Ohio Union Fight Shakes Up Race

By DOUGLAS BELKIN And JACK NICAS

CINCINNATI—Bill Bennett has been a rock-ribbed Republican since he supported Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Four decades of carrying a badge and a gun for the city police department fortified his GOP allegiance—until last year.

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Firefighters and other protesters at the Ohio Statehouse during the fight over the bill to limit public-sector union bargaining rights in March 2011.

Ohio's Republican leaders a year ago sponsored a law that stripped most collective-bargaining rights from 400,000 state and local workers, including police, firefighters and teachers. Angry voters overturned the law in a November referendum, 62% to 38%.

Some Ohioans applauded the GOP for taking on what they considered a bloated and unaffordable government. Others, including Mr. Bennett, began to re-examine their relationship with the Republican Party.

"There's a right way and a wrong way to do things, and the Republicans mostly get that," the 73-year-old Mr. Bennett said. "They've always been honest and straight ahead, but this was neither."

As the 2012 race intensifies between President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the political backdrop in this pivotal swing state is being shaped by events that roiled Ohio a year ago. The fight over the bargaining rights of public-employee unions energized partisans on both sides, and amounted to a trial run for the general election that each party is now trying to use to its advantage.

Neither party has a decisive edge, and Ohio figures to be a pivotal as well as closely fought state in the presidential race.

The two most recent statewide polls show Mr. Obama ahead of Mr. Romney by six and four percentage points. Both parties have targeted Ohio as a battleground state, and the two candidates plan to spend a lot of time there. Mr. Obama will be in Ohio this week during his official campaign kickoff. Mr. Romney paid a visit Friday.

The Wall Street Journal is visiting three swing counties in swing states—Florida, Ohio and Colorado—periodically this year to gauge how the election campaign is unfolding.

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And while the union fight and its aftermath will affect the November campaign, including Ohio's congressional elections, it will hardly be the only issue. A recent survey by the Quinnipiac University Poll showed nine in 10 Ohioans rated the economy as "extremely important" or "very important."

Last year's fight over public-employee unions was waged when Ohio's unemployment rate was around 9%. Since then, though, it has dropped to 7.5%. One political debate will be whether the Republican Gov. John Kasich—the man at the center of the union fight—or the Democratic president, Mr. Obama, gets credit if the state's jobless rate continues to fall.

Democrats think the fracas reopened the door for supporters who have slipped away in recent years: white, working-class, Republican-leaning voters who disliked the GOP move to shrink the power of public-sector unions, to which many remain loyal. During the fight last year, Mr. Obama lashed out against Ohio's collective-bargaining law and a similar law in Wisconsin.

Republicans, however, are optimistic the core debate over the size of government—including pay and pensions of public employees—will energize their base and pull financially pressed swing voters in their direction.

Mr. Romney had backed the law, writing on his Facebook page last year that he fully supported Ohio Republicans' efforts "to limit the power of union bosses and keep taxes low."

"Because of what the GOP candidates have said about Ohio Senate Bill 5, right now I'm planning on voting for President Obama,"says Kevin Cain, a guidance counselor in Cincinnati. "About four years ago I never thought I would say something like that."

Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, a potential GOP running mate, tried to stay on the sidelines during the fight, but he has supported collective-bargaining rights for police in the past.

Hamilton County is an important swing county in what may be the most important swing state. It is closely watched because its evenly divided electorate has so accurately reflected Ohio's in the past. Vote tallies here almost precisely mirrored the state's overall results when Ohio went for Mr. Obama in 2008, 52% to 47%, and then for Mr. Kasich in 2010, 49% to 47%.

Ohio's union fight is echoing in Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker faces a recall election after signing a similar, though less expansive law.

In Michigan, a state lawmaker was recalled—the first time in three decades—after helping limit the collective-bargaining rights of teachers. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has since urged his party to steer clear of union-curbing legislation.

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Ohio gives an ideal vantage point to see how the two parties are battling. Democratic campaign workers are poring over the 1.3 million voter signatures collected to repeal the collective-bargaining law, in hopes of pinpointing swing voters: Democrats say 10% of the signatures came from registered Republicans, 24% were Democrats and independents accounted for 65%.

Hamilton generated more signatures per resident than any other county against three GOP-backed laws last year, including the collective-bargaining law. Its rich trove of votes has prompted the Obama campaign to open two of its 18 Ohio offices here. Volunteers began knocking on doors across the state two weeks ago.

Hamilton is one of three bellwether counties in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Colorado that reporters from The Wall Street Journal are tracking through November.

Tucked into the southwest corner of the state along the Ohio River, Hamilton is home to Procter & Gamble, Kroger Co. and Macy's Inc. Hundreds of manufacturing jobs are concentrated along a northbound stretch of Interstate 75. It has some of the wealthiest U.S. suburbs, as well as pockets of deep poverty in Cincinnati.

The voter backlash against the collective bargaining law was especially fierce here. "Forget the bankers, forget Wall Street, all of a sudden it was our fault the state was broke," said Kathy Harrell, president of the 1,900-member Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police.

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Bill Bennett, a Republican since 1956, said he was rethinking his vote.

She said the organization asked each member to give an additional $57 to pay for the repeal campaign, a request that drew no complaints.

The organization, which traditionally endorses Republicans, is split this year at the national level. But in Hamilton County, the FOP harbors little division. They refused to endorse any candidates that supported the collective-bargaining law. Three Republicans lost their seats in the November election.

Some GOP voters discount the issue. Retirement-planner Bill Myles, a Republican in Hamilton County, said by November the headlines generated by layoffs and tax increases would transform the collective-bargaining law into a boon for the Republican presidential nominee. "Romney will be able to run on this issue," he said. "By November, it's going to be his friend."

Other Republicans agreed the battle over public employees could work to their advantage. Voters will credit the GOP with trying to make the hard choices to fix state fiscal woes, they said. Any resentment over labor fights won't translate into support for Mr. Obama, according to this argument, because voters are more focused on the economy.

Republicans believe any lingering anger over the collective-bargaining law will dissipate in coming months as the fiscal troubles of Ohio's cities and towns force voter attention on tough choices: tax hikes or service cuts. Cleveland and Cincinnati announced last month they were laying off hundreds of teachers to balance their shrinking budgets.

"I had traditionally been a Republican voter," says Kathy Harrell, a union president in Cincinnati, OH. "But the Republican candidate who is potentially going to be running for president has made it very clear he's not for unions."

The GOP is launching a counteroffensive using information gleaned from 427,000 signatures gathered to qualify a state constitutional amendment against Mr. Obama's health-care law, also on last November's ballot.

The symbolic measure had no impact on federal law but passed by a wider margin than the repeal of the collective-bargaining law. Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said the "millions of pieces of micro-targeting data" collected during last year's campaign would be employed against Democrats in 2012. "It's going to be hand-to-hand combat," he said.

Much of the debate is aimed at white, working-class voters whose support in Midwestern swing states is essential for GOP hopes to retake the White House. In 2000 and 2004, former President George W. Bush's roughly three-to-two advantage among white, working-class voters helped carry him to victory.

In the 2008 election, the group sided with the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, by 10 percentage points in Ohio. But they backed Mr. Obama in Wisconsin and Michigan, allowing the former Illinois senator to sweep the Rust Belt.

In 2010, these voters swung back. With the tea party vocalizing their anger, they supported congressional Republicans by a margin of 30 points, according to national exit polls. Republicans captured the governor's seat and both chambers of the legislature in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

There are signs the pendulum is moving once again. Anger at Republican efforts to target public-employee unions, the party's defense of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in Washington and a punishing primary season have driven down GOP approval numbers. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, has gotten a boost from an improving U.S. economy.

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Mr. Obama looks stronger against Mr. Romney among white, working-class voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio than other Democrats who faced Republicans in 2010, according to polls.

Still, the group is up for grabs. Neither Messrs. Romney nor Obama—both slightly aloof public figures with Harvard graduate degrees—resonate personally with these voters.

Philip Weintraub, a 57-year-old copy writer from Hamilton County, is an independent who said he was uneasy with the size of federal spending and public employees' pensions. But he was leaning toward Mr. Obama, he said, because Ohio Republicans went too far last year.

"Attacking collective bargaining in the public sector isn't the best way to deal with economic issues," he said. "Yes, there are long-term problems brought on by pensions…But then I look at teachers, and to not allow them to bargain collectively did not seem right to me."

On the other side of this divide are such independent voters as Donald Mills, a retired tennis instructor who has voted for seven Republican presidential candidates and six Democrats over several decades. He is undecided. But he said he favored the collective-bargaining law and Mr. Romney's support for it.

"I honestly believe that our expenses are out of control and unions…are too much in control," he said. "I think there needs to be some parity."

Mr. Bennett, the retired Cincinnati police officer, said he didn't know if he would support Mr. Obama—with whom he broadly disagrees. But he knows he won't support Mr. Romney.

Public service unions "became like the public enemy," Mr. Bennett said. "They wanted to blame us."

Write to Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com and Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 1, 2012, on page A1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Ohio Union Fight Shakes Up Race.