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

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dems don't need this one to control the House anyways

[BuckeyeNut]

Moving this to Likely R. /trolling deleted

That was the wrong way to think about it.

Saying he needed 60% was in relation to the Republicans getting 40%. What should have been said is that Danny needs to win the EV with at least a 20% margin, and he still is. The question is whether he falls bow that in the next two weeks, and if we get up to around 42k total early votes.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Dems don't need this one to control the House anyways

The Democrats only really need it to avoid Trump bragging and "Democrats in disarray" news cycles.

[BuckeyeNut]

Dems don't need this one to control the House anyways

The Democrats only really need it to avoid Trump bragging and "Democrats in disarray" news cycles.

It'd also get the base fired up here in Ohio, which would be good for Cordray, who can't rely on Sherrod's coattails.

[Badger]

Should others break heavy for Danny?

To my understanding, "other" should be nearly all people who just didn't vote in the primary. I would assume infrequent voters probably favor the Democrats in this environment (and in most circumstances), but it's hard to be totally certain.

Not to mention younger first-time voters, which will tend heavily democratic.

[NOVA Green]

Now that we are rolling into Special Election Season in OH US-REP CD-12 let's take a brief look at a few relevant items....

Let's start with the vote share by County within OH CD-12 Precincts....



So basically the concept of vote share over three election cycles using the topline election (US_PRES '16, OH-GOV '14, US PRES '12) is to be able to adjust data to control for voter turnout differentials as well as population growth rates within a given CD....

Basically, what we see here is that Franklin and Delaware County collectively account for ~ 60% of the Vote Share within the CD, and have essentially been a growing segment of the electorate between '12 and '16....

Licking County has been a consistent ~ 20% of OH CD-12 Vote Share, and obviously will be a major contributor to any CD-12 Special Election Results in August 2018....

The other Four Counties precincts located within CD-12 ('12 > '18 account for the remaing 20% of the Vote Share---- (Marion, Morrow, Muskigum,  and Richland).

Now let's take a peak at the 2012 to 2016 US PRES vote swings by County within CD-12.



So here we see a dramatic increase in Democratic support within the Franklin County portion of CD-12, as well as to a lesser extent within Delaware County, but also some major swings towards Trump in other Counties within the precincts of CD-12....

Now let's look at the raw Total Vote DEM-REP Margin Changes between 2012 and 2016 for US PRES by County...



So here we start to see the raw power of massive swings among the heavily Upper-Income Anglo precincts of Franklin County between '12 and '16....

Honestly, I don't think the 'Pubs have yet hit rock bottom within these Franklin County precincts, but my suspicion is that O'Connor will likely outperform HRC, despite the "Trump Tax Cuts that nobody really experiences in the actual deductions on their Paychecks....

DEMS win '16 US-PRES in Franklin County precincts +36k and +22% Swings even excluding 3rd Party Votes....

Delaware County is obviously Ground Zero.... DEMS don't need to necessarily win Delaware County in CD-12 OH SE results, but just keep the PUB Margins as both % and RAW VOTE down to something more like ~ +7-10k R.... a 54-46 R win in Delaware County might be sufficient for a DEM win in CD-12...

Licking County and Muskigum County are a real test of if a LIB DEM can regain Obama '12 voters that defected to Trump....  Obama narrowly won Muskigum precincts with OH CD-12, and in Licking managed to bag a 42-56 R loss to Romney in '12....

I haven't had a chance to run all of these precinct numbers that I have for OH from '04 > '16, but to me it's starting to look like a potential combo scene between the relatively solidly Republican suburbs of South Pittsburgh moving hard Dem (Delaware County maybe less so???), but with a dramatically growing Dem base within the Franklin County portions of OH CD-12, where you really didn't have any comparison within PA-18 other than one township in South Allegheny (Mt Lebanon) that essentially swung dramatically DEM from '12 to '16 similar to the Franklin County precincts of OH CD-12....

What you did have in PA CD-18 were Ancestral DEMs in the SW portion of the County that although Lamb narrowly lost, he was able to replicate Obama '08 numbers in Fayette and Washington Counties....

At this point we have no real evidence whatsoever that Obama '12 (Or Obama '08 DEMs) will come home for a US House election in Licking and Richland Counties....

I'll continue to run the precinct level numbers, but Trump did have major swings in the Rural and Small Town WWC precincts here, which despite the dramatic swings towards HRC in Franklin, and to a lesser extent Delaware, still makes this a jump ball...

I'll run some more stats later, as I have done with PA-18, AZ-08, AL-SEN and mix in more data that overlaps with US CENSUS Stats in greater detail by Municipality and Township within CD-12....

Thank you as always for an insightful analysis driven post, Nova. FWIW I can answer your question about comparing the Pgh South Hills and Southern Delaware County suburbs. The former is notably more (non-Atlas) blue and shifting harder in that direction than the latter in Ohio.

I didn't realize the Mansfield and Muskingum County portions of the district (relatively small as they are) were so close for Obama. The question I have is, what are the end numbers if O'Conner matches Obama's 2012 margins in the four smaller counties that turned hard to Trump, but maintains Hillary's margins in Franklin and Delaware? Is that enough to actually put him over the top?

As noted by another poster recently, it remains to be seen how much above it's usual 1/3 share of the district's vote Franklin County contributes.

Good Question Badger....

So basically how I have approached hypothetical questions like this is to use the "Vote Share" unit of measurement to isolate the sub-components of whatever level of election breakdown is being examined....

This has the advantage of being able to come up with real data driven models of for example, what % of the Total Vote in OH CD-12 might realistically come from the City of Columbus vs New Albany, or similar type of modelling where you can create a range of scenarios to control for Mid-Term elections vs Pres Elections, down-ballot races, etc....

OK---- IF we use the Vote Share by County within OH CD-12 for the 2016 Presidential Race, and then use the 2016 Dem numbers for Franklin and Delaware and the 2012 Dem numbers for the other Five counties, and flip them on the 'Pub side for the '12 numbers, we see the results looking like 46.6% D- 47.0% R.

The reason for the gap with a missing 6.4% of votes, has to do with the unusually high level of 3rd Party Voting in the '16 Presidential Election (I should also note that OH does not publish Write-In votes in their data set I pulled, so 3rd Party Share is likely slightly higher than the numbers I used for the graphs)....

This obviously disproportionately impacts Delaware and Franklin since we're using 2016 numbers versus 2012 numbers for the other counties.

Obviously we would not expect to see anything like these 3rd Party voting numbers in the 2018 OH CD-12 SE....

Still, it raises a very important question of how 3rd Party voters will vote in this upcoming Congressional Election....

One would certainly imagine this would significantly benefit Dems in Franklin County, although I have no idea how exactly this would play in Delaware County in terms of a net raw vote margin gain for the DEM or REP House candidate...

Still many of the Libertarian voters in Delaware tend to skew younger, and there's a good chance that they might tend to lean DEM since after all they rejected Trump in '16 to vote 3rd Party, and there isn't really any reason to believe that they would necessarily flock to back a Trump backed "Rubber Stamp" in the US House....

[Gass3268]

O'Connor is raising more and spending more:

https://twitter.com/allymutnick/status/1022812641209868288

[Zaybay]

O'Connor is raising more and spending more:

https://twitter.com/allymutnick/status/1022812641209868288

Im a bit worried that O'Connor might be spending too much and thats the only reason hes getting so large of an early lead. Then I looked at Balderson's numbers, and my fears subsided.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Do these figures include independent expenditures? That's always something to keep in mind in a post-CU world.

[Gass3268]

Do these figures include independent expenditures? That's always something to keep in mind in a post-CU world.

I don't think so, but those dollars are worth less due to preferential treatment that is given to candidates. Republicans/Saccone/Outside Groups outspent Democrats/Lamb/Outside Groups 3-1, but it ended up being almost 50-50 in terms of airplay.   

[Badger]

Excellent post as always Nova. So here's my latest question. How do the various counties current share of the district's early vote compare to their share of the early vote at this time prior to the 2014 and 2012 elections? Would those numbers be at least a reasonable indicator of what the final share of each counties vote will be after election day? I ask because signs that Franklin County is outperforming its usual share, and by how much, are going to be every bit as key as O'Connor's margin there, frankly.

[Gass3268]

The Balderson campaign has gone dark, really odd:

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1022897317920366592

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

The Balderson campaign has gone dark, really odd:

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1022897317920366592

Great strategy as it means he won't be overexposed by the media the way Ossoff was.

[Badger]

The Balderson campaign has gone dark, really odd:

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1022897317920366592

Downright weird. I checked the campaign's Facebook page and went under the events tab just within the last week. The last listed event was right after the primary, I kid you not.

 if it were further before election day, one could maybe hypothesize balderson was husbanding his resources, in terms of both money and stamina, for the final push. But election day is a week and a half from now, so that makes no sense.

Can anyone on the ground corroborate or refute that baldersons campaign is resembling hibernation mode? If this is true, can anyone hypothesize WTF is going on? Seriously, this is completely inexplicable. This is the kind of hunkering down Behavior a candidate usually engages in when some horrible media story has kicked up an absolute sh**tstorm they're trying to weather through.

If this is true, and if it doesn't radically change within the next week, I may have to change my prediction from a narrow balderson win.

[Confused Democrat]

The Balderson campaign has gone dark, really odd:

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1022897317920366592

Great strategy as it means he won't be overexposed by the media the way Ossoff was.

Great strategy / not talking to your potential constituents

Choose one.

[Ebsy]

O'Connor has released a new internal from GBA Strategies, showing him down 2 points:

https://www.scribd.com/document/384784512/OH-12-GBA-Strategies-for-Danny-O-Connor-July-2018

O'Connor (DEM): 45
Balderson (GOP): 48
Manchik (GRE): 2

Apparently the discrepancy is from rounding.

[Doimper]

O'Connor has released a new internal from GBA Strategies, showing him down 2 points:

https://www.scribd.com/document/384784512/OH-12-GBA-Strategies-for-Danny-O-Connor-July-2018

O'Connor (DEM): 45
Balderson (GOP): 48
Manchik (GRE): 2

Apparently the discrepancy is from rounding.

Going to be very annoying if a Green sh**ts this one up.

[junior chįmp]

The Balderson campaign has gone dark, really odd:

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1022897317920366592

The Roy Moore, Saccone strategy of ''I dont need to campaign cause Ive got this in the bag''

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Balderson campaign has gone dark, really odd:

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1022897317920366592

Downright weird. I checked the campaign's Facebook page and went under the events tab just within the last week. The last listed event was right after the primary, I kid you not.

 if it were further before election day, one could maybe hypothesize balderson was husbanding his resources, in terms of both money and stamina, for the final push. But election day is a week and a half from now, so that makes no sense.

Can anyone on the ground corroborate or refute that baldersons campaign is resembling hibernation mode? If this is true, can anyone hypothesize WTF is going on? Seriously, this is completely inexplicable. This is the kind of hunkering down Behavior a candidate usually engages in when some horrible media story has kicked up an absolute sh**tstorm they're trying to weather through.

If this is true, and if it doesn't radically change within the next week, I may have to change my prediction from a narrow balderson win.

I told her you I hadn’t been seeing much from Balderson’s campaign lately   I’ve seen a few low budget YouTube attack ads, but nothing else.

[BuckeyeNut]

They certainly aren’t ignoring Field on the Republican side, that’s for sure.

[Ebsy]

They certainly aren’t ignoring Field on the Republican side, that’s for sure.

Parachuted in doorknockers for CLF are a poor substitute for campaign staff and volunteer canvassers.

[Antonio the Sixth]

...strange.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Latest poll is I'm right there, another five bucks from everyone who reads this will put us over the finish line at the last minute, let's do this.

[Oryxslayer]

Here is a potential theory why balderson isn't doing anything - he doesn't care whether he wins or loses. Whoever wins will be in congress for less then three months, at which point they go to a rematch in November. The district has a strong R PVI, and no ancestral Dem DNA, so he shouldn't lose with a regular electorate. A special electorate though right now favors the democrats by a large margin - so why bother contesting that? November should bring out more republicans, even if the environments still ends up favoring Dems.

Its a poor guess - O'Conner if he wins could end up gaining both notability and cash preventing a loss in November. But, its a theory.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Here is a potential theory why balderson isn't doing anything - he doesn't care whether he wins or loses. Whoever wins will be in congress for less then three months, at which point they go to a rematch in November. The district has a strong R PVI, and no ancestral Dem DNA, so he shouldn't lose with a regular electorate. A special electorate though right now favors the democrats by a large margin - so why bother contesting that? November should bring out more republicans, even if the environments still ends up favoring Dems.

Its a poor guess - O'Conner if he wins could end up gaining both notability and cash preventing a loss in November. But, its a theory.

If that's his strategy, it's an absolutely moronic one. It's going to be very hard to beat a Democratic incumbent in a climate like 2018.