That is how pretty much all states, not just Ohio, are layed out. The USA is massive in terms of land. Ohio is roughly the size of Germany. The play is to get 60-70-80 percent in major Metropolitan areas because the rest of the state is cows and corn. Only 7 counties had more than 100k votes cast in total with the three counties home to Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati accounting for almost 1/3 of the total votes cast. All 7 of those counties voted in favor of issue 1. Any district that doesn’t have a major metro area is not viable. These areas are bleeding money and jobs and losing population. Eventually they will lose enough and Ohio will lose enough congressional seats that it will not be able to be reliably gerrymandered as heavily because of the population being so heavily centered in 3 locations. Ohio was one of the first test for GOP gerrymandering and it is a first look at what will happen when that is the only way they can win.
That is how pretty much all states, not just Ohio, are layed out. The USA is massive in terms of land. Ohio is roughly the size of Germany. The play is to get 60-70-80 percent in major Metropolitan areas because the rest of the state is cows and corn. Only 7 counties had more than 100k votes cast in total with the three counties home to Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati accounting for almost 1/3 of the total votes cast. All 7 of those counties voted in favor of issue 1. Any district that doesn’t have a major metro area is not viable. These areas are bleeding money and jobs and losing population. Eventually they will lose enough and Ohio will lose enough congressional seats that it will not be able to be reliably gerrymandered as heavily because of the population being so heavily centered in 3 locations. Ohio was one of the first test for GOP gerrymandering and it is a first look at what will happen when that is the only way they can win.
I don’t live in a large ohio city and even still, the city has more people living in it than the surrounding 4 counties combined.