DAYTON, Ohio — Election Day was tough for me, as it was for many Ohio Democrats. While our party saw a wave of victories in races across the nation, the results closer to home were disappointing, to put it lightly.

The backlash to these losses was quick. The media, pundits and out-of-state Democratic operatives were quick to declare that Ohio, no longer purple, was lost to Democrats forever.

But as I see it, that’s just not true.

Democrats lost some hard-fought races this year, and we should take this moment to be honest about what went wrong and figure out how to move forward. But the results of this year’s election don’t support the argument that Ohio is firmly in the Republican Party’s column. Instead, they suggest how Democrats can still win statewide with a reorientation of our resources and our message.

Those who see 2018 as a blood bath for Ohio Democrats are forgetting that Senator Sherrod Brown won by 6.4 percentage points. This was a larger margin of victory than he had in 2012 — when he shared the top of the ticket with President Barack Obama, who also carried the state.