In a vote late at night on Tuesday, the Ohio Redistricting Commission unanimously voted nine to zero to approve the "Unified Bipartisan Redistricting Plan," which is set to replace Ohio's current State House and State Senate district maps for the next 8 years. 

The ORC consists of nine members, currently made up of seven republicans and two democrats. After a lengthy afternoon recess, the members returned to the hearing room for a vote at about 10:00 Tuesday night.

The vote came after several prior maps were struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court on the grounds that they were too partisan.

A similar challenge is unlikely to happen this time, as both democratic members of the commission voted in favor of ratification for the two maps.

Despite their votes, the commission's two Democratic members expressed clear dissatisfaction with the outcome.

Sen. Nickie Antonio, a Democrat from Lakewood who serves as the Ohio Senate Minority Leader and co-chair of the redistricting commission, said the redistricting cycle "made it clear that this process does not belong in the hands of politicians," adding that "people should choose their representatives, not the other way around."

House Minority Leader Allison Russo, the other Democrat on the redistricting commission, said in her statement that "my vote was not a show of support for these maps...The harsh reality is you can't ungerrymander gerrymandered maps when those in control are unwilling to give up unearned power."

Current maps have Ohio's 99-seat House of Representatives with 67 Republicans and 32 Democrats, and the 33-seat State Senate with 26 Republicans and 7 Democrats. 

The new maps, which Antonio admits are "better, fairer maps" than the current ones, produce a State House with a likely makeup of 61 Republicans and 38 Democrats, and a Senate with 23 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

The new maps would create a House that is 62% GOP and a Senate that is supermajority-Republican in a state where Republicans make up just 2% more of the population than their Democratic counterparts, according to Pew Research Center.

Despite Pew's research, electoral trends have showed Ohio widely trending red in recent years.

Ohio, which has traditionally been regarded as a swing state and presidential bellwether voted twice for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 and elected only republican statewide officials for the last decade.

Sherrod Brown, one of Ohio's two representatives in the United States Senate, is the only Democrat to be successful in a partisan Ohio statewide vote since 2010. 

In the new maps, only one Senate district and four House districts are expected to be competitive, with no more than a 2% difference in partisan makeup.

Ohio is regarded by some as one of the most Gerrymandered states in the US, with Axios putting it among just five states with an "F" for its congressional maps.

In 2022, Republicans earned 67% of seats in the State House despite receiving just 58.8% of the vote. The Senate election was even worse. In that race, the GOP gained one seat, increasing their presence to 78.8% of the seats in that body despite only receiving 57.4% of the vote. 

Ohio's rightward trend did hit at least one bump in the road this past August, when Ohio voters comfortably rejected Issue One, a measure backed by Republican Secretary of State and Senate candidate Frank Larose which would have made it harder to amend the Ohio State Constitution. 

The rejection of that measure by a more than 15-point margin was a harsh rebuke of a measure pushed fervently by state republicans, and will also make it easier for state democrats to pass two measured this November.

Election analysts will be paying close attention to those votes, for an amendment protecting reproductive rights and another legalizing recreational marijuana, which can now pass with just 50% +1 vote. If passed, those two measures could point to Ohio slowing its rightward trend.

Since Tuesday's vote was unanimous, the maps will continue to be used through the 2030 election cycle, when the commission will once again be called upon to create new maps.