There is a glaring lie in this story that makes me suspicious of the entire piece.
In Ohio, absentee ballots are NOT MARKED WITH PARTY AFFILIATION. There is NO WAY to tell if a ballot is from a Democrat or Republican. The comment about the number of “Republican” ballots received is a lie.
Unlike other states, Ohio does not register a person’s party affiliation when they vote early (but does record which primary they voted in last time.)
McDonald conducted a geographic analysis of the early voting results instead, and he found that mail early ballot requests are down in Democratic strongholds but up elsewhere, which bodes well for Trump.
Republicans restricted the number of early voting days in Ohio, leading to a massive drop overall since 2012, said CNN, and “Democrats have a slight lead in the early balloting, but their lead is smaller than in 2012.” Obama won Ohio by about 3 points in 2012.
Polling trends show the race in the margin for error in Ohio.
Trump leads by an average 1.1 percent in Ohio polling averages.