OH-12: Democrats requesting more absentee ballots than Republicans for special election
WASHINGTON — As next week’s 12th Congressional District special election draws near, Democrats continue to outperform Republicans in early voting — one indication that the “enthusiasm gap” between the parties is alive and well in central Ohio.
The party of Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor continues to lap the field in his home county. But perhaps more important, Democrats are holding their own in Delaware and Licking counties, areas where Republicans have dominated early voting in recent years. Supporters of GOP state Sen. Troy Balderson of Zanesville had predicted that Republicans would close an early lead by Democrats because the GOP’s mass mailings of absentee ballot applications came after the Democrats’.
With a week of early voting left, Democrats in the Franklin County portion of the 12th district have asked for almost three times as many mail-in absentee ballots as Republicans, 4,232 to 1,508. The Democrats’ advantage is even greater among those who already have cast an early in-person vote: 87 percent of the major-party tallies, or 2,443 to 362.
In the 2016 general election, when Donald Trump and then-Rep. Pat Tiberi were on the ballot, Franklin County Republicans cast 52 person of early votes among the two major parties. Tiberi, a Genoa Township Republican, quit in January, leading to a special election to fill his seat.
The Aug. 7 race will decide which candidate fills the rest of Tiberi’s term through early January. The same two candidates will face each other in November to hold the seat for the next two years.
In Delaware County, 54 percent of the major-party early absentee applications have come from Democrats. In 2016, Republicans cast 70 percent of the early votes in Ohio’s fastest-growing county.
In Licking County, which Vice President Mike Pence is visiting Monday in an attempt to boost GOP turnout, 49 percent of the major-party absentee ballot requests have come from Democrats. In November 2016, 68 percent of the early votes came from Republicans.
During an interview Sunday on “ABC’s This Week,” Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Upper Arlington, who heads the House Republican re-election effort, did not directly address the special election.
But he said he is “confident that we are going to hold our majority (in the November elections) because our message is working and our policies are working. The economy is growing at a faster rate than it’s grown in years and years and we’re keeping people safe at home and abroad.”
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180729/democrats-requesting-more-absentee-ballots-than-republicans-for-special-election
= new reply since forum marked as read
