COLUMBUS — Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley, a Democrat, had never seen anything like Tuesday's election results and she couldn't be happier.

Columbus lobbyist John C. Mahaney Jr., a Republican, had seen disaster strike before and knows it could have been worse for the GOP.

Whaley, 30, came to Ohio from Indiana in 1994 to attend the University of Dayton, just in time to see Republicans gain total control of state government.

"I was here to witness the onslaught," she said.

Until Tuesday, Democrats hadn't won a single statewide non-judicial office since Whaley became a Buckeye.

This year Democrats won governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general; toppled two-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine to gain a U.S. Senate seat, and picked up seven seats in the Ohio House and one in the state Senate.

Republicans won two Ohio Supreme Court races, but state Rep. Mary Taylor of Summit County was the only Republican to win a statewide non-judicial race, the auditor's office.

"It's much more fun," Whaley said of the change.

Mahaney, 74, broke into politics in 1958 as an "errand boy," trying to help Republicans and business leaders pass a "right-to-work" ballot proposal that would have prohibited any requirement that workers join unions or pay dues as a condition of employment.

Democrats, aided by angry union members, rose up and captured all statewide non-judicial offices on the ballot except secretary of state, and captured a U.S. Senate seat.

The big difference, said Mahaney, is that Democrats also took control of the Ohio House and Senate in 1958.

"The Democrats wiped out the Republicans in the legislature," recalled Mahaney, president of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants.

The power arrangement in state government next year will have one important similarity to 1958.

In 1958, the auditor wasn't on the ballot. The auditor then was a Republican named James Rhodes, and he used the office, with its power to investigate most operations of state and local government, as a springboard to run for governor in 1962.

Rhodes defeated Democratic incumbent Mike DiSalle and went on to serve as governor for 16 of the next 20 years.

As auditor, Republican Mary Taylor will have the same authority Rhodes did to keep track of what the newly elected Democrats in executive offices are up to.

While Mahaney is a Republican, his preference in this year's governor's race reflects a problem that made things even tougher for other Republican candidates. They already faced an uphill fight because of incumbent Republican Gov. Bob Taft's unpopularity and the investment scandals at the Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

And they didn't get much help from the top of the ticket.

Republican nominee J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio secretary of state, received 36.8 percent of the vote. That's the lowest percentage for a Republican candidate for governor since 1912 when Robert B. Brown of Zanesville got 26.3 percent, according to The Ohio Politics Almanac.

Mahaney voted for Democrat Ted Strickland. He even sponsored a fundraiser for Strickland last year.

"I like both of 'em. It was a tough call," Mahaney said.

While Strickland won 20 percent of the Republican vote, Blackwell got just 6 percent of the Democratic vote, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool. The polling was based on interviews with about 2,500 voters and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 points.

The exit polling also showed Strickland got 69 percent of the votes from those identified as "independent or something else," while Blackwell got just 26 percent of this vote.

Whaley is enjoying being a winner and already looking forward to 2008, when Ohio again will likely be at the center of the presidential campaign.

"It was kind of scary working on the Kerry campaign (in 2004), wondering if Ohio will ever go blue again," she said. "This is pretty sweet."

In Columbus last week, political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said having the governor's office gives a party an advantage in a presidential election. And he said the 2008 presidential campaign has started and Ohio's involved, like it or not.

"You're at the epicenter. You're going to decide the 2008 presidential election," he said.

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey

@DaytonDailyNews.com.