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CINCINNATI -- Hamilton County voters aren’t as eager to turn in their ballots so far this presidential election year.With two weeks to go before Election Day, early voting is lower than it has been in the last two presidential election cycles. As of Tuesday morning, 37,644 people had voted early in Hamilton County – which is 17,949 fewer ballots than were cast at this point in the 2012 election. And fewer people have requested absentee ballots so far – 6,000 fewer ballots this year than in 2012, and 1,600 fewer than 2008, according to Hamilton County elections data. That's Hamilton...

According to Politico, Anthony Weiner has hired one staffer in preparation for his run for mayor of New York City. Two sources said that they couldn’t tell Politico the staffer’s name or what position he/she will assume under the former Congressman.

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. ~ snip ~ The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an...

One of the more intriguing narratives for election 2012 was proposed by political scientist Brendan Nyhan fairly early on: that it was "Bizarro 2004." ~ SNIP ~ The Election Day returns actually continued the similarities. George W. Bush won by 2.4 percent of the popular vote, which is probably about what Obama’s victory margin will be once all the ballots are counted. ~ SNIP ~ But most importantly, the 2012 elections actually weren’t about a demographic explosion with non-white voters. Instead, they were about a large group of white voters not showing up. ~ SNIP ~ In other words, if...

Fundamentals usually prevail in American elections. That's bad news for Barack Obama. True, Americans want to think well of their presidents and many think it would be bad if Americans were perceived as rejecting the first black president. But it's also true that most voters oppose Obama's major policies and consider unsatisfactory the very sluggish economic recovery -- Friday's jobs report showed an unemployment uptick. Also, both national and target state polls show that independents, voters who don't identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans, break for Romney. That might not matter if Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 39 to 32 percent,...

With both parties spinning early-vote totals, here's the bottom line: Republicans are significantly improving on 2008 in several big early-voting states. ~ snip ~ The blizzard of numbers, of claims and counterclaims, can be so daunting it's tempting to just throw up your hands and decide there's no truth to be had, just spin. But an objective analysis of early turnout can provide valuable tea leaves for Election Day. In many states, election officials disclose how many Democrats and Republicans have voted thus far. We don't know who they're voting for, but in most states, this alignment is a good...

According to a new study by the liberal group Third Way, pollster assumptions in the swing states may be very, very wrong. While many pollsters — like CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac and PPP, just to name two — assume that the electorate model for Tuesday will be similar to 2008, the Third Way study on partisan registration in eight states shows something very, very different. In each of these states, Democratic registration has trailed that of independents and Republicans by significant amounts — and in six of the eight states, Democratic registration has declined, sometimes dramatically (via Politico’s Morning Report): In total, since...

When I started making election predictions eight years ago, I had a very different perspective than I do today. I knew relatively little about the history of presidential elections or the geography of American politics. I had a good background in political science and statistics. So, unsurprisingly in retrospect, I focused on drawing confidence intervals from poll averages. Since then, I have learned substantially more history, soured somewhat on political science as an academic discipline, and have become much more skeptical of public opinion polls. Both political science and the political polls too often imply a scientific precision that I...

Barack Obama is clearly winning the early vote in Ohio. But careful analysis of the actual numbers so far suggest very good news for Mitt Romney. The Romney campaign claims the president is merely banking votes he would have received on Election Day anyway, so his early lead isn’t very important. They say their early voting strategy relies on targeting low-voting-propensity Romney supporters for early voting and leaving the others to turn out on Election Day. In other words, they claim Obama’s effort is merely harvesting votes while theirs is creating votes. This approach makes sense, but it’s hard to...

I've been following Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report on Twitter. He has been updating the tallies of the early vote in Virginia, and what he is finding is more and more bad news for Obama:VIRGINIA EARLY VOTE: Today's new 10/31 numbers even more troubling for Obama. His best counties way off '08 paceVIRGINIA EARLY VOTE: Turnout down 13.6% in Obama '08 localities, vs. just 1.1% in McCain '08 (statewide down 9.2%)VIRGINIA EARLY VOTE 10/31: 185,489 ballots cast in Obama localities (214,783 by this pt. in '08), 115,908 in McCain (117,224 in '08)VIRGINIA EARLY VOTE: Even more worrisome for O...in...

You've heard about Mitt Romney's problems with the women's vote, the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the union vote and the young Democrats vote. But there's one major voting group that's fallen off the map since the primaries.The evangelical vote. When Mitt Romney's 2012 candidacy was gaining traction in the primaries, the conventional wisdom instantly conveyed that the evangelical vote, skeptical of Mormonism, would sink him. What if in Ohio next week the opposite is true? There and in other swing states—Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida—the evangelical vote is flying beneath the media's radar. It's a lot of voters not...

It comes down to numbers. And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney. ~ snip ~ In addition to the data, the anecdotal and intangible evidence—from crowd sizes to each side's closing arguments—give the sense that the odds favor Mr. Romney. They do. My prediction: Sometime after the cock crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America's 45th president. Let's call it 51%-48%, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more.

Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore our Future, is launching an 11th-hour ad blitz in Pennsylvania, POLITICO has learned. ROF is going up Tuesday with a $2.1 million ad buy across every Pennsylvania market, including pricey Philadelphia. The group will air a spot, “New Normal,” that lashes President Obama on the economy and is already up in other parts of the country. The late push for Pennsylvania comes as some internal GOP polling has shown the always-elusive Keystone State to be within a few points.

This is techinically a vanity post, but newsworthy, all the same. Dave Wasserman is one of the head number crunchers at Cook Political Report, and he has been tweeting results from Virigina's early voting period. The numbers look good for Romney and very, very bad for Obama. Here are a several of his tweets with the raw data:VIRGINIA EARLY VOTE: Up 18.8% in the 86 localities McCain won in '08, but up ONLY 4.4% in the 48 Obama won: http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/sbe_csv/STATS/Overall, early vote up 9.4% across the board in VA vs this point in '08, but this 14% disparity very troubling...

Just a few weeks ago, Ohio was a state that was considered almost every media outlet to be a solid lock for Obama. ThereÂ’s no need to rehash the actual headlines, but some even suggested Romney give up on Ohio and look elsewhere for a path to victory. Before the first debate, Romney was down 5.6 in RCPÂ’s Buckeye State average. Today he is down 2.5, cutting his deficit by more than half, presumably in large part due to his strong first-debate performance. Here are a few reasons why itÂ’s even closer than that: Democratic turnout advantage from 2008 probably...

~ intro paragraph snipped ~ Mitt Romney is now leading President Obama nationally in the RealClearPolitics average. He is over 50 percent in Gallup. No candidate over 50 percent in Gallup this late in the race has lost. His favorability rating (favorable to unfavorable) is higher than Obama’s. In electoral votes, when you average recent polling, he leads 206 to 201. Romney’s team is “done” ( i.e. feels it has comfortably) with North Carolina. Although polling is still mixed, the Romney team believes it is ahead in Colorado, Virginia and Florida. If you are counting electoral votes that puts Romney’s...

President Barack Obama declared during Tuesday’s presidential debate that his goals as president include the reinstatement of a so-called “assault weapons ban” in the United States. As part of a plan to reduce street violence in cities — including in his own hometown of Chicago — Obama proposed “seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced.”This appears to be among the boldest pro-gun-control comments Obama has made as president, and the first time has has openly called for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban. “So my belief is that, A, we have to enforce the laws we’ve...

Pennsylvania has not voted for a Republican presidential nominee in 24 years, when George H.W. Bush carried the state narrowly in 1988. In subsequent cycles, the Keystone State frequently felt like 'the one that got away' for Republicans; polling would look close and tightening in October, only to go blue in November, thanks to Democrats' formidable firewall in Greater Philadelphia. This year, it appeared that Pennsylvania wouldn't even be in the conversation for the GOP ticket. Barack Obama won the state by double-digits in 2008, and numerous public opinion polls showed the president maintaining -- or even expanding -- his...

SIDNEY, Ohio -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney received a warm reception on a cold evening at the Shelby County Fairgrounds Wednesday as he addressed a crowd estimated at more than 8,500 people, more than eight times the number expected to turn out. ~ snip ~ Chris Gibbs, chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, said the event was a "huge undertaking" but was an undeniable success. "The Romney team was meticulous in organizing, and the ability to put on a production like this in such a short amount of time is fantastic," Gibbs said. Attendance far surpassed the initial...