Ohio county, with nearly perfect presidential record, leans Trump

PORT CLINTON, Ohio - Every few minutes, the glass door of the Ottawa County Republicans' storefront office would swing open to admit a blast of humid air and another supplicant.

"We just got a bunch, and were we ever tickled," Carolyn Adams, the county chairwoman, said one afternoon last week. "The first time, they only sent us 50, and they were gone in less than 24 hours. People were desperate."

Now she could meet the demand for Donald Trump yard signs, and it was steady - one street-level indicator that the real estate developer has pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in Ohio. He was leading in the most contested battleground state by an average of 2 percentage points in recent polls....

Hamilton and Sandusky counties are identified by Axiom as their “bellwether” counties in Ohio, but maybe Ottawa is too, if you beleive that part trends are valid indicators in this election cycle.

There is no bellwether county in Ohio, especially this year. Trump will vastly exceed Romney's margins in formerly strong Obama counties, like Mahoning and Trumbull, but will likely underperform in the GOP suburbs of Cincinnati (Warren, Butler, and Clermont). His margins in very strong but sparsely populated counties, like Putnam, Mercer, and Van Wert, will be much better than Romney achieved, but there are fewer votes there.

Perhaps the county that will come close to the statewide average this time around is Montgomery, the old stomping grounds of LS.

Trump needs about 500,000 votes out of the remainder of the state to offset the big tallies The Harridan will rack up in Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo.

My guess as of today is that Trump wins Ohio by one to two points, Portman crushes Strickland, and all of the House incumbents win.

Don’t forget, though, the R registrations in Cuyahoga were very high, compared with a huge D loss (net 97,000 for Rs-Ds but NOT allowing any Is). I omitted all Is as possible Ds, and if they are included as Rs at 50%, the net gain for Rs is 120,000. Could be as high as +140,000.

I forget the vote total out of Cuyahoga-—300,000? But you can’t lose 1/3 of your strongest blue county and have any hope of winning.

Meanwhile, absentee requests in Montgomery were very high, and my guy there told me they expect the “souls to the polls” early vote to be MUCH lighter than 2012. They will have an analysis of exactly where the absentees that are being returned are coming from-—D, R, I-—by early next week.

Meanwhile, I will tell you that the Trump campaign is very confident, not just in OH, but in all the surrounding states. They are all “in play” and completely winnable with turnout, something Rs could not say in the past.

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