COLUMBUS — The rejection of Issue 2 was broad and deep: 82 of Ohio’s 88 counties voted against the collective bargaining reforms pushed by Gov. John Kasich and the GOP-controlled General Assembly.

Even where it passed — Warren, Miami, Shelby, Mercer, Delaware and Holmes counties — the margin was often razor thin. In Miami County, where more than 34,000 people cast ballots, 96 votes separated those favoring and opposing the dramatic overhaul of collective bargaining rules for 360,000 public workers.

The measure failed even in conservative leaning Clermont and Hamilton counties in southwest Ohio and Medina and Geauga counties in the northeast.

And where Issue 2 failed, it often failed big. In 10 counties, at least 70 percent of voters rejected the measure. And in no county was it more unpopular than in Athens County, where 80.3 percent of the voters said no to keeping the bargaining restrictions in place.

Democrats pushed to put the referendum on the ballot, and in counties where Democrat Barack Obama won in 2008, Issue 2 was defeated by an average of 66 percent of the vote.

But even in counties won in 2008 by Republican John McCain, voters defeated the measure by an average 59 percent to 41 percent, according to analysis by University of Dayton political scientist Dan Birdsong.

Issue 2 was a referendum on Senate Bill 5, which banned strikes, established merit-based pay, gave local officials power to impose contracts and forced workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health care costs without negotiation.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said Issue 2 wasn’t about Democrats versus Republicans. Instead, he said, it was about right and wrong and about the middle class and worker’s rights.

Opponents formed a coalition of Democrats, labor unions and like-minded independents and Republicans who believed the 302-page bill went too far. After Gov. John Kasich signed the bill, the coalition collected 1.3 million petition signatures, raised more than $30 million and beat back the reforms on Election Day by almost 23 points.

Redfern predicted that the coalition will keep the momentum going into the 2012 election cycle when U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and President Obama are campaigning for re-election.

“The volunteers involved in the effort to defeat Senate Bill 5, including labor, Democratic activists and volunteers for President Obama’s re-election campaign, are energized and organized like never before — at least in the years I’ve been involved in Ohio politics, and we have shown that when we come together and work hard, we will achieve victory,” Redfern said.

Other observers disagree, noting that while 82 of 88 counties rejected Issue 2, all 88 embraced Issue 3, a symbolic vote of no confidence against Obama’s health care law.

“I think it is a one-time win,” said Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine, of Fairborn. “It’s Chris’ wildest dream to keep that coalition together for 2012. His problem is he has Barack Obama on the ballot next year and not Senate Bill 5.”

“Next year isn’t a referendum on Senate Bill 5,” DeWine said. “Next year is a referendum on Barack Obama.”

Redfern noted that the anti-Issue 2 campaign won in diverse communities, from Cleveland to Cincinnati to Wapakoneta to Zanesville “by talking about those issues that matter most to those communities.”

But Birdsong said he too questions whether the anti-Issue 2 coalition will hold together for a highly partisan election fight next year. The results in Ohio and other states indicate a voter backlash against agendas that overreach, he said.

Coming off the big win on Issue 2, “public sector unions need to be careful in how they move forward,” Birdsong said. If the public employee unions are perceived as being unreasonable at the bargaining table, Ohioans’ goodwill and support toward them may erode, he said.

Clearly, the anti-Issue 2 forces appealed to more than just union households. Only 13.7 percent of Ohio workers are in unions as of 2010, down from 21.1 percent in 1990 and 37.2 percent in 1970, according to researchers David Macpherson and Barry Hirsch.

A survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization of unions, found that voters in households with no public employee rejected Issue 2 by 14 points — 57 percent to 43 percent. Two-thirds of voters said they favor public sector collective bargaining, including 60 percent of independents and 43 percent of Republicans, the survey found.

The survey also reported that 26 percent of Gov. John Kasich’s 2010 supporters rejected Issue 2.

Democrats were particularly pleased with data showing that more people voted against Issue 2 — 2.14 million — than voted for Kasich for governor in 2010.

Democrat Ted Strickland, who lost to Kasich by 77,127 votes, said the defeat of Issue 2 bodes well for organized labor.

“This could signal the rebirth of organized labor in Ohio and perhaps even throughout the country because I think it’s been a demonstration of what is at risk,” he said. “I think the agenda of the anti-forces has been made crystal clear, and I think a lot of people now understand perhaps more clearly than they understood in a long time why labor is so important.”

But DeWine said local school boards and city councils are still struggling with limited resources and higher expenses, and that didn’t change with Tuesday’s vote.

“Defeat of Issue 2 took away the tools for local governments to deal with the slope of the expense line,” he said.

“That’s the political fall out from Issue 2.”