I haven’t seen a diary about early voting in Ohio lately, so I used the Google to get some numbers for the last few days ….
www.cincinnati.com/…
Fewer Ohioans have voted early so far this year – a problem for Democrat Hillary Clinton's supporters, but they have time to catch up.
Early voting, especially in-person voting, tends to benefit Democrats. In 2012, President Barack Obama built up a lead in Ohio's big cities that Republican challenger Mitt Romney could not overcome on Election Day.
But the number of people who have cast early ballots this year is down statewide from four years ago, according to data from Ohio Secretary of State compiled 18 days out from Election Day, which is Nov. 8.
The decline could be because Ohioans have had fewer days to vote so far compared to 2012. Clinton supporters will have time to catch up with an additional weekend of early, in-person voting.
Two weeks out from Election Day in 2012, more than 80,000 registered Democrats had cast ballots in Cuyahoga County – an area where Clinton needs to win big to shut out Republican Donald Trump in Ohio. This year, about 42,000 registered Democrats have cast ballots in the deep-blue county to date.
www.cleveland.com/…
Other counties where voters have requested fewer ballots in 2016 than they did four years ago include Summit (-6 percent), Franklin (-7 percent), and Lucas (-17 percent), three of Obama's best counties.
Voters in Hamilton (+3 percent) and Montgomery (+19 percent) counties have requested more ballots this year. However, while Obama won these counties in 2012, he won them by narrower margins than other large urban counties.
Meanwhile, voters in counties won by Republican Mitt Romney have requested about 52,000 more ballots, or 11 percent more, this year than they did in 2012. Compared to Democratic counties, the voters in Republican counties also have returned them at a higher rate, particularly as time has gone on. Some of the greatest numerical gains took place in Southwestern Ohio counties — Butler, Clermont, Greene, Miami and Warren — where Romney won by 60 percent or more.
It’s likely that the early voting numbers are depressed by the fewer available voting days, but I have the feeling that Ohio and Iowa are not going to be friendly this year. Though it is extremely unlikely that Trump is going to do well on November 8 or 28, he has a bit of a firewall in Ohio and Iowa to stave off complete embarrassment.