We're Sorry: We Completely Missed the News That Ohio Is Becoming a State

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CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Hopewell Heritage Headlines owes its readers an apology. The biggest story in Ohio history apparently broke on Monday afternoon, and we missed the whole thing.

Speaking at a rally in Swanton on Monday, on the final day of campaigning before Tuesday’s election, Donald Trump Jr. warned the crowd about what Democrats have planned: “They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to make Ohio a state.”

We have checked, and then checked again, and we can now confirm the disappointing truth for anyone hoping to witness history on Tuesday: Ohio is already a state. It has been one since March 1, 1803, when it entered the Union as the 17th state, a full 223 years ago. There was no ceremony planned for Tuesday. There is, we cannot stress this enough, an election.

Chillicothe readers can take the oversight personally. Ohio’s first capital was not Columbus. It was Chillicothe, which served as the seat of state government from 1803 to 1810 and again from 1812 to 1816. Statehood did not just happen in Ohio. It started here.

In fairness to Trump Jr., he has company in the confusion, and the company is the United States Congress. When Ohio turned 150 in 1953, officials getting ready for the celebration discovered that Congress had never actually passed a formal resolution admitting Ohio to the Union back in 1803. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a joint resolution that year declaring Ohio a state retroactive to March 1, 1803. So for a century and a half, Ohio was a state on a technicality, which may be the most Ohio sentence this newspaper has ever printed.

Trump Jr. appeared to be reaching for the familiar rally line about Democratic support for statehood for Washington, D.C., and the word Ohio came out instead, which is an understandable mistake to make while standing in Ohio, talking about Ohio, to Ohioans. The clip was racing around social media within the hour.

The good news for Tuesday is that none of this changes anything. Polls open at 6:30 a.m. across Ohio, the ballots are printed, and your vote counts exactly as much as it did before anyone raised questions about whether the state exists. If Ohio were not a state, the line at your polling place would be much shorter and everyone in it would be much more confused.

We will try to do better. If anyone announces plans to make Ohio a state again, or for the first time, or retroactively for a second time, we promise to be all over it.

Send a tip or correction to info@heritageheadlines.com.

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