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Low primary turnout is norm

David Skolnick

As has been the case for years, turnout for this spring’s primary is expected to be poor. It should be between 23% and 25% in Mahoning County, according to Tom McCabe, director of its board of elections. Stephanie Penrose, his counterpart in Trumbull County, expects turnout to be around 25% in her county. The predictions are in line with what the two counties have seen in the past few years. In the May 2022 primary, when the governor’s seat was on the ballot, turnout in Mahoning was 23.24% and 25.83% in Trumbull. In the 2018 primary, which had contested governor’s ...

Ohio now facing ‘historic growth’ in energy demand

Editorials

State senators have plenty of work to do — for their constituents, they must remember — and among those tasks is understanding Ohio’s energy landscape and the demands we are placing on our power grid. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Jenifer French spoke to the body recently about the benefits of shorter regulatory timelines, noting that last year the commission signed off on 2,000 megawatts of behind-the-meter power (standalone power serving a facility) and 2,755 megawatts of traditional gas-generating facilities. She told the committee, “This is more gas-fired ...

Taxing the rich isn’t as politically sound as progressives make it out to be

Editorials

“Tax the rich!” shout progressives. Why not? America’s richest people are ridiculously rich. “Five bucks to you is like $6 million to billionaire Jeff Bezos!” shrieks Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Taking more from billionaires and millionaires just seems fair. That’s why Washington state passed a new “millionaire’s tax,” California will soon vote on a “billionaire’s tax,” and my mayor in NYC shouts, “increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers!” Don’t these politicians realize that in America, people can move? The same day Washington’s House ...

Democrats are a danger to the nation

Editorials

The United States must be growing and prosperous at home and strong and secure in the face of the many security threats facing us abroad. The former can only be achieved with free markets and limited government domestically and the latter through a robust defense budget. On both fronts, Democrats would take the country in the exact opposite direction needed. Voters seem to understand this. RealClearPolitics reports Democratic Party favorability at -20.0 unfavorable and Republicans at -15.4 unfavorable. Nevertheless, in polling on the overall congressional election for 2026, ...

Beliefs become grounds for firing

Editorials

There are plenty of things an NBA player can do and still keep his job. League history is littered with examples: players involved in off-court scandals, arrests, even allegations of serious violence. Time and again, teams and the league have found ways to look past behavior that, in most professions, would be career-ending. But there appears to be one line that cannot be crossed — especially during Holy Week. That line, it seems, is expressing a traditional religious belief. Enter Jaden Ivey. The former Purdue standout was the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NBA draft, a ...

Bernie is not a New Yorker

Editorials

Yes, he talks like a Brooklyn tough guy, but Sen. Bernie Sanders is a resident of Vermont, America’s most rural and most white state. That he fled New York City nearly 60 years ago seems lost on the current Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his fellow socialists. Then again, Mamdani hasn’t been around very long himself. Sanders skipped out of town as part of the white flight leaving New York in the 1960s. The out-migrants weren’t all middle-class whites running away from urban chaos. Some, like Sanders, were white radicals vexed at losing power to a new generation of black militants who ...