Ohio Ballot Issue 1 Megathread (August 8)

[Minnesota Mike]

I am surprised at how good the turnout is, it looks like it will be around 3 Mil using NYT estimates. Considering this is the "sets the rules" amendment and not the actual abortion amendment I have to give both sides props for turning out their people.

[BigZuck08]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

[Oryxslayer]

AP projects it for No.

[GALeftist]

Frank LaRose in the mud. Love to see it!

[Lief 🗽]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

Yeah, the Ohio reporting is always a huge blue mirage, Biden and Ryan also had leads in the 60s into the evening. I think No will end up winning by 10 points or so.

[BigZuck08]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

Yeah, the Ohio reporting is always a huge blue mirage, Biden and Ryan also had leads in the 60s into the evening. I think No will end up winning by 10 points or so.

Same.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Ashtabula County - 72% in

"YES" - 50.05%

"NO" - 49.95%

Obama won this county by double digits, and now they're all partisan Republicans. Sad!

Every election now is large metro areas going "You know we're living in a society! We're supposed to act in a civilized way!" and rural areas going "But what if we didn't?"

[BigZuck08]

My official statement concerning this election has just been released:

"Today Ohioans have rejected a blatant power grab manifested by the Ohio Republican Party. Today Ohioans went to the polls to vote on Issue 1, which is an issue that would make it harder to amend changes to the state's constitution. Ohioans saw it for what it is, and rejected it, overwhelmingly. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all came together in a rare moment of bipartisanship -- and said no to the greedy politicians and special interests. Today is a great day for democracy and bipartisanship within the state of Ohio, and a bad one for special interests in the state."

Thoughts?

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

Yeah, the Ohio reporting is always a huge blue mirage, Biden and Ryan also had leads in the 60s into the evening. I think No will end up winning by 10 points or so.

Same.

Feels about right. Maybe 12 depending on turnout disparities, but something in the ballpark of this.

[TML]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

Well, as mentioned earlier, the typical reporting pattern in recent OH statewide elections is for Democrats to start out with an initial lead (as early/absentee votes are reported first) and then for Republicans to chip away at the Democratic lead and (usually) overtake Democrats into the lead at some point. Thus, on Election Night 2024, we should expect Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown to be ahead in the time period immediately after polls close, but we still need to see the results from key counties (in this case, Butler, Cuyahoga, Delaware, Franklin, Hamilton, Lake, Lorain, Lucas, Mahoning, Stark, Summit, and Warren) in order to get a better sense of which party/candidate is on track to win.

[WalterWhite]

All of the vote in Athens County is in, and "NO" has officially won the county with over 70% of the vote.

[BigZuck08]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

Well, as mentioned earlier, the typical reporting pattern in recent OH statewide elections is for Democrats to start out with an initial lead (as early/absentee votes are reported first) and then for Republicans to chip away at the Democratic lead and (usually) overtake Democrats into the lead at some point. Thus, on Election Night 2024, we should expect Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown to be ahead in the time period immediately after polls close, but we still need to see the results from key counties (in this case, Butler, Cuyahoga, Delaware, Franklin, Hamilton, Lake, Lorain, Lucas, Mahoning, Stark, Summit, and Warren) in order to get a better sense of which party/candidate is on track to win.

Makes sense.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm watching the election still and "Yes" is starting to gain votes, Fulton, Williams, Ashtabula, and a bunch of other southern Ohio counties flipped to Yes.

At least "No" was already declared the winner.

Well, as mentioned earlier, the typical reporting pattern in recent OH statewide elections is for Democrats to start out with an initial lead (as early/absentee votes are reported first) and then for Republicans to chip away at the Democratic lead and (usually) overtake Democrats into the lead at some point. Thus, on Election Night 2024, we should expect Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown to be ahead in the time period immediately after polls close, but we still need to see the results from key counties (in this case, Butler, Cuyahoga, Delaware, Franklin, Hamilton, Lake, Lorain, Lucas, Mahoning, Stark, Summit, and Warren) in order to get a better sense of which party/candidate is on track to win.

Makes sense.

Yep.

[Minnesota Mike]

NO raw vote lead had been holding pretty steady at between 250-275K. ED vote looks to be splitting roughly 50/50.

[WalterWhite]

Portage, Mahoning, and Lake Counties are all still to the left of the state. Trumbull is only about a point to the right of the state. Some interesting electoral trends are happening in Northeast Ohio.

[Nyvin]

The margin will be kinda-sorta close and not a blowout.  The suburbs are rejecting the measure very strongly but the low turnout in the inner cities is kinda counteracting that.

[Sestak]

NO raw vote lead had been holding pretty steady at between 250-275K. ED vote looks to be splitting roughly 50/50.

Note that the ED vote we've gotten is mostly from redder areas of the state; would expect some of the remainder should be a touch more favorable to No.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Portage, Mahoning, and Lake Counties are all still to the left of the state. Trumbull is only about a point to the right of the state. Some interesting electoral trends are happening in Northeast Ohio.

Dave Wassermann commented: "The final Ohio Issue 1 map could end up looking a lot like the '18 Senate race map, where Sherrod Brown's strength/religious conservatives' weakness with blue-collar voters in eastern Ohio proved decisive."

[Tintrlvr]

I'm honestly pretty impressed that the state Republicans managed to convince conservative rural voters to vote for something that seems so obviously against usual rural conservative populist principles. I guess in this case voters were relatively adept at figuring out the referendum was really about abortion. Too bad for the anti-abortion Republicans that this result also indicates that the abortion referendum is going to sail through.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I'm honestly pretty impressed that the state Republicans managed to convince conservative rural voters to vote for something that seems so obviously against usual rural conservative populist principles. I guess in this case voters were relatively adept at figuring out the referendum was really about abortion. Too bad for the anti-abortion Republicans that this result also indicates that the abortion referendum is going to sail through.

I think there's no longer any question that abortion is a losing issue for Republicans in all but the (non-Atlas) reddest areas following Dobbs, and that this wasn't just a short-term effect.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's hilarious how owned Republicans are on this issue, but also incredibly aggravating how stupid voters are.

The Republican Party has run on abortion restrictions being its #1 issue for decades, and been rewarded for it with absolute power in Ohio, as well as control of its 18 electoral votes in the past two elections.

Yet those same voters who overwhelmingly voted to put the GOP in power have now voted overwhelmingly against the GOP on its signature issue.

It really does show how powerful the culture war is.  Voting Republican is almost entirely about vibes for a great many people who oppose nearly everything the Republican Party stands for but will go to their graves voting R.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Looking more like No +10. I didn't expect it to narrow by this much.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

NO raw vote lead had been holding pretty steady at between 250-275K. ED vote looks to be splitting roughly 50/50.

Note that the ED vote we've gotten is mostly from redder areas of the state; would expect some of the remainder should be a touch more favorable to No.

https://twitter.com/umichvoter/status/1689083154403901440

[WalterWhite]

It appears as if there were more voters than expected. DDHQ had to decrease the projected percentage of votes in. Turnout is surprisingly high for a special election.

[WalterWhite]

Ashtabula County - 85% in

"NO" - 50.66%

"YES" - 49.34%