Turnout Analysis

A series of emails from a WMD regular reader, Kevin Irwin, has lead to some thinking about the turnout of the OH-02 special election. Here is Kevin's first email (I have included the links which Kevin later provided me), which he had originally sent to ProjectLogic about this post:

I'm going to have to disagree with the statement about ads. When you purchase advertisements in a targeted market, you don't buy in zones where you know people are waiting for you; you advertise in populous zones and focus on a particular demographic. Hamilton and Clermont counties are the most populous as well as most wealthy counties in the 2nd district. My guess is that the Schmidt campaign's dollars would be best spent in those counties.

Let's check out your turnout theory. These numbers are from various sources. If you really want them, I'll dig them up for you.

Scioto County - 44,369 registered voters as of 1994 - couldn't find anything recent - population probably has either decreased or increased by an arbitrary amount.

They cast 35,203 votes in the presidential election and 7,563 votes in the special election

79% voter turnout in the 2004 general election
17% voter turnout in the 2005 special election

Clermont county - 125832 registered voters

They cast 89,822 in the presidential election and 29,759 in the special election

71% voter turnount in the 2004 general election
23% voter turnout in the 2005 general election

Six percent. You actually believe that your congressperson should not pay attention to the needs of Scioto county because they undervoted Schmidt's home county by six percent of the electorate? It seems like Scioto and Clermont turned out in somewhat similar numbers. Do you think now perhaps the reason that the campaign didn't advertise heavily in Scioto is because it is a poor county with a low population on the fringe of the 6th district. Like you said, no payoff. Why should they even bother to spend the money? It doesn't look quite like lack of voter turnout to me.

Kevin doesn't believe that the result of the special election had anything to do with a GOTV movement or with Republican apathy. He says that the turnout percentages are far too similar between the two elections; which, he thinks, indicates that Republicans shifting towards Democrat candidates.

I agree with him. I don't think there is enough evidence here to identify a trend, but there is sufficient evidence here to illustrate that a number of Republicans voted against Jean Schmidt.

The question I posed to Kevin was "Why the shift?" His reply:

For starters, the President's and Congress' approval ratings are terrible. People had a much more favorable view of Bush in November. Congress' approval rating has been relatively flat. When I visit southern Ohio, I notice that it has become more decrepid in the five years that I have been gone. Downtown Portsmouth can only attract pawn shops, fast food restaurants, and bars. The people of southern Ohio are so discouraged that they turn to the only stable figure - the church. The problem is that the church has them so focused on social issues that are not of great *national* importance that they avoid looking for solutions to economic development problems. I always ask people what they lose sleep over at night, someone somewhere having an abortion, or their ability to provide for their family. Don't get me wrong, I think that abortion is reprehensible, but of the liberal mindset I believe that I should be able to live my life in a way that does not harm others (yes, debate on whether or not an embryo is a person).

Here's another reason. There was not much mainstream conservative coverage of this race. No Fox News. No national talk radio. Republicans are really good at making Democrats look stupid. It's not that they are stupid, or what they are saying is stupid; but Republicans have made an art out of lampooning Democrats. I consider myself a person of liberal ideals, but infused with common sense and reason. I find the folks on Air America equally as repulsive as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. These people spout off nothing but hate speech and are a big reason why there is such a divide in the country. It's more important to me that there is insightful debate and exchange of ideas to try to compromise on what comprises the common good, not this one-sided "he said, she said" garbage that the media pushes on to us.

Let's break this one down a bit.

First issue is the polling. Kevin refers to national polling on the Bush approval rating. Polls like this one, I'd imagine. We can argue until we're blue in the face about what the President's actual approval rating is, but the fact of the matter is that the national nubers are meaningless. What we need here is regional numbers, specifically Bush approval ratings for OH-02. I suspect Bush polls significantly higher in the district than he does nationally. I don't think the Congressional polling numbers have any bearing on the race at all... I couldn't tell you what the Congressional approval rating is off the top of my head and I am a political junkie...the average voter isn't going to care about this number.

When Kevin starts to describe the situation on the eastern side of the district, we finally get at something that I do think has an effect on the turnout and the results. Ohio's economy is in the crapper and has been for quite some time. The fault does not lie with President Bush, but rather Gov. Bob taft and the Ohio legislature, of which JEan Schmidt was a member. The only poll that matters in this race is the one where we learned that Bob Taft weighed in with a 17% approval rating. Hackett managed to connect some dots in people's minds that Jean Schmidt was a Bob Taft Republican.

Kevin makes a point about the churches in the area that I am ill-equipped to address, so I'll leave that issue to Mark, if he so chooses.

His second point revolves around the lack of a conservative media response. Where was Sean Hannity? Rush Limbaugh? Hugh Hewitt? I remember listening to Hannity and Hewitt the day after the election and you'd have thought they personally came out here and assured a Schmidt victory. You can ask Mark, I was right pissed about that. Being one of only a handful of local bloggers covering the race, I didn't appreciate Hugh Hewitt taking my curtain call. Speaking of conservative bloggers... Where the heck was PowerLine? Captain's Quarters? GOP Bloggers? You couldn't find these guys with a search warrant. Hannity can say he's about the most complete political coverage, but his three hours a day (that's all he asks) would have left us in the dark about the race until it was too late.

One media personality does stand out. Bill Cunningham on WLW did an outstanding job covering the race. And honestly, in this area, WLW is all the talk radio a candidate needs...

I think the impact of the national conservative blackout was that the lefty blogosphere left unchallenged to do what they do best: raise funds for candidates and push said candidates to the left.

The key reason why a few Republicans from the eastern counties voted for Hackett (or didn't vote at all) is that Jean Schmidt really ticked a lot of these people off (for a variety of reasons - among them: the race against Tom Niehaus for Sstate Senate, her record for voting for tax increases, her warm and sunny disposition, etc.) and failed to go out there and make it better. She didn't court their vote as much as she needed to. It nearly cost her an election.

The other day, I made a comment paraphrasing Don Rumsfeld: "You have to go to the polls with the candidate you have, not neccessarily the candidate that you want." The state and local Republican parties are going to have to learn that lesson if they want to maintain GOP control. Howver, I don't think the turnout/results was a referendem on GOP control. I believe the reason why the race was as close as it was has to do with the fact that Ohio Republicans have a whole lot of work to do to reclaim the faith of the conservative base.

As the Ohio Democratic Party continues its shift deeper in to the far left, the Ohio GOP moved left to claim the centrists. They did so by running moderates like Bob Taft. The idea was to create a "Big Tent" from which the GOP could expand its base of voters. It looks like a winner on paper. In practice, what happens is that principles get left behind in favor of winning the next election. A culture of corruption appears to be the end result. Conservative Republicans stay home and the moderates, who weren't that solidly Republican to begin with, vote for whoever looks better on tv.

There has to be a better way.

Thanks Kevin!