AHC: GOP Wins Presidential Election Without Ohio

It has frequently been observed that the Republican Party has never won a presidential election without carrying Ohio. (The converse is not true: Democrats can win and have won without Ohio: James Buchanan in 1856, Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892--though he got one of the state's electoral votes in 1892--FDR in 1944, JFK in 1960. And there have also been elections where the Democratic candidate won the nation fairly easily but Ohio only narrowly, and could well have lost it while winning nationally without much trouble--for example, Bill Clinton in 1992. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1992.txt ) Of course, the problem with these "laws" is that they work until they don't. For example, it was frequently noted before 1992 that since the admission of Texas to the Union, no Democratic presidential candidate had won without carrying Texas. And then the Democrats proceeded to do exactly that in 1992, 1996, 2008, and 2012. So what are the most plausible scenarios for the GOP to win a presidential election without carrying Ohio?

(1) 1916 is the most obvious: If Hughes shows a little more skill than in OTL in attracting--or at least not alienating--California Progressives, he wins California, and doesn't need Ohio.
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1916.txt

(2) 1976--Without the "Ford To City: Drop Dead" headline, Ford might have carried New York, which would have enabled him to win without Ohio. Of course having Eugene McCarthy on the New York ballot would also have helped Ford...

(3) 2004--The Democrats see their chance in Ohio when scandals erupt in Governor Taft's administration (in OTL these scandals only became public after the election). They devote more resources to the state than in OTL, including legal efforts to guarantee that enough voting machines are provided in Democratic areas. The problem is that all this concentration on Ohio leads them to divert resources from other states, so while they narrowly carry Ohio, they end up narrowly losing Wisconsin (which in OTL they carried by less than one half of one percent) and the election.

(4) 1968--The basic problem here is not how we get Nixon to lose Ohio, which he carried by only 2.2 points in OTL. The problem is how to have him lose Ohio while still winning two states he won even more narrowly in OTL--New Jersey (2.1) and Missouri (1.2). http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1968.txt If Nixon loses
*either* of these two states in addition to Ohio, he gets less than the 270 votes necessary to win in the Electoral College.

Is there any way Humphrey could win Ohio but lose the election? One way would be for him to choose an Ohioan as his running mate. But who? The state's last Democratic governor, Mike DiSalle, was overwhelmingly defeated for re-election in 1962. The state's two Democratic senators--Stephen M. Young and Frank Lausche--are way too old, and anyway Lausche is way too conservative (and had been defeated in the Democratic primary for re-election by John Gilligan, who would go on to lose to Republican William Saxbe in November). A POD would be an earlier Senate career for John Glenn, involving him not slipping in a bathtub in 1964 (which forced him out of the race) and defeating Young in the primary and Bob Taft, Jr. in the general election. The problem, though, is that Humphrey is looking for a running mate who can reconcile liberals, and Glenn's voting record in the Senate from 1964-68 is likely to be a bit too conservative for them.

I could have put this in either the pre-1900 or post-1900 section, but decided on post-1900 because Ohio was so Republican-leaning from 1856 through 1908--the GOP presidential candidate carried it fourteen elections in a row, apart from one electoral vote in 1892--that I don't see any plausible way the party can lose the state and win a presidential election in those years. True, Harrison could theoretically have won in 1888 without Ohio http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1888.txt but if he lost Ohio, which in OTL he carried by 2.5 percent, he would almost certainly have lost some closer state like Indiana or New York.

BTW, please no discussion of 2016--this section is not about current events.
 
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Wouldn't it be easier to run a Democrat out of Ohio against a popular Republican, winning him Ohio but losing the election? Of course, it would be tough to find such an Ohioan Democrat. My guess would be a figure such as Michael Coleman, longtime mayor of Columbus, who couldn't get above that office partly due to his wife having DUI issues and the Democrats being in charge during the recession.

Picture this: the Democrats win the White House in 2004 but get raked by the recession and a poor response to Katrina, leading to the election of John McCain in 2008. At the same time, the GOP holds serve in the Ohio gubernatorial race, opting to run some one who's more sane than "cut taxes for the rich and slander the gays" Ken Blackwell.

Both the Kerry administration and the Ohio GOP get torched by the crash in 2007-08 and the electorate goes the other way. John McCain gets elected in 2008 and doesn't select Sarah Palin as his running mate. Coleman ends up governor in 2010 and, due to his popularity in Ohio and the desire to run someone outside the political machine, the Dems opt to run him against McCain, sensing some vulnerability.

It doesn't work. Coleman carries Ohio but loses other swing states as McCain is re-elected by a comfortable margin. After this defeat, the Dems are very uneasy about running someone like Obama or Hillary, and instead the nomination goes to a white, establishment moderate who defeats Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
 
I was thinking of the Democrats nominating John Glenn in 1984, but in the first place I don't think it very likely the party would nominate him (he was thought of as "too conservative" by many Democrats) and second, I don't think even Glenn could carry Ohio against Reagan in 1984. Reagan beat Mondale there by 18.8 points http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1984.txt and while Glenn would doubtless have done better, IMO that is too large a majority for even a home-state advantage to overcome.
 
Ford only needs to win Pennsylvania and Wisconin which he almost did, he was very unlucky not to get Ohio, so lets say stronger campaign in these states and a better showing for McCarthy as well
 
Ford only needs to win Pennsylvania and Wisconin which he almost did, he was very unlucky not to get Ohio, so lets say stronger campaign in these states and a better showing for McCarthy as well

The last presidential election where Pennsylvania was more Republican than Ohio was 1948... (Of course having New York more Republican than Ohio is also unusual, but Carter's southern-evangelical image played poorly in New York, and without the FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD headline and the exclusion of McCarthy from the New York ballot I think Ford would have had a better chance to carry it than Pennsylvania.)
 
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