OH-12 Special Election: Balderson vs. O’Connor on August 7

[BuckeyeNut]

Marist put out the poll showing DeWine ahead, granted it was Margin of error poll, which should of been taken with a grain of salt.

One poll doesn’t mean much of anything. Looking at singular polls in a vacuum leads to dumb statements like the one I replied to above.

[BuckeyeNut]

1: Yes I did.
2: Your comments were particularly dumb, citing singular polls as objective be-all-end-all benchmarks.
3: I’m putting you on ignore. You and Bagel go have fun now.

[BuckeyeNut]

Damn, OC is getting snippy, LOL.

The machines are rebelling?

I think he meant OP.

On topic: The Columbus Dispatch has endorsed O'Connor for the House seat. This is somewhat unusual, given the Dispatch editorial board is traditionally conservative, and Hillary Clinton was the first Democrat for President they had endorsed in some 100 years. This probably speaks more to Trump's--for lack of a better word--radicalization of the press than of anything positive happening for O'Connor. As we all know, editorial endorsements mean damn little.

[BuckeyeNut]

The hot takes about how the House is now solid R if Republicans win this despite it being nowhere near the median district Dems would need are going to be annoying.

Anyway, John Kasich is a much better candidate than Jacky Rosen because of his old haircut. I randomly saw this on the Wiki article for the district, lol.

Is that not the dreamiest 33-year old you've ever seen?

[BuckeyeNut]

The hot takes about how the House is now solid R if Republicans win this despite it being nowhere near the median district Dems would need are going to be annoying.

Anyway, John Kasich is a much better candidate than Jacky Rosen because of his old haircut. I randomly saw this on the Wiki article for the district, lol.

Is that not the dreamiest 33-year old you've ever seen?

Joe is 36 in that picture, AFAIK.

[BuckeyeNut]

O'Connor would be lucky to get around 45% in Delaware County. I think, in this environment, he should get to 40%.

[BuckeyeNut]

A Republican win here would indicate that the national environment for Democrats has moved substantially towards the Republicans since the PA-18 special.

And there are no signs to indicate that the national environment has gotten any better for Republicans in the mean time, which is why I think O Connor is significantly favored.

I love how the hot takes are beginning a month before the election even happens.

Early voting starts tomorrow -- it's not too early for the hot takes.

[BuckeyeNut]

Granted, last primary vote is generally a pretty good indicator of how people vote overall...

But things are weird, right now. There are a good number of Democrats who voted for Kasich in 2016 primary and then didn't vote in the midterm primaries. I've encountered so many twentysomethings who are registered Republicans who are die-hard Democrats...

[BuckeyeNut]

The lack of publicity surrounding this race will help O’Connor. Lower turnout elections favor higher enthusiasm portions of the electorate. It’s not obvious to me, however, what happens if O’Connor wins. Does he then have to win three months later in a regular election? I’d imagine that would be tougher.

He is going for re-election 3 months later. The election will also be O'Connor vs. Balderson. I think if he wins here, he'll probably win in November. Rematches of special elections in a regular election tend to go to who won the special.

There is still a chance, however, that Melanie Leneghan winds up being the GE nominee. In which case, O’Connor could lose the special by just a few points and then come back to win in November.

[BuckeyeNut]

The lack of publicity surrounding this race will help O’Connor. Lower turnout elections favor higher enthusiasm portions of the electorate. It’s not obvious to me, however, what happens if O’Connor wins. Does he then have to win three months later in a regular election? I’d imagine that would be tougher.

He is going for re-election 3 months later. The election will also be O'Connor vs. Balderson. I think if he wins here, he'll probably win in November. Rematches of special elections in a regular election tend to go to who won the special.

There is still a chance, however, that Melanie Leneghan winds up being the GE nominee. In which case, O’Connor could lose the special by just a few points and then come back to win in November.

How so ?

She was defeated by 1% in both the special election GOP primary and the GE GOP primary ...

Read back. She’s suing over the GE primary results, saying the recount she asked for in Muskingum was conducted improperly, along with other issues in Franklin and Delaware counties.

[BuckeyeNut]

Right now I predict a Democratic loss between 2 and 3%. (Split the dofference and call it 2.5%.) O’Connor could still win by the skin of his teeth, but I would not bet on it. He’s no Lamb, Balderson’s no whatshisname, and the Ohio 12th isn’t remotely similar to PA-18.

PA-18 was filled with voters who used to be solid Democrats and were still open to The Right Democrat (tm). OH-12 has very little of that—minus Mansfield—and really the opposite. It mught be trending D in the Columbus suburbs and Delaware County, but a lot of the district just isn’t there yet. O’Connor actually lost the OH-12 portion of Franklin County in 2016 when he rolled over former Republican Recorder Daphne Hawk with a 14% win.

[BuckeyeNut]

Balderson is on TV with a negative ad that looks like it could backfire. The "Radical Left Wing Group" O'Connor allegedly supported with taxpayer dollars is The Women's Fund of Central Ohio. People are mad and rightly so.

Still, even after O'Connor's latest internal which showed him down 5%, the polling average is Balderson +7%

[BuckeyeNut]

Hmm. O'Connor has the facebook enthusiasm, surprisingly, considering Balderson is an established state senator. 4.3K likes to Balderson's 1.6K. Moving this race from Safe R to Likely R in my ratings.

Franklin County executives like O'Connor represent over 1 million people while State Senators represent ~350k. Don't read too much into social media engagement.

[BuckeyeNut]

This race might end up closer than I expected, despite Balderson having high favourable ratings and being a solid Republican candidate ...

I think O'Connor's latest internal (D-2) could be about right in the end.

Agreed, for now. It looks like what needs to be happening is happening for O'Connor to win, but we'll see. Polling average is still Balderson +6%. Polling for July is down to Balderson +4%. (Before any weights.)

[BuckeyeNut]

Woops, did not realize there was a megathread for this race, had been posting these in the results thread:

Early voting update, now with all 7 counties:

What is the optimal early vote percentage needed for the Dems to win the seat?

60-40 about. Dems almost always lose the election day in Ohio but they can get a decent win with EV totals around that number.

60-40 at a minimum. The dynamic of a special will keep it interesting, but O'Connor will lose the vote on E-day quite badly.

[BuckeyeNut]

Potentially worth noting: Zack Space represented Licking County in Congress from '07 - '11 and won his share both times.

[BuckeyeNut]

O'Connor won't get 48% in Delaware County.

[BuckeyeNut]

It's a turnout and enthusiasm game so he could meet a reasonable benchmark to win. I could see O'Connor doing somewhat better than the set benchmark in Muskingum which is a county where Obama hit 45% in. With good enthusiasm and turnout he can win this race.

Balderson is from Muskingum County.

So? Being from a particular county doesn't always guarantee a home advantage in this sort of environment.

It doesn't always, but regionalism is very strong in Ohio. O'Connor might do better than the benchmark in Licking, maybe even Richland. But Muskingum would be a jaw-dropping surprise.

[BuckeyeNut]

The typical pattern in Ohio general elections is for the early vote as a whole to be ~5-10ish% more Dem than election day vote and postal ballots to be closer 20% more Republican than the election day vote. The fact that this is a special could make those numbers vary wildly. No idea about earlier early votes vs later early votes.

Which is why O'Connor needs to win the early vote by at least 20% to win... and for the rate of early voting to roughly match what it would be for a typical general election in Ohio.

[BuckeyeNut]

The typical pattern in Ohio general elections is for the early vote as a whole to be ~5-10ish% more Dem than election day vote and postal ballots to be closer 20% more Republican than the election day vote. The fact that this is a special could make those numbers vary wildly. No idea about earlier early votes vs later early votes.

Which is why O'Connor needs to win the early vote by at least 20% to win... and for the rate of early voting to roughly match what it would be for a typical general election in Ohio.

So far, its a margin of 30%. Do you think its likely to go down from here, are go up, or stay the same?

The latest numbers I've seen indicate a 24% lead and it's been doing down from a high of 26%. It should continue to slowly drop down. FTR, early voting matching past record looks like something in between 30% and 40% of the total votes.

So if O'Connor is leading by 20%+ at the end of early voting and somewhere in between 33k and 44k people vote early, he has a path to victory.

[BuckeyeNut]

Can an Ohio expert tell me if the partisan breakdown is indicative? I know of even districts in West Virginia or SWPA that are nominally still Demosaur counties. Are the Northern Columbus Metro areas ancestrally Dem or GOP?

Very ancrestrally Republican. That said, these numbers are hard to gauge due to our strange regostratio status. If this was a GE, I’d say these numbers are wuite good as there a number of people who are still registered R’s from the 2016 Presidential primaries, but anyone who voted in the Gubernatorial prinaries this year has gone back to their proper party, and IDK who votes in a Presidential prjmary, skips a Gubernatorial primary, and then votes early for a special election.

That said, a 35% EV lead is very strong, and Independents in this environment probably break more for O’Connor than Balderson. (Though some of them are Greens.) The margin will narrow and right now we’re probably at around 7% of total votes cast. If the early vote ends up accounting for around 35% of the total votes cast and maintains a margin in excess of 20%, O’Connor has a very real shot at winning.

[BuckeyeNut]

I’d check Franklin County, which actually had more Republican primary voters than Democrats in 2016 despite being one of the most Democratic counties in the state. (And many of the Republicans who left the party in Ohio are likely going to be in the OH-12 portion of Franklin County.)

[BuckeyeNut]

Other simply means that the absentee ballot was cast by someone who has not voted in a party primary or voted in a minor party primary (there has been one Green party absentee voter).

Ah, so Other is actually likely to be first time Ohio voters (or OH-12 voters? would they be "other " if they moved into the district since the last primary they voted in?), rather than actual 3rd party voters?A shade better for O'Conner if so, as young voters are likely to skew Democratic.

Having voted in three different Congressional jurisdictions since 2012, I can say the answer to your question is yes.

[BuckeyeNut]

Honestly, Kasich endorsing Balderson could turn some people off.

[BuckeyeNut]

Right now, I’d expect O’Connor to lose by about as much as Lamb won by.