With just over two weeks until Election Day, Ohio’s early vote is sending House Republicans a clear warning: the red counties they’re relying on aren’t delivering the way they used to.
New reporting from CNN finds that in Ohio counties Trump carried by 20 points or more, Republicans’ early-vote advantage has fallen from 30 points at this point in 2024 to just five. That’s a serious problem for House Republicans whose path in Ohio runs straight through Trump country.
This year, “there are clear signs Democrats are more enthusiastic to vote,” with Democrats “mak[ing] up larger shares of pre-election voters than they did two years ago, even in the most Republican parts of the state.”
Just this morning, the New York Times revealed the Republican National Committee is circulating “data from Ohio showing Democrats outperforming Republicans in early vote, absentee votes and ballot requests compared with 2022 and 2018.”
Read more about Democrats’ early momentum in Ohio:
CNN: Early voting figures suggest Democratic gains in Ohio’s most Trump-friendly counties
- After the first days of early voting in Ohio […] there are clear signs Democrats are more enthusiastic to vote.
- So far, affiliated Democrats make up larger shares of pre-election voters than they did two years ago, even in the most Republican parts of the state.
- At this point in 2024, Republicans had a 30-percentage point lead over Democrats in counties that voted for President Donald Trump by 20 points or more, according to data from the Ohio Secretary of State. This year, that’s shrunk to just five points.
- Voters in other counties have also shifted, including in the counties that voted most strongly for former Vice President Kamala Harris, where they’re about 25 points more Democratic.
- That’s happening at the same time that the state’s most Democratic places are also turning out more quickly than the most Republican places.
- Those counties that went most strongly for Harris were at 74% of their turnout from the same point in 2024, while the strongest Trump counties were at 67%.
New York Times: Republicans in Ohio Are Worried About Turnout. Here’s What They’re Doing About it.
- Just two volunteers showed up on a recent weekday at a Republican Party campaign office near Cleveland that in 2024 was brimming with activity every night.
- “This is really a weird cycle,” said Ms. Karabanovs, who recalled at least 30 volunteers packing into the office each day in 2024. “There’s no way to feel confident about any of the races, honestly.”
- The answer lies on the ground in unexpected battlegrounds, including Iowa and Ohio, which have swung to the right over the last decade but this year have shown signs of shifting back.
- National Republicans have withdrawn campaign funds from Ohio’s First Congressional District, where they had hoped to unseat a Democrat.
- Back in the Youngstown area, Donovan O’Neil, a senior adviser in Ohio for Americans for Prosperity’s political PAC, walked up to a house with an American flag hanging from its porch. Barb Delaney, 65, a part-time bookkeeper, answered. “My electric bill is skyrocketing,” she said. “Nobody wants data centers around.”
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