Chabot: It's Clinton vs. Rubio in 2016

CINCINNATI - Just more than a week after President Obama won re-election, Congressman Steve Chabot is already making his predictions for the 2016 presidential race.

Chabot, a Republican from Westwood who won re-election to his ninth term last week, posted on his blog Wednesday that he believes Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton will face off against Republican Marco Rubio in four years.

Clinton is currently U.S. secretary of state, although she is expected to leave that post soon. Rubio is a U.S. senator from Florida.

Chabot readily concedes, however, that he doesn’t have a good record when it comes to making predictions.

“Of course, over the last year or so I also predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down Obamacare, Rob Portman would be Mitt Romney’s choice for a running mate, and that Romney would narrowly defeat Barack Obama and win the presidency,” Chabot wrote on his blog. “And we all know how well those predictions panned out.”

Chabot wrote the blog item on a flight back to Washington, D.C., where he will attend the lame duck session of Congress.

After running unsuccessfully in 1988, Chabot was elected to Ohio’s 1 ^st Congressional District initially in 1994.

The 1st Congressional District is made up of all of Warren County, western Hamilton County, and part of northern Hamilton County.

Warren County was in the 2nd Congressional District in the 2010 election before redistricting took effect. After recent redistricting, the 1st Congressional District is now dominated by Republican voters, making it a difficult challenge for other parties to win there.