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

[Badger]

Some group affiliated with the Balderson campaign is texting Democrats and telling them that theor polling location has changed.

I forgot to ask yesterday. Link?

[Badger]

Great post as always, Nova. Let me offer some trivia, being familiar with the county, albeit not a resident.

Granville is the home of Dennison University, and not-coincidentally quite Democratic. It regularly appears as a (non-Atlas) blue splotch on an otherwise largely red election map.

Reynoldsburg in the SW is split. Democrats failed in 2015 in a major push to win the mayoral race and council majority, but it votes Democratic at the presidential and federal level. It's a city where Republicans years are numbered at the local level. However, the city is actually divided between Licking, Fairfield, and Franklin Counties, and the Licking County portion is IIRC at least somewhat more Republican than the City as a whole. I'm tempted to say O'Conner needs to win the district's portion of Reynoldsburg, or at least come real close, to win the race.

Between annexation and suburban growth, Pataskala has become the second largest city in the county after Newark. It's still reliably Republican, though not quite as overwhelmingly as before.

If O'Connor wins Reynoldsburg and Newark, even narrowly, he should be alright.

[Badger]

Democrats picked up a city council seat in Reynoldsburg by the skin of their teeth last year even as they lost in Bexley and Upper Arligton — I think O’Connor will do okay.

Citation on shady campaign to tell people their polling location has changed.

Also worth noting: Cordray won Licking in 2008. This is one of the areas he has historically outperformed. Similarly, former Congressman Zack Space, who is running for Auditor, used to represent a good portion of Licking County, and won it in both 2006 and 2008.

Thanks for the link. Though there is nothing in the story saying that these text we're being sent by a balderson connected group as the original post reporting this stated.

That said, I think it's fair to assume that this isn't just three or four Wingnuts who spontaneously got together in their basement one night and said hey , I've got a great idea...

[Badger]

GOP in D I S A R R A Y

https://www.twitter.com/darreldrowland/status/1025763229019058176

Wow, that was pathetic. The media would put this on constant loop if it was a Democrat literally running away when asked about Pelosi.

[Badger]

Lol O'Connor a "weak candidate"

He was far from a recruiting coup d’état.

 It’s a real shame Jay Goyal didn’t get in. O’Connor has fought like Hell to make this a tossup in the final day of the election, but Jay would’ve been favored by now.

Wow. Can anyone imagine where a Goyal vs. Leneghan race would be at right now?

[Badger]

Lol O'Connor a "weak candidate"

He was far from a recruiting coup d’état.

 It’s a real shame Jay Goyal didn’t get in. O’Connor has fought like Hell to make this a tossup in the final day of the election, but Jay would’ve been favored by now.

Wow. Can anyone imagine where a Goyal vs. Leneghan race would be at right now?

I highly doubt that an Indian would do better in the racist farmlands of this district, but I think he would improve just enough in the suburbs to edge out a win.

Maybe. "Jay Goyal" isn't exactly a name that screams "FERRINER!!!"

[Badger]

OH CD-12 EV Numbers to Date Elsewhere within Franklin Co....

Worthington---- 6.6% of 2016 Vote Share.



EV numbers look atrocious for PUBS even in a City that just recently started voting DEM for PRES in larger numbers in 2012.

Westerville-



This is a City that went +10% Mitt Romney in '12 and DEM margins are +20%, not even including the other vote in Early Voting!!!

I could pull up similar insane numbers for Dublin, etc.... but really I would not be surprised to see final Franklin County SE numbers looking extremely lopsided for O'Connor considering such an extremely poor Republican EV performance in Franklin County, which I suspect is NOT a typical scenario, and also how even relatively historically PUB friendly municipalities are not turning out their voters.

Next I think I'll take a look at the EV numbers by place for Delaware County and match against historical election results, to give us another election weekend teaser....

THANKS AGAIN EBSY!!!!

@ Badger: I now accept my accolades

Hey man, when did I ever doubt you that Franklin County turnout was going to kick butt for O'Connor?

[Badger]

Oh well, at least Balderson will still be better than Tiberi.

I suspect they'll be indistinguishable in their voting records. If anything, Morrison might be slightly less likely to Buck Trump considering he ran is a trump loyalists in the primary, and even to some degree in the general election.

[Badger]

OH CD-12 EV Numbers to Date Elsewhere within Franklin Co....

Worthington---- 6.6% of 2016 Vote Share.



EV numbers look atrocious for PUBS even in a City that just recently started voting DEM for PRES in larger numbers in 2012.

Westerville-



This is a City that went +10% Mitt Romney in '12 and DEM margins are +20%, not even including the other vote in Early Voting!!!

I could pull up similar insane numbers for Dublin, etc.... but really I would not be surprised to see final Franklin County SE numbers looking extremely lopsided for O'Connor considering such an extremely poor Republican EV performance in Franklin County, which I suspect is NOT a typical scenario, and also how even relatively historically PUB friendly municipalities are not turning out their voters.

Next I think I'll take a look at the EV numbers by place for Delaware County and match against historical election results, to give us another election weekend teaser....

THANKS AGAIN EBSY!!!!

@ Badger: I now accept my accolades

Hey man, when did I ever doubt you that Franklin County turnout was going to kick butt for O'Connor?

You were pretty skeptical for a while that O’Connor could win Dublin or Westerville

I deny any recollection.

New Albany, yes. I think that hesitancy disappeared when I learned that Hillary actually carried Dublin and Westerville. 

Really no idea where this race is going to go. Nova and Buckeye nut both make excellent points even if they tend to contradict.

The best I can say is that if O'Connor wins, come November the races at least lean O'Connor. Not even tilt. If he pulls this off, I can't imagine a democratic incumbent being thrown out barring Scandal like circumstances considering what November is likely to look like.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/henryolsenEPPC/status/1026988840807018496

It depends entirely where these precincts in Richland are from. Much of the most Republican parts of it are not in the district. Where is the City of Mansfield, which is still rather Democratic, is.

[Badger]

Working through some more places in Franklin County---

Worthington- Pop 13.5k---- 8.4% of Franklin County CD-12 Vote Share (+ 1.8% from '16 GE).



Worthington had the 2nd largest swing towards O'Connor of any place in the Franklin County portions of CD-12 compared against the 2016 US PRES votes (+13% Dem Swing).

Let's take a peek at how it has voted for President starting in 2004 through the CD-12 Special Election of 2018.



So as we can see it was basically 50-50 in 2004, swung heavily towards Obama in '08, stayed constant in '12, swung +20% Dem in 2016, and +13% Dem in 2018.

The Pub raw % numbers only dropped 4% between '16 and '18, which indicates that a decent chunk of the 3rd Party PRES voters in '16 voted DEM in '18, combined with a reasonable but not huge % of Trump '16 > O'Connor '18 voters.

Again, the thing that really stands out for me is how rapidly Worthington is shifting into a heavily Democratic voting City at the Federal level, effectively becoming the 2nd most Democratic City within this portion of CD-12.

So, let's take a more detailed look at the Demographics of Worthington, before delving a bit into the ward/precinct turnout and results....



So here we see that Worthington is a bit older than the population of Ohio at large, slightly below on the 40-60 age category, a significant bump in the 30-40 category, and way lower population of 18-29 Years.

Race/Ethnicity:



Worthington is quite a bit Whiter than Ohio as a whole, and a much lower proportion of African-Americans.

Median Household Income (MHI)



33% of the Households make more than $ 125k /Yr
56% make more than $75k/Yr

This is pretty clearly an Upper-Middle-Class City, with a relatively high % of affluent folks.

Educational Attainment:



It is an extremely well educated City with 72% of the Pop over 25 having greater than a HS Diploma.

Relative Occupations:



As expected these skew heavily White Collar/Professional. Interestingly enough along with your usual Business/Mgmt/Computers/Science-Math occupations, you have a much higher % of people in other occupations such as Legal, Entertainment, and Education than would typically be the case for these types of communities.

Time to break down Worthington by Wards to see what happened in more detail:


Here is a Chart breakdown of the 2016 PRES and 2018 CD-12 SE:



Let's look at it in a graphical format:



So--- Ward #2 is the most Democratic Part of the City 2016: (70-24 D), 2018 (80-20 D).

Wards #1 and # 4 are the most Republican parts of the City, with a much lower swing in Ward #1 than elsewhere in Worthington between '16 and '18.

Now let's look at the Vote Drop Off by Ward between the '16 PRES election and the '18 Special Election:



So Ward #3 saw a 52% drop-off in Total Votes between '16 and '18, and Ward #1 (The most Republican and smallest margin swings) has the smallest TV drop-off....

Ward #2, the overwhelmingly Democratic Ward had a relatively small voter drop-off as well.

Now, since Worthington has rapidly become a heavily Democratic bastion, time to look at the results for the 2016 OH-SEN race and the 2016 CD-12 race by Ward to see what the numbers show.




So, Ward #2 was the only Ward that voted DEM for OH-SEN in 2016 and the only Ward that voted DEM for US-HOUSE CD-12 in 2016.

Again Wards #1 and #4 stand out as the most Republican Wards, and Ward #3 is basically a City bellweather with results tending to cluster close to the City average TV % for most races.

NOW---- Let's drill it down to more detailed demographic data by Ward to see what's going on here...

Here is a Map of MHI by Census Tract:



So---

Ward #1: is basically the wealthiest dark RED Census Tracts of $120k/$133k/$100k in the Western Part of the Map.

Ward #2: Basically the $78k/$85k areas on the Map

Ward #3: The Northwest Corner of the Map---- $103k

Ward #4: The Northeast Corner of the Map- $ 71k

Wow--- So the most PUB areas in Worthington are both the most affluent and also the most Middle-Class (And least affluent part of the City)!!!!

The Ward (#3) with the largest % drop of the votes is relatively upper Middle Class, and the DEM stronghold is solidly Middle Class, but basically only the 3rd wealthiest ward in terms of MHI....

OK---- so maybe Race/Ethnicity can explain some of the variances by Wards within Worthington?


Problem is that the City is so overwhelmingly Anglo, it really overall doesn't appear to be much of a factor even in a detailed breakdown.

We do have a significant Asian-American population clustered in one of three Census Tracts in Ward #1:

Map of Asian-American Population by Census Tract:



So in Ward #1 we see 14% Asian-American population around Precinct 1-B.... 2016: (66-31 D); 2018 (73-27 D). Roughly 50% of the Asia population is Chinese-American.

It's the most Democratic Precinct now in Ward #1, and also experienced the largest swings towards the DEM in the CD-12 SE....

We do also see a smaller Asian-American population of 5% in Two other Census Tracts in Ward #1, as well as a 7% population in the Northern part of Ward #3.

SO--- since I started looking at Race/Ethnicity as a potential variable, decided to pull numbers on Ancestry by Census Tract to see if that might explain anything....

Here is a Census Tract breakdown by Irish Ancestry for Worthington:



So---- Ward #2 roughly overlaps with the 24-27% Irish Ancestry corner of the map....

Ward #1 has a decent Irish-American Population in the more PUB leaning precincts, and only 15% in the most heavily Asian American precinct/Census Tract.

Ward # 4: Is only 16% Irish-American, but was the Trumpiest Ward in '16, and still swung O'Connor by AVG City margins.

Ward #3: 20% Irish-American, but place with highest vote drop-off from '16 PRES to '18 CD-12 SE, albeit with +15% O'Connor swings!!!

So, if there was a hidden Irish-American surge in Worthington, Ward #2 is the only place where this might be explainable, within the context of Metro Columbus European Ethnic political dynamics.

Now we need to control for AGE, since obviously there were some pretty huge AGE GAP margins in the 2016 Presidential Election???

It gets tricky with the US Census Map tool that I use to easily isolate age, but let's start here....

Here is a Census Tract Map of the % of the TOTAL POPULATION aged 30-39:



Now this appears to clearly indicate that there is a major concentration of Older Millennials concentrated in Ward #2....

Now let's look at the Census Tract Map of TOTAL POPULATION aged 18-39 as a % by Census Tract....



OK--- now we're getting somewhere.... Basically 33% of the entire population of Ward #2 is aged 18-39.... Once you add in the 25% of the population that are Children, you only have 42% of the population that over the age of 40!!!!

We also see how Ward #1 has the lowest % of total population aged 18-39 (Maybe somewhere around 17% ) and maybe somewhere around 22% that are Children, meaning 61% of the population are 40+ Yrs old.

So, it looks like Millennials turned out in force in Ward #2 (Even although it is NOT a college precinct) AND Middle-aged / Older voters turned out in force in Ward #1 (My drop-off chart above).

Now let's look at where the older population is most heavily concentrated in Worthington by Census Tract:



Wait--- what the heck is that one Census Tract in the SW corner of the City where 40% of the Pop are over the age of 60???

Ahhh.... looks like that is Worthington precinct 1-C, one of the more 'Pub precincts in the City these days 2016 PRES: (55-39 D); 2018: (63-37 D).... Still it had a good 10% swing which although it was one of the worst in the City, still wasn't too shabby.

NOW---- What about precinct 4-C???   It swung +22% DEM between '16 and the '18 CD-12 SE, which was the largest swing anywhere within Worthington.

2016: (53-39 D)  +14% D;   2018: (68-32 D)  +36% D.

Precinct Map of Ward #4:



I'm a little confused why this precinct North of Schrock Road swung so heavily Democratic.... it doesn't help that I can't break down Census Tract data into enough detail... Sure we have some Census Block tracts with a younger age cohort within this Precinct, compared to much of the rest of Ward #4, but still...

At this point it's pretty clear that overall Worthington is moving into solidly Democratic Party voting patterns at all Federal Elections, and among most major demographics within the City.

The key question, is what will happen when the voters of places like Worthington go to the polls in November to vote for Statewide Elected offices....

Any more posts like these, Nova and I swear to God I'm going to nominate you for sainthood.

[Badger]

Honestly, Ebsy is the real unsung Hero of the thread, pulling detailed voting info *down to the individual voter name*, including stats such as previous primary voting history by County, and providing us with daily updates and live action feeds as to the numbers that he was seeing....

It was actually a spreadsheet that Ebsy shared with me on Election Weekend Eve, where I started crunching the EV numbers by Municipality, and I posted some graphs for various Counties/Municipalities that I had been following based upon his data, where it was pretty clear we would see massive swings within Franklin and certain parts of Delaware County, BUT we were going to run into major issues in Licking County (Judging by the Newark EV numbers).

So do I continue with the Project or move on elsewhere???

Word re: Esby.

And knowing these areas, yes, please continue here.

[Badger]

NOVA, we would love to have you hop over to the Ohio thread, which has been a bit quiet as of late. Very interested in O'Connor's results in the precincts that overlap with Assembly District 19, 21, and 24, as well as Senate District 19.

Ooh! This! THIS!

[Badger]

If Danny O’Conner was smart he’d accept that he lost the special election, and devote his remaining resources to trying to win the general election. Sadly, it’s highly unlikely he’ll win the seat in November, because, if he couldn’t flip it in a august special election with low Republican turnout it’s highly unlikely he’ll flip it in a high turnout general election when more Republicans show up.

This wasn't a low turnout special. The turnout was barely lower than 2014.

Indeed it was, and that doesn't bode well for O'Connor, since turnout in Franklin was nearly maxed out while rural, largely Republican turnout remained low.

Republican turnout can stay flat in November too. Generally speaking, Trump is depressing Republican turnout nationally. And vice-versa for Democrats.