Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose put a lot of political capital on backing “Issue 1,” a ballot initiative that would have raised the threshold for future ballot initiatives to succeed from 50 percent to 60 percent.
Voters in Ohio subsequently rejected the measure by 14 points — but that didn’t stop LaRose from issuing a defiant statement blaming out-of-state spending for the loss.
“We were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant ‘for sale’ sign still hangs on Ohio’s constitution,” he complained. “Ohioans will see the devastating impact of this vote soon enough.”
Many critics were quick to mock LaRose for his statement, including Rachel Petri, the campaign manager for Sen. Sherrod Brown, who wrote on Twitter that “you can’t spell ‘a loser’ without ‘LaRose.'”
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Atlantic editor Ronald Brownstein, meanwhile, noted that LaRose’s defiant statement didn’t even mention the role that protecting abortion rights played in the amendment’s defeat, which he said reflected Republicans’ “uncertainty on how to handle abortion backlash.”
Shannon Freshour, a Democrat who is running for Congress in Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) district, celebrated the win and argued LaRose got exactly what he deserved.
“It’s best to fight on the side of history, of democracy, of the people,” she wrote. “Thankfully Ohio understands that.”
Former Democratic Ohio candidate Paul Filippelli, meanwhile, mocked LaRose’s suggestion that keeping the old ballot initiative process would put Ohio’s state constitution at risk.
“Frank LaRose hates the Ohio Constitution and thinks it has a ‘for sale’ sign on it because it… allows voters to make decisions about how our state is governed,” he wrote.
And Tristan Rader, a progressive city councilman from Lakewood, Ohio, gave LaRose a sarcastic “thank you” for blowing his election.
“Thank you for your incompetent leadership on all the worst issues,” he wrote. “Keep it up!”