More Ohio voters cast ballots this year than ever have in a midterm election. But in terms of percentages, this was a turnout level not seen in nearly a quarter of a century. Voting the weekend before suggested a big turnout. And on election day, voters in three central Ohio counties had varied reasons for making sure they cast their ballots.
The results are well known by now – Republicans swept the five executive offices, by an average of just under 5 percent. Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen Sherrod Brown won re-election by around 6 and a half points. But that margin of victory was much smaller than the double-digit lead pollsters showed he had. The two Democrats running for Supreme Court both won. But there wasn’t much good news for Democrats in the Statehouse races.
Statehouse correspondents Andy Chow and Jo Ingles spent election night at the watch parties for the Republicans and the Democrats.
Also on Tuesday - for the third time in four years, Ohio voters soundly rejected a constitutional amendment that cost supporters millions to put on the ballot. Issue 1, which would have lowered drug crimes to misdemeanors and channeled the savings from the reduction in the prison population into drug treatment lost by a two-to-one margin, though supporters had much more money to spend.
The 2018 results map looks a lot like the 2016 results map. And there are a lot of theories about why that is, and whether Ohio keeps its swing state status or whether it’s just really red. Panelists at a session at the Impact Ohio post-election conference talked about that two days after the election.
And there are some races that are still very close, including four Ohio House races and a Senate race that are each separated by a couple hundred votes. There are more than 100,000 provisional ballots statewide – and they won’t be counted till 10 days after the election.