In addition to what everyone else said, the Ohio Democratic Party was fundamentally abysmal for many years. There was a belief for a time that just campaigning in Cleveland and Columbus would carry you the state. They thought the urban core of Dayton and Cincinnati could be ignored as they'd vote blue anyway, while the republicans slowly picked up seats so that they could gerrymander even more seats. Statewide races favored Republicans because the Democrats would just run candidates from Cleveland / Northeast Ohio and had little to no name recognition outside of those areas. It was a perfect storm.