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

[Tender Branson]

I'm going to rate this as "Likely R".

This will be a real test for November, because the retiring Republican is not a sex offender or racist, like the others who stepped down.

It remains to be seen if O'Connor can turn into the Democrats Next SuperLamb or not ...

[Tender Branson]

New PPP poll:

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45% - Troy Balderson (R)
43% - Danny O'Connor (D)

https://de.scribd.com/document/379408429/Read-ECU-poll-results

Was Trump+11, so a swing of 9 points here.

[Tender Branson]

O'Connor's blowing this.

He's not "blowing it", because he never really had a chance to win that race in the first place.

As I have said months ago, this district does involve a generic Republican (well, even a better version, because Balderson is well liked in the district) and the outgoing Republican was not involved in a sex scandal. Also, Kasich as Governor is popular in OH - so there is no mood for change. Democrats can be happy if the race end up R+8 or something.

[Tender Branson]

New internal poll for Danny O'Connor (D) has him down by 5 points:

48% Troy Balderson (R)
43% Danny O'Connor (D)
  5% Joe Manchik (G)

A previous poll taken by O'Connor's campaign in June showed Balderson with a 7-point lead, 48 percent to 41 percent.

Both of O'Connor's polls were conducted by GPA strategies. The July poll was taken among 600 likely voters via land and cell phone lines; it has a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points. The June 9-12 poll involved 500 likely voters and had a +/- 4.4 percent margin of error.

https://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2018/07/troy_baldersons_lead_narrows_i.html

[Tender Branson]

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 ...

[Tender Branson]

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.

[Tender Branson]

Do you guys think that the Green Party candidate Joe Manchik will cost O'Connor the election ?

In 2016, Manchik was also on the ballot and almost got 5% of the vote (in a non-competetive election of course).

This election will be quite competetive, so Manchik's share will likely only be 1-2% this time, but it could be enough for Balderson to sneak out a win.

[Tender Branson]

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[Tender Branson]

I think the Monmouth poll tomorrow will largely show a tie in their models ...

48-47-2 Balderson in their standard model and 48-48-2 in their surge model.

This is gonna be a really close race.

[Tender Branson]

If Trump has to jump in and campaign for the R a few days before the vote, it usually means their internal polls are showing a massive mobilisation problem among Rs ...

[Tender Branson]

It's a tie ...

Standard Midterm LV model: 46-45 Balderson
Low Turnout LV model: 49-44 Balderson
Democratic “Surge” LV model: 46-45 O'Connor

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_oh_080118

[Tender Branson]

Favorable ratings among Independents:

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20-28 unfavourable

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39-17 favourable

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But the district is sooo Republican, that among all voters Balderson is positive at 33-26 and O'Connor too at 34-23.

Still, 42% have no opinion of both candidates a week before the election ...

[Tender Branson]

Guys, only 32% of their respondents were from Franklin county, look at the crosstabs.

What should it be?

Among the early votes cast so far, 39% are from Franklin.

Not sure if this is relevant though, because it's just a small amount of early votes.

[Tender Branson]

Americans, your President is a total mental trainwreck ...

[Tender Branson]

So, what turnout can we expect alltogether ?

Turnout usally varies a lot in special elections (from 35.000 in the recent TX election to about 400.000 in the MT election last year). Usually, it seems to be around 150.000-250.000 recently (PA, AZ, GA).

But considering it's summer time and many people are on vacation, I think this election will be close to 150.000, so the early vote (30.000) would make up ca. 1/5th of all votes.

[Tender Branson]

So, what turnout can we expect alltogether ?

Turnout usually varies a lot in special elections (from 35.000 in the recent TX election to about 400.000 in the MT election last year). Usually, it seems to be around 150.000-250.000 recently (PA, AZ, GA).

But considering it's summer time and many people are on vacation, I think this election will be close to 150.000, so the early vote (30.000) would make up ca. 1/5th of all votes.

I am expecting closer 100k-110k based on the early vote.

What was the early vote in recent elections in OH, as a percentage of the total vote ?

[Tender Branson]

So, what turnout can we expect alltogether ?

Turnout usually varies a lot in special elections (from 35.000 in the recent TX election to about 400.000 in the MT election last year). Usually, it seems to be around 150.000-250.000 recently (PA, AZ, GA).

But considering it's summer time and many people are on vacation, I think this election will be close to 150.000, so the early vote (30.000) would make up ca. 1/5th of all votes.

I am expecting closer 100k-110k based on the early vote.

What was the early vote in recent elections in OH, as a percentage of the total vote ?

The average in this district has been 32% for the past couple general elections.

I still think there will be 120-180k votes in the end.

The primary already had 120k as well (like in AZ) and the general usually has more turnout.

[Tender Branson]

Guys it’s Emerson

Though I think the range of outcomes has narrowed to something verrrry close in either direction

Which would be bad for Democrats.

Democrats need a sizable win of at least 3 points to prove that they have not lost momentum since the PA-18 special election.

Even if O'Connor slightly loses tomorrow, we need to remember it would still be a HUGE swing to the Dems.

This district usually voted 65%+ Republican for Congress and R+11 to R+15 in Presidential elections.

A 3-point win would be nice and actually doable (because it seems O'Connor is peaking just at the right time), but not necessary to show that Dems are in good shape.

[Tender Branson]

Go Danny !

Can't wait for the results. When are polls closing (Central European Time) ?

2.30am ?

[Tender Branson]

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1026837258530447361

So ?

[Tender Branson]

Can any1 tell me please what Balderson said LAST NIGHT ?

[Tender Branson]

Can any1 tell me please what Balderson said LAST NIGHT ?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/troy-balderson-franklin-county.html

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Good tactical move by Balderson, but probably too late.

[Tender Branson]

Some additional goodies:

[Tender Branson]

Just woke up and saw the results ...

So, Balderson "won" by 0.9%, or 1750 votes ?

But there are 8.500 provisional and mail ballots left to count (which usually tend to be strong Dem) ?

This is not completely over yet (but many of the 8.500 might not be valid).

Anyway, extremely strong results for the Democrats.

[Tender Branson]

Well, if we assume that 6.000 of the 8.500 remaining provisional/absentee ballots are valid ... and O'Connor wins 65% of them, he'd have an overall lead of 50 votes ...