Early Ohio numbers promising for Romney

Barack Obama is clearly winning the early vote in Ohio. But careful analysis of the actual numbers so far suggest very good news for Mitt Romney.

The Romney campaign claims the president is merely banking votes he would have received on Election Day anyway, so his early lead isn’t very important. They say their early voting strategy relies on targeting low-voting-propensity Romney supporters for early voting and leaving the others to turn out on Election Day. In other words, they claim Obama’s effort is merely harvesting votes while theirs is creating votes.

This approach makes sense, but it’s hard to prove it’s working without inside campaign information. I think I’ve found a way to do that, and my research shows the Romney effort might be paying off.

To do this, I looked at data from the George Mason University’s United States Election Project. Under the direction of elections scholar Prof. Michael McDonald, the project collects all the publicly available data on the progress of early voting in one place. The project also collects the early voting information from 2008 and provides data on how much of the share of the final turnout came from early voting in 2008 and how much of that turnout has already been cast in 2012.

I hypothesized that if the Romney campaign’s effort is working, the share of the total 2008 early vote that has already been cast should be higher in strong Romney counties than in strong Obama counties. That’s because if the Romney effort works, total turnout in those counties should be up in 2012, the bulk of that coming from the low-voting-propensity supporters who the campaign is asking to cast early ballots.

McDonald’s site reports county-level early voting data from 53 of Ohio’s 88 counties, including all of the state’s largest. Across the state, 57.6 of the 2008 early voting turnout totals had already been cast in 2012. But the percentages are much higher in strong Romney counties than in strong Obama counties.

Twenty-two counties report that early voting in 2012 is already equal or greater than two-thirds the level in 2008. McCain carried sixteen of those, usually with high margins. Obama got more than 55% of the vote in only two of the remaining six, Ashtabula and Trumbull. All of those six are either in coal country or in a corridor from the Pennsylvania border through Canton that the Romney campaign is also targeting.

The numbers are particularly strong for Romney in the southeastern coal country on or near the Ohio River. From Scioto county in the south to Columbiana county in the north, early voting shares range from a low of 63.5% in Monroe to 82.7% in Columbiana. (Athens County, an Obama stronghold because of Ohio University, touches the Ohio River- its early voting share is only 57.4%). To compare, the early voting shares in the largest and strongest Obama counties (Cuyahoga, Lucas, Franklin, Summit, and Lorain) never top 61.0% (Cuyahoga).

Exceptionally strong numbers can also be found in Republican counties in the northwest in the Dayton, Lima, and Toledo media markets. Early voting shares there average in the high sixties, touching as high as 87.5% in Champaign County.

If anything, these numbers underestimate Romney’s strength in early voting because most of the counties not reporting early voting numbers are strongly Republican. McCain carried thirty-two of the thirty-five counties without county-level early voting statistics available on McDonald’s website, and the three carried by Obama are classic Ohio swing counties. The thirty-two McCain counties include two of the four Cincinnati suburban counties, the three biggest Republican counties in the Cleveland media market, and other large, strong GOP counties in the Dayton and Columbus markets.

The data from the two Cincy suburban counties that are available are also good news for Mitt. Exurban Warren and Brown counties report huge early voting compared to 2008- 78.7% of the ’08 level in Warren (McCain carried it with 67%) and a whopping 83.2% in Brown (McCain 61%).

This data is already a few days old: Perhaps more recent updates will change the story. But going into last weekend, Romney’s ground game looks like it was hiking turnout among its supporters better than Obama’s, an edge that could prove crucial if the race there is really a tie, as Sunday’s respected Ohio News poll showed.

The first paragraph is a bit misleading - Obama is ahead, but barely, so far. The rest of the article is right on, and given that Obama's 2008 margin came almost entirely from early voting, it shows he is in serious trouble. the best evidence of this is the fact that he is coming back here four more times before Tuesday; he is reduced to trying to gin up turnout on Election Day. It won't work.

Anyone know of a safe, respected place to bet on the race online? I have never gambled on the internet, but if you’re ever going to do it, now might be the time.

This in spite of Rasmussen last night saying on Hannity that no one knows how the race will turn out. I suspect his bias is coming through with that comment. Seems to me all the objective facts are pointing our way.

Thank you for posting this. Your numbers verify what I’m seeing as well. I just finished compiling the numbers comparing 2008 McCain edge in every county in Ohio to 2012 early voting percents for each county. The idea was to see what kind of early vote enthusiasm is out there based upon the counties that Obama won vs. the counties that McCain won. Note that I am fully aware this is not scientific as Democrats for some reason just tend to vote early. But, it is only an indication of enthusiasm.

After compiling all of these numbers, Obama has an early vote edge of .71%. That’s less than a percent in early voting enthusiasm per county. What this tells me is that the counties that McCain won are for more enthusiastic to vote early this year and the Democrat counties less enthusiastic. Again, this is based off of McCain’s actual numbers. I would expect it to be significantly better for Romney this year.

I don’t know how this translates into the low vs. high propensity voters, but

Woot! Love your positive threads and the fact your optimism is based in hard cold numbers and reality makes it even better.

Here, here I agree. The Concern Troll\The Ye of Little Faith crowd is trying to spam every thread and clutter the discussion with emotions, feelings and negativity. I had a suggestion to FR, post the posters IP in their signature, it's not illegal or unethical. Maybe reach out to DU and ask them to do the same. That way trolls can be verified and outted. I suspect we have at least a dozen active posters who troll from DU, even some older ones. They brag about it over there.

Rass wants to milk getting more paid subscribers. If he calls it now, he loses that potential market.

He did say slight Romney, a couple of times in other related areas, but did not
give a final call

Obama got more than 55% of the vote in only two of the remaining six, Ashtabula and Trumbull. All of those six are either in coal country or in a corridor from the Pennsylvania border through Canton that the Romney campaign is also targeting.

I wonder how many Dems in coal country will vote Romney even though they show up as early Dem voters. Also, you need to drill down in the so called Obama counties and see where the votes are coming from. It is my understanding that Romney is doing well in the Cleveland suburbs.

Iowa Electronic Markets is a legal place for US citizens to use.

Be careful though. I think Ras is correct.

While the race is not decidedly in Obambi’s favor like the MSM wants us to believe, he is going to be tough to beat.

I definitely think Romney can do it, but I still think it is going to be much closer than many on here suggest.

Hope to eat crow about that Wednesday morning though. :)

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