JD Vance isn't the first. These 4 presidential elections also had Cincinnati candidates

Ohio Sen. JD Vance , a resident of East Walnut Hills , isn’t the first candidate for vice president to hail from the Buckeye State, but it has been a while since an Ohioan has been up for the job.

Vance is, however, the first candidate from Greater Cincinnati on the ballot since James M. Cox ran for president in 1920.

Ohio was once a political powerhouse. The state claims eight U.S. presidents, five with strong ties to Cincinnati . Three vice presidents were also born in Ohio , but none lived there as candidates.

The last Ohioan on a major party presidential ticket was John W. Bricker, who ran for VP alongside Republican Thomas E. Dewey in 1944. They lost to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to his fourth term.

Here are four memorable elections that featured candidates from Greater Cincinnati.

William Henry Harrison revolutionized political campaigns

William Henry Harrison , the first presidential candidate from Ohio, was actually born in Virginia in 1773, the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Harrison served in the army in the Northwest Territory and was celebrated for the Battle of Tippecanoe against Tecumseh’s Shawnee warriors. He settled in North Bend , west of Cincinnati, and represented Ohio in the Senate and House of Representatives.

In 1836, Harrison ran for president as one of four regional Whig candidates. He carried seven states but lost to Martin Van Buren.

He ran again in 1840, this time relying on his exaggerated war hero reputation as “Old Tippecanoe.” The Whig campaign used a log cabin to represent Harrison’s “frontier virtues,” when in reality he lived in a 16-room mansion.

In her biography of Harrison , Gail Collins wrote: “Politically, Harrison’s greatest achievement was to star in what is still celebrated as one of the most ridiculous presidential campaigns in history.”

Harrison won the presidency but died after 31 days in office. His death was reported in the first edition of The Cincinnati Enquirer on April 10, 1841. He was buried at his family’s estate in North Bend.

McClellan-Pendleton vs. Abraham Lincoln

Two candidates with Cincinnati ties challenged Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 election, which was held during the Civil War with grave ramifications for the war’s outcome.

While President Lincoln strove to keep the Union together, Peace Democrats (or Copperheads) sought to appease the Confederate states to end the war, which meant maintaining slavery in the South.

For vice president, Democrats chose George Hunt Pendleton, a Cincinnati lawyer and prominent Peace Democrat. (As senator, he wrote the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 , drafted at his home on Prospect Hill – which still stands .)

For president, they nominated Gen. George B. McClellan, who had been in command of the Union Army until Lincoln removed him following the disastrous Battle of Antietam .

But the general refused to embrace the party’s platform of calling the war a failure, and Lincoln was reelected , no doubt helped by the Southern states that left the Union having no vote.

What was McClellan’s connection to the Queen City? He had been working in Cincinnati as president of the eastern division of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, headquartered at Third and Race streets, when war broke out in April 1861.

William Howard Taft spent election day in Cincinnati

William Howard Taft was the only president born in Cincinnati, rather than in the region. His birthplace and childhood home at 2038 Auburn Ave. in Mount Auburn is a museum.

He spent election day, Nov. 3, 1908, in his hometown, hosted by his half-brother, Charles Phelps Taft, in the stately mansion on Pike Street that today is the Taft Museum of Art .

The Taft residence was abuzz with four telegraph operators receiving reports on the election. Taft was “the coolest person among the half hundred men and women who were at the Taft residence on Pike street last night to receive the election results,” The Enquirer reported.

As word of his victory over William Jennings Bryan came in, Taft said simply, “I’m contented – perfectly contented.”

The next day, the president-elect presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building of his alma mater, Woodward High School, at 1310 Sycamore St. in Over-the-Rhine.

Cox and Harding both made headlines

Two newspapermen from Ohio went head to head in the 1920 election. It’s rare to have both candidates from the same state, much less the same profession.

Sen. Warren G. Harding, the Republican candidate, was the editor-publisher of the Marion Star newspaper in Marion, Ohio. Democrat James M. Cox, the three-term governor of Ohio, also published the Dayton Daily News .

Cox, born and raised in Butler County, began his newspaper career as a railroad reporter for The Enquirer in 1892. After a stint as a political aide to U.S. Representative Paul R. Sorg of Middletown, he founded the Dayton Daily News and built it up as “the people’s paper.”

In 1920, Cox teamed with young Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate. While Harding campaigned from his front porch in Marion, Cox toured 36 states by railway to meet voters.

The victor was Harding , the last president from Ohio.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: JD Vance isn't the first. These 4 presidential elections also had Cincinnati candidates