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

[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 District 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....

[NOVA Green]

Franklin County is where the Democratic Candidate for OH CD-12 needs to win big in the Special Election in two weeks, or in the General Election this November, if Democrats are going to flip this US House District....

Let's take a more microscopic level of detailed analysis of the Franklin County precincts that account for roughly 33% of the CD vote in an average General Election.

*** EDIT 7/27/18 *** replaced 2014 Vote Share by Place Graph, since I accidentally duplicated the '16 Graph into my Atlas Gallery Embed ****


Let's start with the Vote Share by municipality within Franklin County....



So here we see that the City of Columbus accounts in general for slightly less than 50% of the CD-12 vote Share within Franklin County, within a Presidential Election Year....

What happened in 2014 when it comes to the distribution of vote-share by place within Franklin Co CD-12 precincts???



Here is the same data from 2012....



OK--- to what extent does this really make a huge difference when it comes to the overall vote numbers in CD-12 precincts within Franklin County???

Obviously the only way that Democrats can win this special election in OH CD-12 is to rack up massive numbers within Franklin County, especially within precincts most favorably disposed to voting for a Democratic Candidate for a Federal Election....

In many ways very similar to the Southern Pittsburgh suburbs of South Allegheny County, even the most Democratic Precincts in recent years within Franklin County are relatively new converts to the Democratic Party, and tend to vote heavily Republican in most elections....

Let's take a look at the voter turnout by place 2012 to 2016 within the CD-12 precincts of Franklin County....



Now let's take a look at how Democratic these various municipalities are when it comes to Federal Elections.... Hint at the Statewide level these are overwhelmingly Republican Precincts in recent years....



So, although you will likely need to open the image in a new window to drill down to a level of detail, and working the long factory shifts, haven't really had tons of time to work on the visuals, but what really stands out is this:

Franklin County Precincts of CD-12 are NOT traditionally heavily Democratic at most election levels, even in 2016!!!!

What we see here are a handful of elections where Democrats have performed extremely well in various elections....

Even the precincts of Columbus only really voted heavily Democratic for Presidential Elections in '12 and '16, throw in a US SEN race from '12 with Sherrod, and OH-TREAS race from '14, but overall the results don't look particularly impressive, especially for US-House races....

Meanwhile Dublin looks like a Republican stronghold, with the exception of '16 PRES and '12 SEN, Westerville looks swingy but Lean Rep, and even Worthington generally votes 'Pub for most elections!!!!

Ok--- so now let's take a look at MHI by place within CD-12....



Wow!!! New Albany with an MHI of ~ $185k/yr went from 2012 (34-65 R) +31 R to in 2016            (  48-48* R)   for a +31% D swing....

Ok, not tons of people in these precincts, but still noteworthy...

Dublin clocks in with an MHI of $113.2k/Yr and in 2012 at the PRES level voted (40-59 R) and then in '16 (49-47 D) for a +21% D swing....

Meanwhile within the precincts in Columbus....

In 2016 (63-31 D) vs 2012 (59-39 D) for only a +12% D gain....

Where I'm trying to go here is that really we don't have any real history of even the "Democratic Strongholds" of OH CD-12 voting heavily Democratic, with the exception of the past few Presidential Election cycles plus votes for Sen Brown (D-OH)....

So before Dem avatars start getting too excitable, best not to develop too great a taste for the Hobbit leaf quite yet....

*IF* this election is nationalized in terms of local voting patterns, *AND* Dem Turnout is high, especially within the precincts located within the City of Columbus, and *ALSO* Dem margins in the Special Election within the Franklin County precincts look more like 2016 numbers, we might well have a horse-race....

Personally, my thought is that the OH CD-12 House Race will essentially be nationalized, and many of those Romney > HRC voters that went down-ballot Republican in virtually every election, will likely vote Democratic for the CD-12 Special Election.

Next Stop Delaware or Licking County....

[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....

[NOVA Green]

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.

Another excellent question, and one that I don't believe we have comprehensive data-sets to be able to address, although some other posters such as Ebsy might have found access to data elsewhere that I have not yet obtained.

*** Off-Topic ***  Although I can't consider myself a true Buckeye, I did live in Ohio for four Years in the early 1990s when I was in College outside of Dayton, and was heavily involved in Labor and Environmental activism at that time, as well as to a lesser extent Civil Rights and the Student Movements, and still have much love and appreciation, and interest for the people of Ohio, as well as election related stuff, so it's a real pleasure to see and interact with so many Atlas Ohio posters, such as yourself on this thread....

Here's why your question(s) are virtually impossible for me to address at this time:

1.) Badger 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?

Ohio does not appear to have any type of central archive of Early Voting by Date

There are some States where we can pull up this data for a current election, and even a few that will have this data available for historical elections, but Ohio does not appear to be one of these States.

Hence, trying to assess the EV numbers by date is simply not feasible, unless I'm missing some key links somewhere, or if this data is stashed in some Google Archive somewhere....

2.) Badger Question: Would those numbers be at least a reasonable indicator of what the final share of each counties vote will be after election day?

Although I don't believe we can forecast the total post-election vote-share by County based upon the *current status of EV voting by previous party primary voting TO DATE *, we might well be able to forecast what % of the vote will be absentee vs Same-Day for portions of OH CD-12 within the various Counties....

Even there it start's get slightly problematic within the context of a Special US-House Election, since we can pull '12/'14/'16 numbers for total breakdown by ED/EV (ABS PAPER, ABS IVO, EDAY PAPER, EDAY IVO, & PROV) by County, but shifting patterns of Early Voting can make it difficult to estimate how this will look this August....

For example, within Franklin County portions of CD-12 there was a much rate of ED voting in '14 compared to '12 and '16. (I'll get back to Franklin County shortly).

Once of the challenges that I struggled with, as well as many other analysts struggled with in the AZ CD-08 Special Election was what Total Vote number would look like.... we pulled data from previous elections within the district, but it turned out AZ voters in CD-08 ended up voting much more heavily by Mail than normal, so we needed to adjust our total turnout and total voter models to accommodate, and even on election eve many of us (myself included) were overestimating the Same-Day vote.

Is OH-12 necessarily any different???

3.) Badger Comment #3: 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.

So pretty much all of us on this thread realize that Franklin County will be key to any potential Dem upset in a traditionally or "Ancestral Republican" part of Ohio....

As my somewhat detailed breakdown of the Franklin County portion of CD-12 definitively shows, even in the precincts located within the City of Columbus typically do not vote heavily Democratic with a few recent exceptions....

Much of the CD-12 portion of Franklin County tends to be relatively Upper-Income / Upper Middle-Class Anglos, who tend to vote at much higher levels, even in off-year elections.

4.) Here's what I have pulled together regarding breakdown of voting by EV/ED for Franklin County from '12 > '16....

Let's start with the total PRES vote in '16 by Vote Type (ED/EV) for ALL precincts in Franklin County...

The reason for this is that HRC way outperformed the DEM for OH CD-12 even within the Franklin County Precincts part of CD-12, so it gives us a snapshot, since I can't roll the numbers by precinct/place for EV within OH CD-12 being Franklin County and all that....



Now, let's look at the % breakdown by Vote Type for all precincts in Franklin County for US PRES '16 by Party....



Ok--- Check, so what does this tell us???

A.) DEM PRES voters in Franklin County (All) voted absentee at a higher number than Republicans vs ED votes....

BUT, look at the EV-IVO numbers vs the EV-Paper numbers....

DEMS in Franklin in '16 were less likely to mail in their ballots than go to an early in person voting center....

So obviously we see that Early Voting in Franklin County favors Republicans in Mail-in-Ballots and Dems do better with "In-Person" Early Voting.

B.) Now let's take a peak at the 2016 breakdown by Vote Type within the CD-12 portions of Franklin County....



Now let's look at the chart to see the distribution of voter type (EV/ED) for the OH-CD-12 Franklin County votes as a %.



So what does this tell us?

A.) Overall Absentee voting was higher for the Congressional Election in '16 in the CD-12 portions of Franklin County than in other parts of the County.

Roughly 48% of Dem ballots were cast early vs 36% of Pub ballots cast early...

'Pubs actually improved on their ABS-PAPER ballots, but lost ground on their ABS-IVO numbers....

Also, interesting to note for anyone concerned about 3rd Party Ballots in this election in Franklin County, they tend to be much more prone to vote on Election Day (ED) rather than EV.

Now, let's take a look at how Franklin Co CD-12 Voters chose to cast their ballots in 2014 for the US House Race....



Let's take a peak at the % of vote-types by party candidate for CD-12...



Pulling up 2012 for OH-CD 12 Franklin Co....



Let's look at the % of Vote TYPE BY CD-12 and PARTY in 2012....




OK--- anybodies brain hurting yet? Mine is from trying to pull this all together, and we're only talking about Franklin County CD-12 precincts and "Voting Types"...


So to summarize:

1.) We really need to understand the current breakdown of absentee voters within Franklin County by ABS-PAPER vs ABS-IVO, at this current time and to the lead-up to E-Day before basing estimates solely upon ABS (EV) voters to date.

There appears to be a much stronger correlation between support for a Democratic Candidate with ABS-IVO voters than ABS-PAPER voters within Franklin County, and within the CD-12 precincts within Franklin County.

Anyone have these numbers available and is there a way to track this through E-Day?

2.) In "Off-Year" Elections, the total ABS voters % decreases dramatically compared to PRES election years within CD-12.

Many voters in off-year elections simply vote ED or VbM rather than EV'ing in person....

In fact the % of DEM/REP US-House voters was actually pretty close in '14 compared to '12 and '16, mainly because of a dramatic drop-off in DEM ABS-IVOs.

3.) As I have stated before in different ways, we really don't have any decent modelling of what a DEM victory would look like in CD-12 other than some County level benchmarks pundits have thrown out, and also this 60% EV number that keeps floating around Atlas, although I haven't yet seen any type of actual statistical data to support this other than some generalities regarding OH-ALL EV voting patterns in PRES election years....

The limited amount of data we do have thus far appears to indicate that Franklin County is looking pretty decent compared to historical voting patterns within CD-12.

Unfortunately, not being able to break down the '16 PRES numbers by CD-12 within Franklin County for EV/ED voters makes it much more difficult to assess, considering how DEM's traditionally lose House elections by big margins, even in a hypothetical massive swing portion of Franklin County ('12 > '16 PRES swings).

4.) It does appear that something is happening within the Franklin County precincts of CD-12, where we will likely see a massive amount of both Turnout, Raw Votes, and unprecedented DEM margins for a down-ballot election, but will it be enough?

[NOVA Green]

Before I forget and move on to another County within CD-12, I thought it might be interesting to the run the numbers for US-PRES in the smaller places in Franklin County from 2004 to 2016.

I can't include Columbus, which accounts for roughly 50% of the Franklin County section of CD-12, because of precinct changes and all of that stuff...

Still, we can see how Dublin, Gahanna, Westerville, and Worthington voted from '04 > '16 at the Presidential Level....

Collectively these Cities account for roughly 40% of the CD-12 Franklin County Vote Share, and tend to be a bit more Republican even than the somewhat swingy with 'Pub lean portion of Columbus, Ohio located within the district.





1.) Dublin--- 2nd largest City in Franklin County (Pop 42k, 78% Anglo, 15% Asian, MHI $113.2k/Yr, 78% Degree > High School, heavily White-Collar Professional Occupations)

2.) Gahanna- (Pop 33.6k), 83% Anglo, 11% African-American, MHI $71.2k/Yr, 54% Degree > High School, Occupational sectors skew more Middle-Class

3.) Westerville- Pop 36.8k (3rd largest City in Franklin County), 85% Anglo, 8% African-American, 60% degree > High School Diploma, MHI $82.1k/Yr, Occupational Sectors mix of Upper Middle-Class and Middle-Class

4.) Worthington- Pop 13.5k, MHI $ 86.9k/Yr, 92% Anglo, 72% > HS Diploma Occupations skew a bit Upper Middle-Class....

Looks like maybe it might have some overlap with Professors and Administrators working at Ohio State University?

Regardless, this little chart shows how rapidly how the suburbs of North Franklin County are shifting away from the Republican Party at the Presidential Level....

We have yet to see them shift hard DEM for other down-ballot races, but if O'Conner pulls this out, it will likely be within these communities.

[NOVA Green]

Ok--- Time to do an initial survey of Delaware County to see what the Tea Leaves might indicate for this upcoming Special Election....

Let's start with US Presidential Election results by place 2004 to 2016.



Now, let's take a look at this same data in a graphical format.



Time to look at a summarized chart of the Vote Share by Place '04 > '16




So what is the takeaway from these three data points?

1.) The vast majority of voters within Delaware County do not reside within Cities as their municipal jurisdiction.

Roughly 71% of the voters between '04 and '16 have Townships as their Primary Political Jurisdiction....

Although this might appear as a bit of semantics the reality is that in many parts of the Country this creates an additional level of removal from the "Cities" when it comes to everything from Taxation, Zoning, Policies and regulations that cover everything from waste disposal to how often you mow your lawn, etc.... almost like living in an HOA, except many of these policies are enforced by the Governmental Jurisdiction, rather than the Home Owners Association.....

2.) Within the Cities of Delaware County we are increasingly seeing movement towards the Democratic Party at the Presidential Level in terms of RAW VOTE margins....

For example the growing sliver of the City of Columbus within Franklin County has been increasingly moving Dem in raw vote Margins, and we are also observing a significant decrease of 'Pub raw vote numbers in Dublin and Westerville.

I'll need to take another look at Delaware City, since the '16 PRES numbers look a bit odd, and just validate that I didn't accidentally include Delaware Township precincts from '16 in with Delaware City Precincts....

It could just be that the Delaware City portion of the County grew in the form of a large new subdivision, which actually would make sense with the increased vote share from '12 > '16.

3.) It's pretty clear just looking at the raw vote numbers that a DEM candidate will need to keep Delaware County RAW VOTE numbers down to something more like a +8-10k R margin, even if the DEMS are banking serious margins in Franklin County.

OK... Let's roll a few % numbers....

Now here we have the % of Vote by Party for US PRES Elections '04 > '16 by Place.



Look carefully at these % numbers, especially the "OTHER" numbers that after all account for ~ 70% of the County Vote.

Delaware City looks even fishier here, and I'll go back and validate that and move the data and charts around if there was a filter error with potential inclusion of Delaware Twsp data....

Still the fundamentals stand... we are continuing to see a significant erosion of Republican support at the US-PRES level even in the most 'Pub portion of the County (Townships).

Let's look at this same data in a graphical format...




I'll post a swing map later by place, but really the key take-away here, is that it is entirely possible that the Democratic Candidate in CD-12 will win big in the "Cities" (30% of the County Vote Share), lose in the Townships, but keep Delaware County Close enough so that Franklin County can erase the Republican vote margins from the other Five Counties within CD-12.

Next Stop, I'll take a more detailed look at the Townships of Delaware County, since this appears to be potentially Ground Zero of overall Delaware County margins in the Special Election.

[NOVA Green]

I have been slightly remiss in my responsibilities when it comes to covering the Cities of Delaware County....

Although previously we touched on the Columbus, OH Dublin, OH, Westerville Franklin County Side, and we have 12% of the Delaware County Vote Share from these same three Cities, we have a few new Cities not yet discussed.

Delaware City---- 17.1% of the 2016 PRES Vote Share in Delaware County.



MHI- $57.0k/Yr

Educational Attainment- 42.3% > HS Diploma, 50.1% HS Diploma

Race/Ethnicity: 91.3% Anglo-American, 3.2% African-American, 1.9% Latino-American

Occupations:



Politically this City is a bit surprising when looking at the 2016 Presidential Election results....



Here is a more graphical interface that looks at margins and swings....



IF anyone can explain what happened in Delaware Ohio (The CITY) and the home of Ohio Wesleyan University between '12 and '16 at the US PRES level, I would be most interested, since this City will be key to any potential Democratic victory in OH CD-12.....

Next stop I'll need to look at the City of Powell, Ohio before I start delving into the Townships, since although I didn't include it on my list of the Cities of Delaware County, it definitely fits the profile of a potential massive swing place even in a Special US-House Election

[NOVA Green]

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.

I don't believe that Manchik will cost O'Connor the election....

Votes are earned and not given, and as you stated the voters that backed Green Party candidates in OH CD-12 will be much lower in the 2018 Special Election.

Much of the reason why 3rd Party Left Leaning voters in OH-CD-12 backed Green candidates in the past was because this was known as a safely and solidly Republican House District, so why not vote Green to keep the Democratic Party honest on Labor and Environmental issues???

Additionally, it should be noted that Metro Columbus is a major center of the Environmentalist Movement within Ohio as a former Center of New Left activism in the 1960s and 1970s, and as a major center of educated voters from Ohio State University and Public Sector employee Unions in a region of the State least dependent upon the types of Industrial Jobs that created the whole false dichotomy between "Jobs vs Environment" that played elsewhere within Ohio....

If the Dem candidate loses it will likely be for other reasons than a 3rd Party Candidate bagging     
1-2% of the vote, including the structural political composition and social geography of the District, as well as the sophistication of modern day political Gerrymandering using Computer Software tools that I wish I could employ on Atlas to create much more high quality detailed driven presentations....

[NOVA Green]

Yet one more important City in Delaware County in the upcoming CD-12 Special Election, which accounts for almost 7.0% of the entire County Vote Share.

Powell, Ohio---- Pop 11.8k, MHI $132.6k/Yr, 78% Degree > HS Diploma (!!!), 86.3% Anglo-American, 10.0% Asian-American.



Relative Occupations skew extremely Upper-Middle Class:



How did Powell, Ohio vote at the Presidential level from 2004 to 2016, and what trends have we observed over the past 12 Years of Presidential Elections?



So here we starting to see beginnings of the narrow sliver chance of a DEM upset win in OH CD-12, where even in areas that have been swinging and trending DEM at the PRES level (ESP by Ohio standards), have still tended to overwhelmingly support Republicans at the State and Federal down-ballot levels....

Math goes basically something like this, rack up huge margins within the Franklin County portion of the district especially within the City of Columbus Precincts, continue to expand DEM margins in Dublin, Westerville, Worthington, AND win by comfortable margins within the Cities of Delaware County that account collectively for ~ 35% of the County Vote Share (Columbus, Dublin, Powell, Westerville, and Delaware City)....

Now, there's obviously something missing in the math here, namely the high population Townships within Delaware County (Orange, Liberty, Genoa, and Concord) that account for an additional 42% of the County Vote Share.

Remember, Democrats don't need to WIN Delaware County to win CD-12, just keep 'PUB RAW VOTE margins down enough to allow FRANKLIN County to provide a solid enough buffer to overcome the PUB raw vote numbers from the other heavily TRUMP Counties within the District.

[NOVA Green]

The thing I'm now eagerly watching for is how well O'Connor does in the precincts that overlap with State House Districts 19, 21, and 24, which are all top pickup opportunities at the moment and represent half of the seats Ohio Democrats need to win over to break the Republican supermajority.

Interesting.... I haven't looked at the OH LD math, let alone followed the OH State House/Senate races, but I do have a ton of raw data, if you're interested in having me pull more detailed precinct stuff later on (After the OH CD-12 Special Election results are published of course ).... 

[NOVA Green]

Let's now take a look some of the Townships within Delaware County....

1.) Orange Township---- 13.3% of Delaware County Vote Share



Basic US Census Stats as always----

Pop--- 26.9k, MHI $102.1k/Yr, 77.7% Anglo-American, 10.5% Asian-American, 6.4% African-American

Education: 67.0% Degree > HS Diploma

Let's take a look at relative occupations....



OK--- Fits the profile of a place in CD-12 where potentially the Republicans have not yet hit rock bottom, especially at the down-ballot level in the era of Trump.

How has Orange Township voted over the past Four Presidential Elections and are there any swings or trending that might play to a DEM advantage in this Special Election???



So, Orange Township definitely fits of the profile of a '16 PRES > '18 OH-CD-12 flip community, which if it happens would significantly increase the DEM candidates goal of keeping PUB margins low in Delaware County.

2.) Genoa Township---- 14.0% of the 2016 Delaware County Vote Share (!!!)



US CENSUS STATS:

Pop: 23.7k, MHI $116.6k/Yr, 89.0% Anglo-American, 4.0% African-American, 3.4% Asian-American
Education: 71.3% Degree > HS Diploma

Relative Occupations:



How did Genoa Township Ohio vote for US PRES '04 to '16???



So although there was only a +24% DEM PRES swing between '04 and '16 in Genoa Township compared to a +27% DEM PRES swing between '04 and '16 in Orange Township, there are more favorable ethnic/racial demographics in Orange than Genoa, and quite likely Anglo-American voters swung equally hard in both municipalities but with a much lower DEM baseline in Genoa than Orange.

Still, Trump captured slightly less than 55% of the Vote in '16 here, so even assuming it stays PUB in the Special Election, we still see which direction the wind is blowing in the Era of Trump....

OK--- we now have two additional Townships in Delaware County (Liberty and Concord) that collectively account for about 14.9% of the TOTAL DELAWARE COUNTY VOTE-SHARE.

These Townships are even more Republican than Orange and Genoa, and will likely be the places where the 'Pubs will try to maximize their RAW VOTE margins within Delaware County, assuming that this election is maybe somewhere in the order of +2-5% R once all the votes are counted.

Give me a few minutes to grab a Cig, make a few moves on the Chessboard, take a sip of Bourbon, and I'll take a look at those two Townships....

[NOVA Green]

Time to Move over to Liberty and Concord Townships....

Liberty Township--- 9.2% of Delaware County Vote Share.

Pop--- 26.8k
MHI: $123.8k/Yr
Race/Ethnicity: 88.0% Anglo-American, 7.6% Asian-American, 2.5% African-American
Education: 72.8% Degree > HS Diploma

Relative Occupations:



How did Liberty Township Vote for US PRES 2014 to 2016???



So here we see the Democratic Candidate starting from a lower base-line number, and although there was a +22.6% Dem PRES swing between '04 and '16, it was still a bit lower than in Orange and Genoa Townships....

Interestingly enough, this doesn't appear explainable simply upon the Social-Demographic comparative numbers that I pulled for the other two Townships.

Still, the relatively close comparative US-PRES swing margins, would appear to indicate that *IF* a DEM US-HOUSE Candidate were to increase margins in Orange and Genoa, that these swings might well be relatively comparable in Liberty Township.

CONCORD TOWNSHIP--- 5.7% of the DELAWARE COUNTY TOTAL VOTE SHARE

POP- 9.5k
MHI- $ 127.8k/Yr
Race/Ethnicity: 86.8% Anglo-American, 6.7% Asian-American, 3.5% African-American
Educational Attainment: 66.4% Degree > HS Diploma

Relative Occupations:



How did Concord Township Vote for US PRES 2004 to 2016???




Concord Township sort of stands out here, even compared to Liberty Township when looking at the Social-Demographic Data...

It only swung +15.5% D at the US-PRES level between '04 and '16 compared to much larger swings in the other key suburban/exurban Columbus Townships of Delaware County.

Unfortunately I can't explain the reasons, and I'll let some of the more knowledgeable Buckeyes or resident Ohio experts explain since other than Ancestral Republican History, there tons of variation between the Social-Demographics of these Four Townships (Other than Educational Attainment rates a bit lower in Concord Township than those of the other "Big Four" Townships of Delaware County.

[NOVA Green]

Now, let's take a look at the overall Delaware County Vote Share in 2016:



I have covered 80% and we have 20% remaining, basically the Rural Townships and Villages for the most part.

Let's look at the 80% that is Metro Columbus with RAW vote numbers....



The rurals that are only 20% of the total County vote accounted for almost 50% of PUB margins in the '16 PRES election.

Here are the % numbers by Metro Delaware vs Rural...



So--- anyone who doubts that the DEM REP in CD-12 could hit 50% in the METRO portions of the County, hasn't been paying attention.

I haven't spent too much time playing with the Rural Townships, but there are definitely some Obama '12 > Trump '16 voters floating around, without even going back into the Weeds of the '04 General Election....

Still, swings are more likely to happen in the METRO PARTS of DELAWARE than RURAL, but one can certainly see how DEMs could keep PUB margins low in DELAWARE and steamroll over the remaining counties solely on the back of FRANKLIN County numbers.

[NOVA Green]

56-32 is not exactly a comforting margin for O'Connor given expected E-Day turnout.

Given the number of relocated and, especially, first time voters the other category constitutes, I wouldn't be too worried if I was O'Connor

I think this hits the nail on the head. Probably tonight and throughout the week I will have some more analysis of how many of early voters are new registers and also what the return rates are for the various parties across the 7 counties. Expect to see the numbers for the latter tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

Do we know what the final early vote numbers looked like here in 2016? I thought I saw on Twitter that it was a pretty decent Republican lead.

All I have been able to find are the Franklin County numbers that I posted a few pages back on the thread....

Relevant numbers for the OH-CD 12 election in 2016 in Franklin County by Party and "Vote Type":



Franklin County-2014 numbers for OH-CD 12 by Party and Vote Type:



Franklin County: 2012 numbers of OH-CD-12 by Party and Vote Type:




Unfortunately it doesn't appear that this data is easily and freely available on the Internet, although I don't doubt that for the other Six Counties within CD-12 it is likely obtainable for a fee from the local election offices....

I guess we could at least look at the overall Franklin County OH CD-12 numbers and try to come up with a % swing, but really I doubt that the '12 and '16 GE numbers will be as representative of the EV/ED voters, compared to a lower turnout election such as '14....

[NOVA Green]

2020 Dems should win OH in a prez race and in 2022, we have the 2018 gubernatorial map for the senate races. It goes downhill from there. Cordray as Gov will have some say so over redistricting

This appears to be a slight case of the following:



Although I wouldn't be shocked to see a significant number of Obama '12 / Trump '16 voters flip back in '20, as well as continued erosion of Republican support within the "Ancestral Republican" Suburban/Exurban educated and Upper Middle-Class parts of Ohio, we have yet to see any evidence to support that.... YET.

IF, we see a DEM victory in the OH CD-12 Special Election, AND we see the DEM GOV candidate win as part of a political coalition that includes a mixture of Ancestral Dems in NE and SE Ohio that swung hard Trump '16, swing voters actually backing a DEM for OH State Governor, and the educated Upper-Middle Class Ancestral 'Pubs of the Ohio 'Burbs actually vote for a Democrat for Governor in 2018, THEN we might be able to make a reasonable argument that DEMs have been able to break the "Down-Ballot Curse" of the past Decade....

Now, regarding redistricting in 2020 in time for the 2022 elections, it won't be a Democratic Gerrymander scenario, thanks to the Citizens of the great Buckeye State that overwhelmingly approved "Non-Partisan" Redistricting just a few Months back...

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/386839-ohio-voters-pass-redistricting-reform-initiative

Still, ANY 2020 redistricting maps in Ohio under the law, will definitely create a much more representative political balance in the US-House, regardless of legitimate VRA moral and statutory considerations....

Still, I get the angle you're coming from, just won't be popping and champagne corks quite yet for Ohio....

[NOVA Green]

[...]

Now, regarding redistricting in 2020 in time for the 2022 elections, it won't be a Democratic Gerrymander scenario, thanks to the Citizens of the great Buckeye State that overwhelmingly approved "Non-Partisan" Redistricting just a few Months back...

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/386839-ohio-voters-pass-redistricting-reform-initiative

Still, ANY 2020 redistricting maps in Ohio under the law, will definitely create a much more representative political balance in the US-House, regardless of legitimate VRA moral and statutory considerations....

[...]

I wouldn't go that far. As I remember it, this places some limits on splitting counties (?) and even requires votes from Democratic lawmakers to pass a decade-long map, but after going through an arbitrarily long process of votes, Republicans could in theory ram through a map by party-line vote that would as a whole probably be better than the current map but would only last for 4 years, at which point they could try to repeat the same process again. The reason this is supposed to be "better than nothing" is because, hypothetically, Democrats would be able to have a shot at flipping a chamber of the legislature and/or row offices relevant to the redistricting process (Gov+SoS+Auditor, I think) within that 4 years and then have a shot at a better map without having to wait a whole decade.

Let me put it this way. If this was comprehensive and true reform, they would have done something very similar to other states with actual fair redistricting. Instead, they chose a convoluted process that ultimately gives themselves a way to pass a rigged map, albeit maybe not quite as rigged as before and not for as long as before. Someone smarter than I could speak to exactly how gerrymandered a 4 year map could get.

Sneaky 'Pub Weasels!!!

Trying to get away with looking like they are playing along with those traditional Heartland values of "Fair Play" and all that, while they are just eyeballing how to set-up the next Decade of the game to maintain continued "Legitimate Monopoly of Power"....

Still, it should be noted that Ohio has seen some pretty funky shifts in electoral and political coalitions in recent elections, so even if the 'Pubs game a map incorporating "Obama '08/'12 WWC swinging hard for Trump '16, AND try to mitigate the damage from swings in some of the Upper-Income 'burbs in the larger Metro Areas, will they really know what they are buying in the future?

I guess the advantage for the 'Pubs in a "delay of game" maneuver would be that could most effectively calculate the trade-offs until after they have a few more election data-sets at the finger-tips of their software packages?

I don't want to further derail the thread from the OH CD-12 Special Election, since this is obviously a much more extensive conversation, but as always Virginia, you've given us all a whole lot more to consider from a longer-term and wider political perspective.

[NOVA Green]

[...]

Now, regarding redistricting in 2020 in time for the 2022 elections, it won't be a Democratic Gerrymander scenario, thanks to the Citizens of the great Buckeye State that overwhelmingly approved "Non-Partisan" Redistricting just a few Months back...

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/386839-ohio-voters-pass-redistricting-reform-initiative

Still, ANY 2020 redistricting maps in Ohio under the law, will definitely create a much more representative political balance in the US-House, regardless of legitimate VRA moral and statutory considerations....

[...]

I wouldn't go that far. As I remember it, this places some limits on splitting counties (?) and even requires votes from Democratic lawmakers to pass a decade-long map, but after going through an arbitrarily long process of votes, Republicans could in theory ram through a map by party-line vote that would as a whole probably be better than the current map but would only last for 4 years, at which point they could try to repeat the same process again. The reason this is supposed to be "better than nothing" is because, hypothetically, Democrats would be able to have a shot at flipping a chamber of the legislature and/or row offices relevant to the redistricting process (Gov+SoS+Auditor, I think) within that 4 years and then have a shot at a better map without having to wait a whole decade.

Let me put it this way. If this was comprehensive and true reform, they would have done something very similar to other states with actual fair redistricting. Instead, they chose a convoluted process that ultimately gives themselves a way to pass a rigged map, albeit maybe not quite as rigged as before and not for as long as before. Someone smarter than I could speak to exactly how gerrymandered a 4 year map could get.

Right now, only two counties have more than a whole CD's worth of people living in them: Cuyahoga and Franklin County. However, right now, of the ten most populous counties:

Franklin County is split in 3 (2 live in the county)
Cuyahoga County is split in 4 (1 lives in the county)
Hamilton County is split in 2 (both live in the county)
Summit County is split in 4 (none live in the county)
Lucas County is split in 2 (1 lives in the county)
Stark County is split in 3 (none live in the county)
Lorain County is split in 3 (none live in the county)
Mahoning County is split in 2 (none live in the county)

And then you have even smaller counties which have no business being split:

Trumbull County is split in 2 (pop. 210k)
Medina County is split in 2 (pop. 176k)
Portage County is split in 3 (pop. 161k)
Richland County is split in 2 (pop. 124k)
Tuscawaras County is split in 2 (pop. 92k)
Muskingum County is split in 2 (pop. 86k)
Scioto County is split in 2 (pop. 79k)
Ross County is split in 2 (pop. 78k)
Erie County is split in 2 (pop. 77k)
Marion County is split in 2 (pop. 66k)
Huron County is split in 2 (pop. 59k)
Ottawa County is split in 2 (pop. 41k)
Mercer County is split in 3 (pop. 40k)
Fayette County is split in 2 (pop. 29k)

Of course, we'll never have a map with no county splits, but the majority of these are unnecessary and only serve to split communities of interests in attempts to crack votes.

Hmmm.... I wish I have spent more time on the Political Geography and Demographics Board...

Do we have any links on that thread that might be of interest to those of us interested in taking a deeper dive regarding OH redistricting and hypothetical?

There's been some pretty interesting discussions in there over time on redistricting maps, "Muon's Rules" and honestly I would surprised if someone hasn't presented potential mapping scenarios in light of the recent Ohio Citizen's Initiative....

Honestly, I'm surprised by the data you presented, especially regarding not only the  County level splits, but also HOW FEW Reps in heavily Democratic Counties actually live within the Counties.

One must certainly wonder what the future borders of OH CD-12 will look like in 2022.....

[NOVA Green]

So where does the race stand today?

Dems are outperforming OH CD-12 EV numbers compared to the 2016 Presidential Election significantly in Franklin County.... Additionally much more so than the relatively low-turnout 2014 OH General Election that was pretty much only Statewide and local candidates, with the exception of US House races.

What makes the '14 > '18 EV numbers to date in Franklin County most interesting , is how well Democrats are performing in the Early Vote numbers overall in an "Off-Year Election", (Even more so a Special Election for a US House seat).

Absentee ballots in Off-Year elections in Franklin County CD-12 tend to skew heavily Mail-in-Ballots (ABS-PAPER), which are Much More Republican than a much smaller share of Early In-Person-Voting (ABS-IVO) compared to GE Years....

Sure, it could just be Democratic EV cannibalism, but there is nothing to sneeze at when it comes to massive DEM+ Other margins in EV overall numbers within Franklin County, which accounts for typically about 35% of the Total Vote Share....

Perhaps even more significantly, the EV numbers from Delaware County are pretty mind-boggling by any standard, and could well indicate the 80% of Delaware County that are Suburban/Exurban Columbus (In addition to Delaware City which I still have some major questions on that nobody has yet answered), are expanding upon the +15-20% Dem swings we saw between '12 and '16...

Rock-Ribbed Upper Incomes 'Burbs of Delaware County are looking potentially shaky, just like the Rock-Ribbed Upper Incomes 'Burbs of South Allegheny did in January of this Year...

Ebsy would likely have better data when it comes to ABS-PAPER vs ABS-IVO numbers from Franklin County to date, and I thought was hoping for another County dump tonight on the servers, but looks like we'll have to wait for tomorrow for updated numbers...

Other big thing to watch from our fellow Atlas posters following this closely on the thread, is that if we're going to get a big ABS-IVO dump it will likely happen this weekend, especially in the Cities/Burbs of Metro Columbus, so people won't have to deal with the Election Day voting gig, when you got a job to work, kids to pick up from school/daycare, stuck in rush hour traffic, and all the crap that gets in the way of wanting to stand an hour in line just to vote after all that for an off-year election...

[NOVA Green]

Now that I've spent tons of time and thread space focusing on two major counties (Franklin and Delaware) that collectively account for 60% of the CD-12 Vote Share between '12 and '16, both of which are overwhelmingly dominated by the City, Suburbs, and Exurbs of Metro Columbus, it's time to pivot over to another County that accounts for ~20% of the Vote Share of CD-12, as part of the "Tale of Two Cities" or in this case "The Tale of Two Ohios"...

Licking County could well play a significant role not only in any potential Democratic upset in this particular CD, but perhaps more significantly as a representative of a fairly Republican County in Ohio, where Obama performed quite well in both 2008 and 2012.



I could also throw in a chart of what these actual % changes look like in terms of raw vote margins, but suffice to say that in a GE PRES election in 2012 Obama lost Licking by ~ 12k votes versus HRC losing by ~ 24k Votes, so even in a pretty solidly 'Pub County at the PRES level significant changes on the % margins make a HUGE deal, even in relatively low turnout OH-State and US-House elections.

Now let's look at the overall Licking County Votes for US-Senate between '04 and '16...



So right here, we can see that even Prior to Obama's performance as the DEM-PRES candidate in '08 and '12, we see Sherrod Brown almost tied with Mike Dewine in the '06 US-SEN battle.

Even in the 2014 race for OH- State Treasurer, we see the Dem capture 39% of the vote, in an extremely Republican Year within Ohio.

Ok---- let's take a brief look at Licking County Ohio... (I know most of y'all that post on here are seasoned vets, so apologize my running some Demographic numbers for the lurkers both within and outside of Atlas...   )

Licking County--- OHIO

Pop: 167.0k
Race/Ethnicity: 92.2% Anglo-American, 3.3% African-American.
MHI: $55.1k/Yr
Education: 30.0% > HS Diploma, 59.2% HS Diploma
Age: 14% > 65+ Yrs, 21% 50-64 Yrs, 20% 35-49/Yrs, 19% 18-34/Yrs

Educational Attainment Breakdown:



Relative Occupational Breakdown:



So--- anyone starting to see why Licking Counties and others like this in Ohio can be extremely swingy despite an inherent Republican lean?

Overall the County is relatively well educated in terms of post high-school degrees, including the much vaunted Working-Class ideal of getting a practical Vocational/Professional Two Year Degree that translates almost immediately into a decent job, and not being stuck in Mountains of student loan debt.

NOW: Where are the Voters located within the District in terms of comparative Vote-Share?

I'll start with just the largest City within Licking, County....

Newark, OH--- 22.8% of Licking County Vote Share 2016 PRES

Pop: 47.7k (29.0% of County Population)
Race/Ethnicity: 92.0% Anglo-American, 3.3% African-American
MHI: $38.3k/Yr
Education: 23.7% > HS Diploma, 62.5% HS Degree
Age: 14% > 65/Yrs, 12.5% 55-64/Yrs, 26% 35-54/Yrs, 24% 18-34/Yrs...

Newark, OH--- Relative Occupations---



Now, let's take a look a relative industries in Newark, considering that it's a bit odd that overall Demographic mirror the County numbers, with the exception of MHI and Education...



Maybe the Cities largest employers might explain that???



Ok--- now let's check out a few of the election numbers from Newark, Ohio for a few election races...

Newark, OH--- US PRES 2004 to 2016....



So here we see an interesting representation of the complexities of OH-PRES election politics in recent decades....

This is a City in Ohio that swung towards Obama between '08 and '12, who received a much larger % of the Dem Vote than Kerry in '04 (I have a full set of OH 2000 precinct numbers floating around somewhere and would be interesting to add them to the mix), AND these Democratic gains were essentially wiped out with an unpopular Democrat running against a less-unpopular Republican around here....

Just dipping my first toe into the waters of Licking County, but if you're going to find "Ancestral Dems" that swung harder Trump, Newark City would certainly be a place where I would be interested in examining after the CD-12 Special Election, and certainly in the 2018 GE to see if the winds are blowing back against the Republicans, and if so to what extent...

I'll try to pull a few more summaries of Licking County before the Weekend to summarize, and hopefully maybe another County before E-Day....

Didn't start pulling the precinct data until a few weeks back, and have a full-time job, family and all that, so haven't been able to get into as much detailed election results as I would normally like to do.

[NOVA Green]

Yesterday I posted some data for Licking County as well as the largest City Newark to see what the numbers might indicate regarding the Obama '08 and Obama '12 voters who swung hard to Trump within the County in the upcoming Ohio US House CD-12 might do.

We saw that Obama narrowly lost Newark in '08, narrowly won it in '12, and it swung to Trump by +20% in 2016!

Now let's look at the overall Vote Share by place within Licking County.



What is chart tells us is that there are actually quite a decent percentage of the County population that resides in a relatively small number of Cities, and a few larger higher density townships.

Here's a Licking County Township city/map that has 62% of the County Vote Share bordered with a darker Black border.

Yesterday I posted some data for Licking County as well as the largest City Newark to see what the numbers might indicate regarding the Obama '08 and Obama '12 voters who swung hard to Trump within the County in the upcoming Ohio US House CD-12 might do.



What is chart tells us is that there are actually quite a decent percentage of the County population that resides in a relatively small number of Cities, and a few larger higher density townships.

These are clustered in two areas:

1.) SW-Licking which is fairly exurban Columbus
2.) The City of Newark and surrounding suburbs.

Here's a Licking County City/Township Map that illustrates this, with these two areas illustrated by a darker border...



Now let's look at the US-PRES 2004 to 2016 breakdown by "City" and "Rural" precincts within the County, and the Total Vote Margin.



Although we don't really have any recent history of "Ancestral Democratic" major strengths in Licking County, we do see that there are quite a few Obama '08 / Obama '12 / Trump '16 voters in both the "Cities" and "Rural" areas....

In the SW Licking & "Metro Newark" areas Obama was able to keep Republican raw vote margins extremely low in both '08 and '12, only +3.5- 4.6k Republican....

This would obviously the path for O'Connor to try to minimize over Republican margins in Licking County....

I doubt we'll see nearly as much movement in the rural parts of Licking County this coming Tuesday where there are simply a ton of Bush W. / McCain / Romney / Trump voters....

Here's a vote by City/Rural Graph as a % of US PRES by Party 2004 to 2016 to further illustrate the point:



Licking County RAW VOTE MARGINS matter, and former Kerry/Obama/Obama/Trump voters in the Cities/exurbs of the County might be a decent shake to keep down Balderson numbers in Licking and flip the District in a few days or November...

[NOVA Green]

Question for NOVA Green: is there any way to look at the results for say 2016 by vote type (VBM, In person absentee, election day) so that it can be compared against those groups of voters partisanship?

Gass asked a similar question a few pages back, and this was my response:

56-32 is not exactly a comforting margin for O'Connor given expected E-Day turnout.

Given the number of relocated and, especially, first time voters the other category constitutes, I wouldn't be too worried if I was O'Connor

I think this hits the nail on the head. Probably tonight and throughout the week I will have some more analysis of how many of early voters are new registers and also what the return rates are for the various parties across the 7 counties. Expect to see the numbers for the latter tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

Do we know what the final early vote numbers looked like here in 2016? I thought I saw on Twitter that it was a pretty decent Republican lead.

All I have been able to find are the Franklin County numbers that I posted a few pages back on the thread....

Relevant numbers for the OH-CD 12 election in 2016 in Franklin County by Party and "Vote Type":



Franklin County-2014 numbers for OH-CD 12 by Party and Vote Type:



Franklin County: 2012 numbers of OH-CD-12 by Party and Vote Type:




Unfortunately it doesn't appear that this data is easily and freely available on the Internet, although I don't doubt that for the other Six Counties within CD-12 it is likely obtainable for a fee from the local election offices....

I guess we could at least look at the overall Franklin County OH CD-12 numbers and try to come up with a % swing, but really I doubt that the '12 and '16 GE numbers will be as representative of the EV/ED voters, compared to a lower turnout election such as '14....

Basically all we have are Vote Type (EV-MAIL, EV- In Person, ED, and Provisional) for Franklin County, but only by race........

So for example I could tell you how many people voted in ALL of Franklin County for the past X elections by "Vote Type" by election race, but unfortunately it doesn't break down to a precinct level.

One of the things I was interested at looking at were the US-PRES numbers for Precincts located within OH-CD-12 in Franklin County by Vote Type , but I couldn't find the data out there on any of the Government websites.

I couldn't find any data at all for the other Counties in the district (Might have neglected to check a few of the really small vote share ones, but likely not).

I would imagine this data is likely available through the local county election offices for a fee, or possibly as inexpensive as the cost of a few photocopies if you go in person, which is how I obtained much of my precinct data for the Oregon 1988 Presidential Election, until I discovered the joys of the Oregon SoS Election office/archives, where I could eat precinct data to my hearts content as a young Teenager until my Mom would show up 5 hours later to drive me back to my home-town, where I would spend Weeks trying to analyze the data!

If we have any intrepid OH Atlas posters in the Metro Columbus Area that want to check in with the Ohio State Elections Department in person we *might* be able to at least be able to take a look at Franklin County US-PRES data by precinct by Vote Type, and possibly even Delaware County as well if someone wants to take a road trip out beyond the 'Burbs and Exurbs to the County seat....

Alternatively, if we have someone with "Atlas Deep Pockets", they might be able to purchase an electronic version of some type of customized report that pulls the data that would be really helpful to provide historical context to the EV Vote numbers we are seeing in this election.

Unfortunately my pockets aren't that deep at present, despite just recently getting a really nice promotion, so I haven't attempted to make phone inquires as to if the information I desire is available, and if so what will the cost be to received such data.

[NOVA Green]

Question for NOVA Green: is there any way to look at the results for say 2016 by vote type (VBM, In person absentee, election day) so that it can be compared against those groups of voters partisanship?

@ Ebsy---  Apologies.... I believe I responded to your post without actually really understanding your question.

My general thought is that since there isn't a means of looking a Vote Type anywhere other than Franklin, which itself has fundamental limitations, we won't be able to match against Partisan Affiliation (As measured by which Partisan Primary voters last voted in?).

That being said, there *MIGHT* be data available not posted on County Election websites that are available for purchase from local county election offices, even for previous elections.

Back when I was involved in political campaigns in Oregon in the late '80s, we could purchase detailed information about all voters within a County by Party Registration, Voting Address, that also included other incidental details...

Although we didn't have VbM way back then, what election campaigns would typically do was send someone over to the County Election offices every few hours on Election Day and pay to pull the report of which voters were already registered as having voted....

The purpose was to make sure we could contact voters that had not yet voted, and do whatever last minute means of trying to call, get someone to knock on doors in neighborhoods, etc to try to maximize the turnout of last-minute-voters that we knew were either supportive of our candidate, or Registered Independents located within Precincts where we knew simply jacking up Turnout would maximize our vote margins from that precinct.

In the age of Early Voting (VbM and In-Person) modern political campaigns have reached a much higher level of sophistication that anything we had in place back then, and I would imagine that local County election offices are only too happy to accept the extra Revenue to provide whatever data they have available and can legally provide to private citizens or political campaigns for a Fee.

The main question being is what data do these various Counties maintain and archive for historical elections, and in an extremely decentralized election system like we have in the US, which Counties actually even track the data that we need to properly examine these types of questions from a Political Science perspective?

[NOVA Green]

So, we have been operating under the assumption that O'Connor needs to open up a massive lead in the early vote in order to overcome a large GOP edge on election day, which is the conventional wisdom in Ohio. There has been dithering about just how large, but the prior assumption here is what is important. However, when you go back and look at the partisanship of the 2016 electorate and compare it to now, the numbers paint a different picture.

In OH-12* in 2016, Democrats only enjoyed a small partisanship** advantage from the early vote compared to the election day vote, getting 22.6% in early ballots to 20.6% on election day. The GOP comprised 36.6 of the early vote electorate and 38% of the election day vote, with Other voters outnumbering both parties in both voting periods. The actual margin difference between early voters and election day voters was only 3.4 points in favor the Democrats, not exactly a gigantic margin. Additionally, if you assume Other voters split roughly 50/50, with a slight edge to the GOP, you end up very near the expected result for a Republican in this district.

What does this tell us? Democrats' performance in the early vote thus far is extremely anamalous, and while it is expected that Republicans will gain a couple more points, Democrats are going to end up at least twice their normal vote share, with Republicans under where they usually are. There is also the expectation that Other voters are going to buck trends and break towards O'Connor. We also now have considerable reason to doubt that the election day electorate is going to be nearly as Republican as has been suggested, as past election results indicate that it was not in 2016. Of course, Democrats could be abnormally banking their votes in this district, but we have no evidence of that one way or the other.

*Excluding Richland and Morrow Counties
**Partisanship figures are current as of the 2018 primary

Excellent post as usual Ebsy!

I've been skeptical since the beginning about the whole "Dem needs 60% of the EV to win argument" that many on here have been basing their ballpark math on, since it is based upon overall Ohio EV numbers from Presidential Election Years.

In OH CD-12 we see a HUGE variability between DEM EV #s in "Off-Year" (Non-Pres) Years when it comes to Early-In-Person voting, which is really the main place where Dem's tend to perform extremely well.

In 2014, Dem EV-IVO share in Franklin County dropped dramatically between '12 and '14, and jumped WAY back up in '16.

Maybe I'm totally off-mark here, but what that tells me is that in PRES ELEC years, this is a method that voters (Especially Dem voters) use to avoid having to stand in long lines on election day, and not have to go through all of the hassle of going through the system to register in advance for a Mail-In-Ballot.

I would imagine that in a Non-Pres, Non-General Election Year (AKA Special Elections) that we would see an even smaller share of ABS-IVO even than in 2014....

It could be, and we have plenty of resident Ohio Election experts here, that some of these voters have shifted from ABS-In-Person to ABS-Mail in "Off-Year" and Special Elections as an alternative form of EV "Vote Cannibalization"....

Regardless ED Voting will likely comprise a significantly higher % of the OH CD-12 SE Vote Type than in the OH-2014 GE. Maybe I'm incorrect here, and just as we saw in the SE in AZ CD-08 voting type patterns are shifting in various States and Metro areas over the past few GE cycles.

One other consideration, which actually undermines my thoughts that ED voting will likely be higher as a % than the OH '14 GE, is the precinct consolidations that have been dramatically accelerating over the past few GE cycles.

Although I understand the fiscal rationale for cashed-strapped County Election Offices throughout the United States to dramatically slash the number of voting precincts to reduce the overhead costs that are essentially borne by County Taxpayers, this ultimately either:

1.) Reduces the Access to Voting for those Citizens who tend to cast Election Day ballots

(Longer Polling Station Lines for Voters within "Cities" and Metro Areas, Longer drive times for Rural/Exurban Precincts

2.) Forces Citizens into alternative forms of voting as as EV-In-Person or EV-Mail....

I'm not even going to touch the 3rd rail as to the intent of the Republican dominated State Government of Ohio, to potentially use whatever weapons in their tool-kits to disenfranchise or reduce access to voting for more Democratic leaning constituencies....

What I will say is that I have observed a dramatic decrease in the total number of voting precincts within many Counties of Ohio between '12 and '16 alone, so if you're going to look at a "Push-Pull" reason as to why many Ohio voters are shifting to Early Voting, this might well play a major factor.

Hell, most rural Townships in Licking County have only one voting precinct for Christs sake (So you gotta drive Ten Minutes to the next polling Station)! Imagine what happens if you are in Northern Franklin County and suddenly to vote in a Presidential Election after you get off work on a Tuesday, your wait time to cast your ballot goes from One Hour to Two Hours!!!

As someone who was only a Thesis shy of a Masters Degree in Political Science, it would be a fascinating study to examine changing Vote Type Patterns, Turnout, and Election Results in Ohio within just the past 8-12 Years....

Special Elections are always tricky business with tons of variables that are not easily controlled using scientific methodology.

Still, we are looking at an overwhelmingly Republican Congressional District, not just in terms of the post 2010 Redistricting Map, but the actual voting patterns of the individual precincts and municipal jurisdictions that fall within the current boundary.

I agree 100% with your fundamental point: "Democrats' performance in the early vote thus far is extremely anamalous", and "we have been operating under the assumption that O'Connor needs to open up a massive lead in the early vote in order to overcome a large GOP edge on election day, which is the conventional wisdom in Ohio"

Ebsy--- I think you're hitting the nail on the head here, especially considering the fact that O'Connor doesn't need to win any County other than Franklin, AND is still holding a lead in Delaware, AND keeping Licking County close.

I'm not even touching the "Other" Vote Share, which if we were to use a conventional 60-40 anti-incumbent Stat would even further add to the Dem Vote numbers....

BTW: I haven't thanked you yet for your A+++ updates and effort posts on this thread!!! It was a bit easier for me running numbers on AZ CD-08 '18 SE, since the EV/ED ratio skews much higher EV than OH CD-12, AND we don't have the whole funky business of "What was the last Partisan Primary You Voted In" as a means of trying to determine voter identity and partisan affiliation.

One Special Request before E-Day (If you have the data and time available) would be to try to separate the ABS-MAIL vs ABS-IVO data by County and "Party ID", as an election sweetener for us all as we move towards the grand finale!!!!

[NOVA Green]

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--- Thks as always for your insightful analysis, as well as your contributions as one of Atlas resident Subject Matter Experts (SME) when it comes to the great state of Ohio.

Here are the US-PRES '04 to '16 numbers from Reynoldsburg.



The Licking County portions of the City are moving Democratic at a PRES level faster than a Hound Dog on a Fox Hunt in the Shires of the UK....

Here are the '04 to '16 US PRES numbers from Granville Village....



Crazy comparing and contrasting '04 vs '16....

Although my PC is overheating, so I'll need to shut-down and restart right now, it's pretty cool for the Dems that they are seeing these types of massive swings among College Educated and Suburban Anglos in Ohio, still even with these types of massive swings in certain parts of Licking County, we have seen even more massive swings between '12 > '16 in areas accounting for a much larger chunk of the Vote Share....

The key to a Democratic Hypothetical Victory in OH CD-12 runs through an extremely narrow pathway that combines both the massive shifts in relatively educated and upper-middle-class Anglo "Metro" voters combined with Obama Democrats in the Cities and smaller communities of "Downstate CD-12), for whom for many Ancestral Republicans he was one of the only Democrats they had ever voted for at a Presidential Level, as well as occasionally voting for DEMs on down-ballot races.

This is one of the tricky dynamics of this race that makes it perhaps a bit more like PA-18 than AZ-08....

Honestly it doesn't completely surprise me, having had the privilege and pleasure of having lived Four Years in the Buckeye State as a Young Man in the Mid '90s, somewhere roughly between Columbus, Dayton, && Cinci.

"Ancestral Democrats" in many of these places will be key--- regardless of 1992/1996 PRES Votes, we can still look at the '00 to '16 Votes....

If Trump shows up at Orange Township in Delware County, and his 'Pub loses the OH CD-12 SE that will be monumental....

[NOVA Green]

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.

Let's take a look at the other Cities / Larger Townships within Licking County:

Granville Township:

Tends to skew a bit younger (College Students?) but still with a fairly high % of residents 35-54 Yrs. MHI = $ 92.8k / YR (Upper Middle-Class). Educated 67% with degree > HS. Occupations- 16% Education (!!!)



So this is very interesting...  Obama actually did significantly worse here than Kerry or Clinton, and 'Pubs carried it by ~ +10% in '08 and '12 and it was basically virtually tied in '04 and '16.

I don't know what the % of the student vote was in the Township versus Granville City, but still one would imagine that the Township is a place where O'Connor might well break even.

Heath- Ohio--- Pop 10.4k--- 6% of County Vote Share

Skews Middle-Aged and Older. MHI $43.7k/Yr. 91% White. 27.1% Degree > HS, Occupations skew heavily working-class (Material Mvmt, Food Services, Transportation, Repair) as well as "pink collar" (Administrative).



So again we have a City in the district with a fairly decent proportion of Obama > Trump voters, as well as a decent % of Kerry '04 voters (40%).

The question remains to what extent O'Connor will be able to get close to the 40% Dem Vote here, to keep overall PUB margins low in the Cities of Licking County.

Now, let's look at the larger population centers of SW Licking County (I already previously covered Reynoldsburg precincts within Licking County).

Pataskala- Pop 15.0k- 9.0% of Licking County Vote Share



So as we can see from the satellite imagery, this City is actually basically the equivalent of an entire township, with a mixture of suburban neighborhoods in the SW corner of the "City", and more clustered population in the Eastern Central part of the "City", with some smaller developments dotted around along some of the main roads, some nice ritzy semi-rural Exurban homes scattered around, and even some farms mixed in around the "City".

Let's look at the age breakdown of Pataskala:



So interestingly enough we actually see a fairly decent cluster of the population clustered in that 25-54 Year Old range, and perhaps most significantly within the context of this election, a very high concentration in the 25-39 Yr age bracket (23%). These voters will likely be critical in determining the overall margins within the City this coming Tuesday.

MHI- $ 65.6k /Yr with 55% of the Households making > $60k/Yr.

Education: 34.1% > HS Degree

Occupations:




So interestingly enough the occupations are a bit all over the place--- one the one hand you have a pretty decent White Collar representation in generally high paying occupations (Business and Management), but you also have a decent representation of relatively decent paying Blue Collar Occupations (Transportation & Construction), and also a hefty chunk of "Pink Collar" occupations (Administrative & Social Services).

Enough of this---- how has Pataskala been voting in recent Presidential Elections?



So, once again we see a pretty decent contingent of Obama '08 / Obama '12 /Trump '16 voters within Pataskala. HRC pretty much destroyed all of the gains that Democrats had made since '04, significantly under-performing John Kerry. On the flip side, although Trump bagged 61% of the Vote in 2016, he still performed worse than George W. Bush in his re-election campaign in 2004.

If O'Connor can revive the Obama '08/'12 coalition in Pataskala of educated Upper-Income voters, and more traditionally working class occupations, he might be able to keep PUB margins down to +12-15% in the Special Election.

As an Exurban Columbus community, one might imagine this would be a place where we could see some major swings compared to the 2016 US PRES results.

Etna Township- Pop 16.3k- 5% of 2016 Vote Share



Those giant white buildings you see in the Center of the Township is a major Amazon Fulfillment Center, and having worked in an FC before for another company, I know how rigorous Warehouse Work can be with 7x24 Hour Operations running 10-12 Hour shifts frequently the industry norm.

Age: 10% 65+, 10% (55-64), 33% (35-54) (!!!), 19% (18-34), 28% (0-17).

Wow--- look at that concentration in the 0-17 Yrs and 35-54 Yrs!!!!

Race/Ethnicity: 78.6% White, 13.9% Black, 2.9% Latino, 2.3% Mixed, 2.0% Asian

Cool--- finally we get a place in Licking County where the Brothers and Sisters are properly represented! This trend will likely continue, considering that the African-American population is most heavily concentrated in both the younger age bracket (0-17 Yrs), as well as the Millennial and Middle-Aged demographic brackets.

Education: 39.1% with Degree > HS.   Township is a bit more Educated than average.

MHI: $ 75.7k/Yr

Occupations:



Hmm interesting--- we see an extremely high level of White Collar highly compensated occupations, compared to what I was expecting.

We do have a decent range of Blue Collar occupations in Transportation and Repair, as well as a slightly higher proportion of occupations in Administrative and Sales than the norm.

How did Etna Township Vote in the 2004 to 2016 US-PRES elections?



So, interestingly enough Etna Township in *Theory* should be significantly more Democratic than Pataskala City, when looking at everything from MHI, Education, Occupations, and Race/Ethnicity.

This is obviously not the case.

To say that Etna Township is solidly Republican would likely be a significant understatement....

Obama only kept the PUBS down to 62% of the Total Presidential Vote in '08/'12. John Kerry only captured 1/3 votes and DJT even exceeded GHWB '04 PUB % in Etna Township.

I don't know why exactly this Township has been so consistently Republican, but it is pretty clear that White voters tend to vote overwhelmingly Republican at all age, income, and occupation levels, compared to most of the larger population centers of Licking County.

O'Connor will be lucky to keep the PUB margins here down to +20% R.

Harrison Township - Pop 7.6k- 6% of Licking County Vote Share.



Ok--- Looking at the satellite imagery, this Township is an interesting smorgasbord of decent sized Exurban Housing Developments around places like Beechwood Trails, as well as smaller sub-divisions along many of the local roads, throw in a quite a bit of what looks like farming areas (Although as a former OH resident, sometimes these farms are really a part-time gig for local farmers that have other day jobs and just make some extra bucks hiring a few people to run the agricultural tools during key parts of the season).

Age: Pop is extremely young 23% (0-17 Years), Millennials under-represented 14% (18-34 Yrs), 33% (35-54 Yrs),

Race/Ethnicity: 97.6% White

Much more lily White than most of the rest of Licking County, which has a pretty low rate of ethnic/racial diversity compared to many of the other medium-sized Counties within Ohio.

MHI: $ 77.2k/Yr

Not bad at all, and considerably higher than the Statewide Average.

Education: 38.9% > HS Diploma

Occupations:



So again, we see a pretty high share the work-force in relatively highly compensated White Collar Occupations (Legal, Mgmt, Business, Science, Computers/Math, etc)....

Interestingly enough we see the highest % of the work-force that are Firefighters of almost any place I've delved into in OH CD-12. We also see a higher rate of Educational Occupations than in many other places, so sounds like we have some Union Teachers floating around in Harrison Township (?).

How did Harrison Township Vote for PRES '04 > '16?



So.... if Etna Township is a tough nut to crack for O'Connor, Harrison Township is an even tougher nut.

On paper both Etna and Harrison Townships look like the types of places where we might expect to see significant Dem shifts within the context of the Trump era, but the reality is that voters in these two townships have not yet exhibited any tendency to indicate a large proportion of persuadable and swing voters that could dramatically change Republican margins.

Maybe Danny O'Connor could do it with the Irish family name:

Harrison Township: 16.1% Irish Ancestry
Etna Township: 17.9% Irish Ancestry
Pataskala City: 14.9% Irish Ancestry
Heath: 17.7% Irish Ancestry
Newark: 16.1% Irish Ancestry

Where I'm going with this is that within the context of Ohio and within Metro-Columbus, the Irish-Americans have faced systematic discrimination in terms of Housing, Employment, etc, and only in the 1960s and 1970s started to move into the Middle-Class without the stigma of Ethnicity and Religion () being a cudgel used to stop their advancement.

Although I tend not to dwell too much on Religious Affiliation (Plus the data is more obscure to pull down by a County/City level), the reality is that White Catholics (Especially "White Ethnics") have traditionally tended to be the major swing voters in Presidential Elections over the past xxx decades.

One must also wonder to what extent Danny O'Connor might be portrayed as part of the Franklin County Democratic machine in suburban/exurban Columbus Precincts.

Still, Irish-Americans tend to self-identify as overwhelmingly Catholic, and Pope Francis has moved the needle significantly to the Global Left on a wide variety of political issues, which is increasingly impacting the Catholic Community within the United States, when it comes to issues such as economic justice and inequality, environmental issues, immigration and social change within the wealthy nations of Europe and North America, etc...

Even Social Issues such as Reproductive Rights (Birth Control), Divorce, and LGBTQ Equality have been re-framed by the Vatican within the era of Pope Francis.

I have no idea to what extent if any this will have an impact in the OH CD-12 Special Election, but still I wonder to what extent Danny O'Connor will significantly over-perform in certain precincts and communities with a High % of traditional "White Ethnic Catholic Swing Voters" this coming Tuesday.