Ohio: Vote is crucial - but who are your voters?

Tommie Jo Marsilio is a former union shop steward. She's a single mom. And she's a Mitt Romney voter.
Associated Press
Oct 30, 2012

"It's not my job to shatter stereotypes," she says. But she is. Two years ago she became the first Republican elected to the local county commission as part of a Republican wave in an Ohio county that Barack Obama won in 2008.

From the candidates' campaign headquarters in Boston and Chicago, the electorate looks like a series of demographic groups. Voters become bar charts — women and union members for Obama, men and retirees for Romney, all part of the metrics to measure turnout and make educated guesses about outcome. But on the ground in this battleground of battleground states, with early voting well under way, the reality can complicate the science and generalization.

In a race this close, how well Romney and the president target their voters, sway independent ones and get them to the Ohio polls might well determine the outcome of next Tuesday's election. But people often don't match the voter profiles.

Take John Petelin, a 43-year-old skilled tradesman, a white male who voted for a third-party candidate instead of Obama in 2008.

He might be expected to line up behind Romney. But he isn't.

"I'm an autoworker," Petelin said outside the Lorain County Board of Elections building where he had just voted for Obama. "It's been tough out there. And Romney wanted to kill us. I can't go for that."

Or Kris Donofrio, a mother with three children in college. Standing by her car after voting in Lorain, a north-central Ohio city west of Cleveland, she scoffs at Romney's suggestion that kids can borrow for school from their parents.

But her parents, staunch Democrats she said, are voting for Romney. "They're concerned about Medicare," she said. "They think Obamacare is not for them."

Ohio voters like these are steadily making their way into county polling places across the state, casting early ballots that will determine whether Ohio will serve as a Democratic firewall against Romney's advance or a fire pit where the president's candidacy will perish.

Across the country, about 15 million voters already have cast ballots in the presidential contest, according to the United States Elections Project at George Mason University. In Ohio, about a million have submitted absentee ballots or voted in person.

With just a week left before Election Day, Obama holds some clear edges in Ohio, not the least of which is an advantage in the early vote and a robust get-out-the-vote organization. He holds a narrow lead in some public polls in the state, though others show a neck-and-neck race as the campaign tightens in the homestretch.

Obama's political outreach, built on the broad base of support from 2008, is extensive and frequent. The auto industry, boosted by the government bailout, is resurgent.

In an interview with Cincinnati radio station WIZF that aired on Monday, Obama laid out the early vote strategy.

"We really want to bank as many votes as possible," he said. "So the fewer people who haven't voted yet, the better our Election Day operation is going to be."

But Romney, energized and locked in a dead heat nationally with the president, is mounting his own aggressive voter contact effort, partly counting on the inroads Republicans made in the state in 2010 and seeking to capitalize on discontent toward Obama among many independent voters. In county after county, campaign aides say, more Republicans are taking steps to vote early than did in 2008.

In Ohio so far, Democrats have a 31 percent to 24 percent lead among voters who have cast ballots in 50 of the state's 88 counties, according to data collected by The Associated Press. Forty-five percent of early voters in those counties were unaffiliated.

Those numbers have limitations. Party affiliation is based on the last primary in which someone voted, so new voters and those who don't vote in primaries are listed as unaffiliated.

A poll by Time magazine last week had Obama's advantage over Romney among early voters at 60-30 across the state.

And internal Republican polls also show Obama with leads even in Republican-leaning parts of the state, increasing the burden on Romney to do well on Election Day.













Super Judge

The gravey train witf biscut wheels is comming to a end for the liberal losers that hate working even more than they hate America, BOY!


Hmmm - referring to the 47% again? The seniors who are retired, the military on active duty, the kids in school, small children, and those with disabilities? How nice - they hate America. I thought loving America was one reason for fighting in our military?

Super Judge



Stop the insanity. Vote Gary Johnson for real change and hope. With Obama or Romney, you will get more of the same. The Roman Empire fell into ruins and ceased to exist.



A vote for Gary Johnson is a wasted vote - he can't win even if he is better and even if he gets the most votes - another reason to kill the electoral college! If it was that easy to vote in someone, Ron Paul would win hands down. There are no electors other than democrat and republicans.


@SanduskySteve, Ron Paul is not listed on the Ohio ballot. A wasted vote is one for Obama and Romney plus all of the voters who did not vote. Those who did NOT vote voted NONE OF THE ABOVE. The news media blocked out Ron Paul. The powers that be PICKED the candidate for you and others to vote for. The powers that be have been winning elections for years thanks to the news media at local, state and federal levels. The powers that be pick candidates for you to vote for. You as a voter have no choice to picking a real winner. You get what the powers that be chose for you. I will not waste my vote but will vote for a candidate that the powers that be do not want. Until citizens wise up, the powers that be will win every time. Ron Paul would have made a great President. The powers that be said no to Ron Paul. My prediction is that Obama will win. Did all of those who voted for Romney waste their vote and helped Obama back into office? Let's await to see who voted none of the above. I predict about a 60% voter turnout. Roughly 30% for Obama or Romney and 40% who voted to none of the above. What would happen if these 40% showed up and voted for Gary Johnson?


Thats the herd mentality. When did the president and your vote become "Wasted"? Arent we as citizens supposed to pick the best leader for the job Instead of picking from those politicians they give to you to vote for? They voted the communist in the soviet union because there wasnt anyone else running, Same with 1935 Germany. When you throw away your vote to follow the herd i would consider THAT a wasted vote.