determining whether Athens remains a strong blue county or if it begins to change its political landscape.

This article was published in TNP’s Spring 2025 Print edition.