NEWS

Who will win early voting in Ohio?

Chrissie Thompson
cthompson@enquirer.com
Democrats are counting on registration efforts from volunteers like these to help them build a lead during early voting, which starts Wednesday in Ohio. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

COLUMBUS - The election is here. We really mean it this time.

The quintessential swing state begins voting Wednesday, at county locations and via mail, as Ohioans weigh which historic candidate should receive the state's historic nod.

Yes, this is technically "early" voting, but it has become so popular the modifier diminishes its import. A third of Ohio's 5.6 million votes in 2012 were cast before Election Day, and data puts the state on track for an early-voting record in 2016.

For Democrats, the next four weeks of voting offer a chance to build up a lead. Republicans face a test of how the Donald Trump controversy will affect turnout – and a chance to prove they finally understand the state's early-voting dynamics.

Voting early: What you need to know

Winning the election before Election Day

Underestimate the power of early voting at your peril. Just ask Mitt Romney.

Ohio Republicans tend to be reliable voters, the kind of people who have driven to the polls on Election Day for decades. After all, the state only implemented no-questions-asked early voting after the 2004 election, when long lines meant thousands of Ohioans left their polling places without casting ballots.

The GOP's 2012 election modeling assumed Romney could win the state on Election Day, even though Democrats were pressing to turn out early voters, especially in cities.

"Mitt Romney won Election Day," said Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. But President Barack Obama won the election. Democrats had built too big a lead.

Heading in to 2016, Republicans knew they couldn't take their voters' turnout for granted. They had to grow the population of registered Republicans and press their less-reliable voters to vote early. They had to approach the election, in a way, like Democrats.

"We couldn't get decimated in early vote," Borges said. "If you're a new registrant and you haven't voted by Election Day, I have to assume you're not going to vote."

Early voting is often portrayed as a convenience used by urban, low-income and minority voters, who are more likely to vote only in presidential elections, who might have transportation trouble or inflexible work shifts on Election Day, or who live in areas with long lines. And who are more likely to vote Democratic.

Those folks do vote early. Ohio's three largest counties – Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton, which contain its three largest cities – combined for 1.6 million early or absentee voters in 2012. That's more than a quarter of the total votes cast in Ohio that year.

But they're not the only ones voting early, either in person or by mail. The top 10 Ohio counties by early-voting percentage in 2012 included rural areas in southeast, northwest and central Ohio, plus suburban Columbus. Only two of those counties – Cuyahoga and Franklin – went to Obama.

This year, Republicans say they're wooing early voters. And it's working, they say. Parties track absentee returns, then match voters' party registration with information designed to show their likelihood of showing up to vote and supporting the whole ticket.

A Republican analysis of absentee returns last week showed Republicans trailing Democrats, but by less than usual. It's too early to say how the growing unease toward Trump among Republican officials will affect the rate of return on those ballots or the rate of requests over the next few weeks.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman's campaign has done the most door-to-door outreach among Ohio Republicans. Now, the campaign is targeting sympathetic voters with personalized ads, such as on Facebook, that give information about how to request an absentee ballot or vote early. That comment Borges made about turning out voters before Election Day? He's made it over and over again, pleading with donors to fund efforts to follow up with Republican-leaning voters to make sure they vote before Election Day.

Crucial to Republicans' efforts: turning Trump supporters who voted in Ohio's primary, sometimes for the first time in decades, into reliable November voters. A lot of first-time or infrequent Republican voters from counties Trump won in the Ohio primary have requested absentee ballots, the GOP analysis shows. Republicans take that as a good sign those voters will show up in the general election – although their receptiveness to the full GOP's efforts to woo them may decline as leaders such as Portman reject Trump.

Even the Trump campaign, which has relied on the GOP for much of its grassroots outreach and organization, paid for an early-voting tweet last week. (While the tweet said "A LOT" of Ohioans had already voted, which is generally untrue, a campaign spokesman later clarified the message referred to military and overseas voting, which started Sept. 24.) Trump is planning a rally in Cincinnati Thursday, the day after early voting starts.

'Bank your vote'

Take a look at Democrats' schedule this week, and you get an idea of the importance they place on Ohio's early voting.

A concert from John Legend in Cincinnati Sunday. An appearance by Hillary Clinton in Columbus Monday, hours after her debate with Trump. The Democrats' annual "state dinner" Thursday, with Obama as guest speaker. A pro-Clinton rally by Obama in Cleveland Friday.

The message at all of those events? "Vote early, bank your vote and, as we say, spend the rest of the election helping others vote," said David Pepper, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

Democrats say they've been prepping their voters for weeks, starting with efforts to register new voters among demographics that lean Democratic, such as young people, urban residents and minorities. Locations have ranged from Waffle Houses in the middle of the night to "Pokemon Go" spots.

One motivator: If a person last voted in 2008, when Obama was first elected, her or his voter registration may have been deleted. Tens of thousands of such voters were taken off the rolls under a controversial practice of purging infrequent voters who don't respond to a post card mailed to their address.

To win Ohio, Clinton has been trying to win over Obama's voters, especially African Americans. Black voters in Ohio often support Clinton, but some lack the enthusiasm they had for Obama's historic election.

In 2008, African-Americans turned out in part because of the "Big Mama effect," said state Rep. Alicia Reece, D-Roselawn.

State Rep. Alicia Reece, a Democrat, speaks to supporters on Oct. 4 at a newly-opened organizing office for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The office is in Reece's home neighborhood of Roselawn. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

"Grandma told everyone to get out and vote" because of what African-Americans went through in their struggle for equality, said Reece, who is president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. This year, "when you connect that past of where we were before Reconstruction and where we are now and what we have to lose, I think you'll see people coming out in droves."

Democrats have been registering voters at historically black churches and are preparing for a key Democratic turnout mechanism: Souls to the Polls. Historically black churches head to early-voting locations together, often on Sunday afternoons the two weekends before the election, sharing rides or using transportation provided by campaign staffers or volunteers.

But Democrats say absentee ballot applications give them reason for optimism as well. Even before last weekend's turmoil over Trump's 2005 comments, Ohio's biggest urban counties, where Clinton is likely to defeat Trump, were accounting for a higher percentage of Ohio's absentee applications than in 2012, Democrats say. Cuyahoga County, home to Democratic stronghold Cleveland, itself was accounting for one in six absentee ballot requests, said Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager.

"The more of our supporters that we get to turn out before Election Day," Mook said, "the fewer of them we need to talk to and get to turn out on Election Day."

How Southwest Ohio is trending

Absentee ballot applications by party registration, as of Thursday evening:

Hamilton County: Democratic - 15,696; Republican - 25,711; Other/no party - 32,532

Butler County: Democratic - 3,036; Republican - 9,963; Other/no party - 12,710

Clermont County: Democratic - 2,369; Republican - 8,488; Other/no party - 7,815

Warren County: Democratic - 2,540; Republican - 10,035; Other/no party - 10,136