Democrats take House delegation

Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy of Columbus was declared the winner of a razor-thin Columbus-area congressional seat. More than a month after Election Day, provisional ballots pushed Kilroy over the finish line.

Democrats now hold 10 of the 18 congressional seats that represent Ohio. Pretty incredible, considering that Republicans drew the districts earlier this decade and, going into the 2006 cycle, they controlled 12 of 18 seats.

Kilroy’s fate now appears tied to Democratic President-elect Barack Obama. A bad two years for Obama will put Kilroy and other new Democratic congressional representatives in tough shape. A new president’s party typically takes losses in midterm congressional elections, although Republicans bucked that trend in 2002.

The caucus that wasn’t there

Ohio Democrats are celebrating state Treasurer Richard Cordray’s blowout win in the attorney general’s race and their conquest of the Ohio House. The Democrats’ actual advantage probably will be 52-47 or 53-46, depending on two close races.  The Republicans currently lead the chamber 53-46. Democrat Armond Budish of Beachwood appears poised to become speaker.

However, the Democrats again laid a dinosaur egg in the Ohio Senate. They lost 13 of 16 seats, and the Republicans retain a 21-12 advantage there.

None of the 13 races that Republicans won were close.

Now, it’s hard to criticize what the state party set out to do and accomplished this cycle. The goal, clearly, was to take the House. And the party accomplished it. And, keep in mind, the Democrats won their new House advantage playing in districts that Republicans drew earlier this decade. Typically, the party that draws the lines wins the House, although not always — legendary Ohio House Speaker Vern Riffe and the Democrats held on to the Ohio House in 1992 despite competing in GOP-drawn districts.

Still, the Democrats won’t be truly ascendant in Ohio until they start competing in the Senate.

Column: How Obama won Ohio

My Nov. 6 Chronicle-Telegram print column:

Ohio wasn’t the decisive state in this presidential election. There was none. Subtract any state from Democrat Barack Obama’s tally of Electoral College votes, and he still would be sworn in Jan. 20 as the nation’s 44th president.

Nor was Ohio the symbolic state in this election. That’s Virginia. Seven generations ago, Virginia’s capital, Richmond, was the capital of the Confederate States of America, which broke away from the United States in large part to preserve the right of white men to own black men. In 2008, the Commonwealth of Virginia, 73.3 percent white, voted to make a black man the president of the union.

No, Ohio merely was what it nearly always is in presidential elections: reflective of the nation as a whole. It is the slightly center-right bellwether of this trending-leftward nation. Ohio barely favors the Republican Party in presidential elections, all else equal. But all else, after eight years of bungling from Republican President George W. Bush, wasn’t equal in this election. Ohio and the nation can smell when the Republican Party, like expired milk, turns sour. They acted accordingly.

Obama won Ohio in part by finally uniting Ohio’s three most populous counties — Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Franklin (Columbus) and Hamilton (Cincinnati) — under the Democratic banner, something no Democrat had done since Lyndon B. Johnson’s 62.9 percent landslide in Ohio 44 years ago.

The Democrats have come a long way. In 1988, when Republican George H.W. Bush won Ohio and the presidency, his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, won Cuyahoga with 58.8 percent of the vote. But he took only 39.1 percent and 37.9 percent in Franklin and Hamilton, respectively. On Tuesday, Obama took 68.5 percent in Cuyahoga, 59 percent in Franklin and 52.1 percent in Hamilton. Flipping Hamilton — Franklin has been Democratic since 1996 — is a remarkable achievement; it generally is one of the most Republican urban counties in the nation, and it gave 52.5 percent of its vote to George W. Bush in 2004.

The big urban haul meant Obama didn’t suffer from his poorer performances in the rest of the state. In 1996, Democrat Bill Clinton won 39 of Ohio’s 88 counties; Obama won only 21.

But Obama successfully cut his losses, outperforming Democrat John Kerry’s performance in 2004 in some key downstate counties. Kerry took 43.9 percent in reliable Ohio bellwether Tuscarawas County in 2004; this time, Obama flipped the county south of Canton, taking 50.1 percent. Obama lost another southeast Ohio county, Hocking, by 1 point; Kerry lost it by nearly 6.

Obama also turned parts of bedrock Republican northwest Ohio a lighter shade of red. Lorain County’s western neighbor, Huron, went for Bush in 2004 by more than 16 percentage points; Obama held Republican nominee John McCain to less than a 3-point win this time.

Probably helping Obama were his resources here. He had double Kerry’s amount of field offices and triple the number of staffers in Ohio, according to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder.

But in the end, Ohio simply did what it now has done in 27 of the past 29 presidential elections: follow the nation while slightly favoring the Republican candidate.

In the 10 presidential elections prior to this one, the average Republican running in Ohio did about 0.7 percentage points better here than in the nation as a whole. The average Democrat did about 0.9 points worse.

Based on that admittedly small sample, it’s unsurprising that Obama underperformed by about 1.2 points in Ohio (51.2 percent here to 52.4 percent nationally), while McCain did 0.9 points better (47.2 percent) in Ohio than he did nationally (46.3 percent). (Figures were the most complete available late Wednesday afternoon.)

Yes, those differences are tiny. That’s the point.

As Ohio goes, so goes the nation; as the nation goes, so goes Ohio. With its vast rural stretches and large cities, Ohio is a microcosm of the nation. That shows when we elect presidents.

Photo: Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., arrives at a rally in Cincinnati on Sunday (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Ohio for Obama

MSNBC, Fox call Ohio for Obama. This election is over.

What all those donations buy

Just saw a piece of Obama literature that was hung on a colleague’s door. The mailer not only had Ohio-specific voting instructions, but it also had his specific precinct information printed on it.

This is what the political pros call “microtargeting.” And I imagine it’s happening on a national scale.

There are 11,393 precincts in the state of Ohio.

That’s quite a printing job, no?

Cuyahoga County update

All eyes are going to be on Lorain County’s eastern neighbor tonight. As a Lakewood voter, I had a pleasant experience, getting in and out in about 15 minutes at my polling place.

The Plain Dealer has a mid-morning wrap-up reporting that voting basically is going OK, despite some early-morning long lines.

Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic notes that, “In Cuyahoga County, only two percent of poll workers were no-shows. That’s a vast improvement over last cycles.”

In Lorain County, we reported this morning that more than a fifth of all registered voters had voted before Election Day.

UPDATE: More smooth(ish) sailing, reports the PD and Dayton Daily News. This can’t last, can it?

Share your voting stories from anywhere across Ohio in the comments.

Photo: Florence White, 77, casts her ballot in the “Little Italy” neighborhood Tuesday in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

One congressional race…

… I didn’t really mention in my analysis yesterday was the 15th Congressional District, which includes the western half of Franklin County (Columbus) along with bedrock Republican counties Madison and Union.

Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Columbus, came within about 1,000 votes of defeating Republican incumbent Deborah Pryce, R-Upper Arlington. Pryce is retiring, and Kilroy is running again against state Sen. Steve Stivers, R-Columbus.

The polling favors Kilroy, though I’ve got a funny feeling about this one. For what it’s worth, the Columbus Dispatch savaged Kilroy in its endorsement of Stivers. Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland ran more than 12 percentage points better than Kilroy in 2006, meaning that voters there are perfectly capable of splitting their tickets against Kilroy. Or Republican John McCain might have a positive effect on Stivers’ chances. The district contains Columbus suburbs such as Upper Arlington and Hilliard, which were Bush Country in 2004, as were Madison (63.9 percent for Bush in 2004) and Union (70.1 percent) counties.

Provided that Ohio goes for Democrat Barack Obama — which I think it will, albeit barely — Republicans across the state are going to be looking for glimmers of hope. The outcome of this congressional seat could be the difference between a bad night and a horrible night for Republicans.

The McCain camp…

… is right. I wouldn’t pay much attention to the exit polls we’ll inevtiably hear about tomorrow.

If Virginia is called early for Democrat Barack Obama (before 9 p.m.), Obama’s gonna win this thing handily.

UPDATE: More reasons to ignore the exit polls.

The Big 18

One of the other storylines of tomorrow’s election is whether Democrats can take control of the state’s delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Currently, Ohio has 11 Republicans in the House and seven Democrats.

The seven Democrats are very safe. That includes Lorain County’s two U.S. House representatives, Betty Sutton of Copley Township and Marcy Kaptur of Toledo. Both face nominal Republican challengers, neither of whom have held public office. The only Democrat thought to be in trouble this cycle was Zack Space of Dover, but he has had a successful first term replacing the corrupt Republican Bob Ney.  Incumbents have an advantage in his sprawling 18th Congressional District, where there is no dominant media market in which to air advertisements.

In order to take control of the delegation, Democrats need to win two seats. One of them probably will be the Canton-area seat currently held by retiring U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Navarre. State Sen. John Boccieri, D-Alliance, appears poised to defeat state Sen. Kirk Schuring, R-Jackson Township.

Winning the other seat will be difficult but doable. Democrats are well positioned to win a Columbus-area seat and two Cincinnati-area seats, and I suspect their best chance will come in the the 1st District seat held by U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati. Chabot only won by 4.5 percentage points in 2006, and he faces a good challenger, state Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Cincinnati.

As Salon recently pointed out, Chabot might be caught up in a Democratic wave. His district is about 28.5 percent black, which means that if black voters turn out in large numbers to vote for Democrat Barack Obama, Chabot could be in deep trouble.

That said, this is a Republican district. In 2006, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland nearly lost the district (49.04 percent to 48.49 percent) to his otherwise hapless Republican opponent, J. Kenneth Blackwell.

I think the Democrats will pick up at least one U.S. House seat in Ohio, probably the Regula seat. If everything goes right, they could get two or three more.

CORRECTION: Actually, Democrats need to win three seats to take a majority (10-8) of the state’s House delegation.

The GOP legions

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the still-imposing Republican ground game in Ohio. Reading this article, it becomes very apparent that the McCain campaign picked Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential nominee for a singular purpose: exciting the GOP base in order to kick-start the evangelical-driven get out the vote machine that helped Republican George W. Bush carry Ohio in 2004:

Ms. Viars, who has been putting pro-McCain fliers on windshields, has been involved in Republican and anti-abortion politics for 20 years. But ahead of Ohio’s presidential primary, she worked hard for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. She helped to get him on the ballot in Ohio and stuck with him even when it was clear that Sen. McCain had the nomination wrapped up.

Then, in late June, she and other social conservatives met with Sen. McCain, and urged him to choose an anti-abortion running mate. She sent the campaign a check for $1 and wrote in the memo field, “More to come if you pick a conservative running mate.” When Sen. McCain publicly floated the idea of a vice-presidential nominee who supports abortion rights, Ms. Viars complained loudly to her contacts at the campaign.

On Aug. 29, Sen. McCain was set to announce his pick in nearby Dayton, and like many others, Ms. Viars thought it would be Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who opposes abortion. She was fine with that. She painted a sign, “Conservatives for McCain-Pawlenty,” and put it in her trunk as she and two friends set out for the event.

On the way, she got a call from her contact in the campaign, “We’re hearing it’s Sarah Palin,” he told her. The three friends began to squeal with joy. They never dreamed they’d get a strong social conservative, a Christian and a woman to boot. “It was like the Beatles had arrived,” she said.

Ever since, Ms. Viars has been fully dedicated to the cause. She spends hours making calls at phone banks. She spreads the word about McCain events in the area and this week, she plans to blast-email more than 2,000 people her picks for the election. “McCain picked a conservative [for his running mate] like we had hoped,” she says. “We have to keep our end of the bargain.”

The piece also mentions Warren and Butler counties, conservative Cincinnati exurbs where there has been more of a Democratic presence this election. Bush won 66 percent of the vote in Butler in 2004, and 72 percent in Warren.

These will be interesting counties to watch on election night. If Obama can shave five percentage points off the Republican tally in either or both of them, that’s a good sign he’ll win Ohio. Butler and Warren counties are to Republicans what Cuyahoga County is to Democrats — crucial places where getting anything less than two-thirds of the vote would be a disappointment. Cuyahoga, FYI, gave 67 percent of its vote to Democrat John Kerry in 2004.