geekyIn recent elections, Ohio has been a battleground state. In 2012 President Barack Obama won the popular vote in Ohio with 50.67% of the vote over Mitt Romney, who received 47.69%, giving Obama a victory margin of 2.98%. This repeats a pattern in which Ohio has given its electoral votes to the candidate who was elected president in every election since 1964.
If this pattern continues, that bodes well for Donald Trump. He has been trending upward in state polls, and the most recent amalgamation of polling data compiled by RealClearPolitics shows Trump leading Clinton by 2.5%. Even Nate Silver, in his website FiveThirtyEight.Com gives Trump a 57.2% chance of winning the state, compared to 42.8% for Clinton. Over the course of the past few weeks, polls in the state have shifted the lead back and forth.
On the ground, local observers note that Democrats are suffering a drop off in the early vote numbers that they have traditionally relied on for victory. According to Trump's communications adviser Jason Miller, Trump is outperforming Romney in that regard, while Clinton is under-performing from Obama's numbers in 2012. Trump supporters also note that Trump has been turning out tens of thousands of supporters for events across the country. It's difficult to determine if this is an indication of support, or simply people wanting to see the novelty candidate. In the closing days of the 2012 election, Mitt Romney also drew large crowds, but this did not translate to a Romney victory.
The Clinton campaign notes that more Ohioans have voted early in person than the 306,776 who did so at the same point in 2012, and they see this as a good sign for their campaign. This does not include any totals from in-person voting at local boards of elections over the weekend.
One early vote Donald Trump did not get was that of Republican Governor John Kasich. The Ohio governor said that when he voted last Monday, he wrote in Arizona Senator John McCain as his choice for president on his absentee ballot.
President Obama has campaigned for Clinton in the state and so has National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Anne Holton (wife of Democratic vice presidential hopeful Tim Kaine), and Bernie Sander. For the Republican candidate, Donald Trump Jr. has a Youth for Trump event at Ohio State University. Trump himself has been campaigning in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and North Carolina. He appears more confident of victory in the buckeye state.
The election campaign has been ugly and even smelly at times. For example, a load of manure was dumped at the Warren County Democratic Party Headquarters by James R. Pinell of Lebanon, who has been charged with criminal mischief. Pinell told reporters that he did the deed, stating that he was "fed up with the Democratic Party" and that the manure he left was retaliation "for all the garbage they've been putting out on us."
Here's how the state voted in the 2012 election. As you can see by the map, areas of Democratic Party strength have been primarily in the cities, while the rural areas and smaller communities have supported the Republican Party.
Ohio will be interesting to watch on next Tuesday night. If it goes for Trump, will that translate to a Trump victory in the election? And will Trump's strategy of campaigning in states that appear to be in Clinton's column pay off? Stay tuned to history being made.