From our old friend Adrian Gray:
OHIO in one tweet: 220k fewer Dems have voted vs 2008, 30k more GOP. That’s net 250k. Obama won by 260k in ’08. Now 11 days left.
— Adrian Gray (@adrian_gray) October 26, 2012
This doesn’t even touch the 15-18 point swing in the Independent vote from 2008 to today among other metrics breaking Romney’s way.
Battleground Watch 
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The GOP turnout is heavier on election day also isn’t it? nice to see some good news after the rolaids inducing posts on the status of NV and CO.
CO?
Probably referring to the poll from NBC that shows CO tied. I looked at the internals on that one and am not worried. Around 75% of the people in it said they were voting early. I don’t buy its numbers.
I just looked an ARG poll on RCP which shows Obama leading in Ohio by 2 pts. The main problem with these polls is the heavy Democrat weight of the polls. This particular poll has a D+9, which is not going to happen. If you look at the Gallup article today about the make-up of the national party affilation it shows more people are defining themselves with the Republican party. Very diiferent from 2008. So if this is true then many people are going to be shocked on election night.
Have to remember that there wasn’t a 2012 Dem primary in OH. Don’t know of the net is really 250k
National polls out already today:
PPP shifts +1 to Romney from their last one, now tied at 48/48
IPSOS shifts +2 to Romney from their last one, now R+1, from 45/46 to 47/46 Romney
Rasmussen stays the same 50/47 Romney
50/47 Romney in OH?
No. National
Ras is pushing his sample to almost D+6 to keep it 50/47.
I read somewhere that voter ID on early voting is obtained from primary voting and that Ohio allows crossovers. A couple of questions this raises:
1. Could the R numbers be D voters who crossed over to vote for the perceived weaker R candidate in the primary.
2. If that is the case, how would the campaigns identify such voters in a push for early voting.
Is there anyway to forecast the impact of this?
You are correct: Ohio identifies a voter’s party by the last primary they voted in. If a Democrat voted in the Republican primary this year, he’s a Republican. A voter who has never voted in a partisan primary is an Independent.
New Gravis Iowa poll, great numbers past the top line:
http://www.gravispolls.com/2012/10/iowa-public-opinion-poll-shows-obama.html
IT gets old, but Iowa is a state we know where the RDI will be 0-1 either way, not a +6D. Not gonna happen.
“Governor Romney leads President Obama with independent voters by a margin of 48 to 36 percent. Both candidates received more than 90 percent support from members of their own party.”
http://www.redstate.com/2012/09/27/tracking-ohios-absentee-ballot-requests/
Attached contains the 88 counties concerning early voting / absentee ballot requests, which the author tries to update daily. Dems are up in early voting – no surprise. Remember this is based on how an individual voted in the last primary. Huffington Post likes to suggest that many Dems switched this past year to Republican due to little activity in Dem primary. I find that assumption comical. GOP turnout is heavier on election day, which many feel that is the only way to vote and some people do not know they can early vote at county Board of Elections. I believe McCain won Ohio on election day, but was behind 280,000 early votes!
How would an ex-staffer be in the know?
I keep saying this — interpreting the Ohio early vote is risky. Other than Ohio’s wonky party ID system, there have been changes to both in-person and absentee voting that make direct 2008/2012 comparisons unreliable.
Doug, I agree. I shared the link as a tool for analysis and to dispute Dem claims to superior than 2008 voter numbers. These are not “hard” votes and will not know until Nov 6th. I do feel as a Buckeye voter, Ohio has GOP leanings: GOP sweep in 2010 election and 2011 repeal of Obamacare in light of SB 5 on the same ballot. There might be some hard feelings toward GOP from SB 5?
I hope I didn’t seem to be criticizing your link — if so, that’s not what I meant. There’s just been a lack of context in the press about Ohio’s early vote procedures.
Well, I’ve been lurking on this site for a few weeks now and thought I’d come out and say hello. I also happen to be stuck in a dark blue area, and often feel like I am a one-man conservative enclave! I won’t pretend I was in love with Romney, but am really pulling for him now even if for no other reason than to get Obama out. I’ve become quite addicted to polling, despite my misgivings on how on earth polling a few hundred people can be expected to be reliably extrapolated to state populations totally in the tens of millions…. But either way, I hope Romney pulls through. Would love to see him take NH and Wisconsin.
Aaron you’re not alone. Many ‘closet’ conservatives lurking in deep blue states.
Doug, no I did not feel you were criticizing my post. I agree we can not take the numbers for granted and assume this will tilt in GOP favor. The Ohio voter party ID is wonky and frustrating. Folks outside of the Buckeye state do not always get the big picture and the complete details concerning Ohio early voting from liberal news media. I voted early for the first time last week. I wanted to see the procedure first hand. It was simple, but I did not have to show any form of ID. I did have to sign my absentee ballot application and provide the last four digits of my SS# or drivers license #. This is concerning to me and maybe why Dems are in favor of early voting?
The reporting on Ohio’s early vote has been _horrible_. They’ll report numbers, but no details about the procedures to give the numbers any context.
The ARG Ohio poll out today has O +2, with D+9 and Romney winning independents by +19. That is totally out of wack, yet Romney is only down 2. Is this the early voting anomaly at work?
The early voting numbers are very mis leading. In Ohio they can’t register as Dem or Rep. It is based on which party’s primary you voted in last. How many people do you think voted in the Dem primary in 2012? Of course that are going to be more “Repub” voters showing up. But it means nothing.
Kind of silly. How many Dems are going to vote in a republican primary when low% vote in an actual pres election? What’s silly is obamas claim that voters from precincts he won are voting in large numbers when all the precincts have changed. Quite silly.
Was this early in-person voting, absentee ballots only, or both combined? I’ve been watching the absentee ballots and it looks like the Republicans have had a complete turnaround in the absentee ballots. They have shaved 9 points off Cuyahoga county alone. Statewide Republicans cut Dems advantage down by nearly 9 1/2 points.