On Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of Donald Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt Congress from counting the electoral votes to formalize Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over the Republican incumbent.
Trump supporters scaled the building’s walls and fences, swarmed the hallways, vandalized offices and federal property and threatened violence toward congressional members. In the hours that followed, the Capitol was locked down, lawmakers were evacuated, five people died and many — including 140 police officers — were injured.
A year later in Akron, more than 350 miles away from the nation’s capital, the turmoil continues to reverberate in local and state politics. Though no one in the county was among the more than 720 people charged with crimes, some local residents attended the protest led by President Trump that later devolved into riots.
“Just to see an insurrection right before your very eyes was absolutely surreal, but also that continuation of trying to deal with the ramifications of the behavior of that day,” said US. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles, who was working in Washington when the riots broke out.
With a midterm election year underway, local officials will be watching to see how the Capitol riots shape voters' mindsets in the first nationwide balloting since the integrity of the process was violently challenged.
Local officials consider voter confidence in Summit County
The riots and preceding protests were rooted in the unfounded belief that the presidential election was stolen from Trump. In the months following the general election where Biden was named the president-elect, Trump riled up his voter base with tweets and rallies alleging corruption and voter fraud. Those claims have been proved baseless by election officials and recount efforts in several states.
“That large-scale effort of questioning and undermining the democratic process is cause for concern,” said Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan. “It questions every election. If somebody says, ‘Hey the presidential election was this way,’ what’s to say that the school board and the county commissioner’s race and city council races weren’t all irregularities? I’ve always trusted that system. To see somebody undermine and question it for months and continue to this day, that’s the scary part.”
In Summit County, however, Board of Elections voting officials in both parties say they haven’t experienced the voter distrust they were expecting in 2021's local elections.
“There was some anticipation of problems that generally didn’t materialize,” said William Rich, the chair of the Summit County Board of Elections. “I guess I would say there was more tension than usual, but we didn’t see here in Summit County the kind of reaction that we’ve all been seeing around the country.”
Rich, one of the two Democrats on the four-person board, said he expects things “would’ve been different” if Biden had won in Ohio, but Trump took 53.3% of the vote compared to Biden’s 45.3%.
Bryan Williams, who also serves on the Board of Elections and is the chairman of the county’s Republican Party, agrees that he has not seen any incidents of voter distrust in the county, though he concurs with Trump’s claims that Biden stole the election. He attributes voter confidence in Ohio to Republican efforts in the Statehouse to block what he believes hindered a fair election by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
“I don’t think we are scarred by Jan. 6, and I don’t think we have a heightened sense of distrust," said Williams, who has been heavily critical of LaRose — a fellow Republican — and adjustments that were sought to assure ballot access to voters statewide in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Williams took aim at LaRose efforts including a proposition that the state pay for return postage on absentee ballots or send absentee ballot request forms to all registered voters. LaRose's office said Williams' criticism is baseless.
"Voter confidence in Ohio is high because in 2020, under Secretary LaRose’s leadership, Ohio ran the most successful and secure election in Ohio history," said Rob Nichols, a spokesperson for LaRose. He cited metrics such as the highest voter turnout ever in the state.
John Chapman, an Akron-based attorney who ran as a Republican candidate for county executive in 2020 and Stow clerk of courts in 2021, said he has seen no evidence of a rigged election process in Ohio or otherwise, but said there was a failed opportunity to dissuade voter distrust on a federal level when judges dismissed more than 50 lawsuits from Trump and allies challenging the election’s outcome.
“I think the biggest mistake that was made with regards to whether or not the election was stolen was the fact that they didn’t let it work through the courts and televise it to let people see what’s true and not true,” Chapman said. “It wasn’t just a fringe group; there were millions of people who believed it, so I think that warranted a public analysis and scrutiny in a way that could’ve restored faith. It solidified a large number of people’s positions … What did they think was going to happen?”
A growing partisan divide
The deep divides that were already forming between and within each party for years came to an explosive head on Jan. 6, said John Green, the emeritus director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron.
“Jan. 6 just exacerbated those already existing divisions because you had this enormously embarrassing and very public event,” Green said. “Jan. 6 was widely condemned by Democrats as well as Republicans as an awful thing, but given our existing division, it didn’t bring us together. Historically, it’s events like Jan. 6 that tend to crystallize people’s disagreements.”
State Rep. Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat who last month announced she is stepping down from her role as Ohio House minority leader after three years in that post, said she fears the two parties in the Statehouse will face increasing frustrations when it comes to collaboration as that divide widens.
“We hear all the time that [constituents] want elected officials to work with one another and find common ground, but I’ve found that the people who cling to this narrative are not willing to even hear what anyone with an opposing view is saying,” Sykes said. “That makes our country stagnant, it’s what’s making our Statehouse dysfunctional, and it’s not necessary.”
Akron’s Horrigan, a Democrat, said when it comes to local governing, all partisanship should stop as soon as an election is over.
“I have a duty to advocate for Akron and its best interests,” he said. “I have to work with whoever is elected because that’s what our community needs. Not everybody thinks that way, and that’s a problem because they don't put politics aside. There's no partisan way to plow a street or fill a pothole."
Primary will weigh GOP voters' Trump loyalty
Green said infighting that's been happening in both parties for years is at play in 2022 as well, particularly when it comes to the actions and responsibilities of Trump in the riots.
U.S. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Rocky River, whose 16th District spans parts of Summit and Medina counties, was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the riots, calling him a “cancer for the country.” Gonzalez announced in September that he will not seek a third two-year term. Congressional hopefuls campaigning to fill his seat include former Trump aide Max Miller, who brands himself as being “Trump-approved.”
In a competitive Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat for which Rob Portman is declining to seek reelection, as well as upcoming congressional and gubernatorial races, many other candidates are aligning themselves with Trump as well — using his likeness, policies and rhetoric to brand themselves similarly. That could work in a state where the former president was so popular, political scientist Green said, if the candidate finds broader appeal in the general election.
“A candidate that runs strictly on Trump will face a real difficult general election because there’s a lot of Republicans and Democrats who have mixed emotions about Trump,” he said. “I can imagine it being successful if they have a broader agenda that gets the benefit of Trump's support but doesn’t turn off too many people. There has to be appeal beyond Trump, otherwise it’s dangerous to fall back and be trapped with being too closely connected with a popular but controversial figure.”
Ryan said the divisiveness of Trump has forced some Ohio Republicans to jump ship to support his campaign for Senate.
“We’ve got a significant number of well-established Republican leaders and activists that are helping in my campaign, not because they agree with me on every issue, but because they think there are some fundamental issues here around the necessity of having functioning elections, of understanding the legitimacy of these elections even if you lose them, making sure issues around voting are protected,” Ryan said. “Those are beyond your position on taxes or education or anything else.”
Though voter confidence is certainly at play in upcoming elections, Green said he doesn’t foresee that as a long-term issue if the next election cycle runs smoothly without candidates stoking unfounded accusations about the process.
“When we’re not having an election in the midst of a pandemic, I think things will come back to normal,” he said. “I really believe they’re being addressed and we’ll get back to higher levels of confidence in the future if everyone behaves themselves.”
As local officials reflect on Jan. 6 and look ahead to the future, many, both Republican and Democrat, agree that the riots and events will be remembered as a dark day in the country.
“It was definitely more than a wake-up call,” Horrigan said. “We need to make sure we are responsive to people’s needs. How can we make sure people feel like they’re listened to? I think that’s more on the ground than anywhere else.”
Published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Jan 5, 2022.