General

Schmidt Hackett Aftermath: a close look at Brown County

One of the major suprises of this past election was the strength of Paul Hackett in the eastern rural counties of Scioto, Adams, Pike and Brown. Conveniently, Brown has a website with numbers and past election results.

Some interesting factoids about Brown County Ohio:
Registered Democrats 4,612
Registered Republicans 3,763
Bet you didn’t know that.

November 2004
Bush: 12,647 votes, about 65%
Kerry: 7,140 votes, or about 35%

June 14th 2nd district primary:
Republicans received 2,287 votes, of which Jean only received 392 specifically
Democrats received 1,217 of which Hackett received 762.

August 2nd general election turnout doubled to about 7000 votes from 3500.
Hackett: 3950
Schmidt: 3100

That paints a picture for me..
In the June 14 primary, Hackett received 62% of the Democratic vote while Schmidt received a scant 17% of the Republican vote. Seems Brown County GOP was not enamored at all with her. Hackett however did well and was fairly unified.

In the general, Hackett had tremendous upside in a county where registered Democrats already outnumber registered republicans. Plus a potential of 7,140 Kerry voters. Hackett goes on to get 85% of the registered Democrats and 55% of the Kerry vote. With numbers like that I really doubt that there was any crossover voters. Hackett really didn’t need them. He just needed the 7,000 Kerry voters to show up. If they had all shown up, he would still have lost but by a very skinny margin.

Schmidt had a tougher task in a county that wasn’t that enthusiastic about her in the first place. Nevertheless she increases her vote tenfold, from 392 to 3100. Not bad, not bad at all. Still, it is telling that she captured only 25% of the Bush voters. That may be attributed to signs of weakness in the Ohio GOP. But only in relation to the excitement and energy on the Hackett side.

If this had turned out to be a “normal” special election, with a Democrat scrounging for money without significant outside help. Turnout would’ve been much lower, Schmidts margins would be higher and no one would be talking about GOP weakness. This is my opinion only, but what I am seeing is entirely consistent with a view that in Brown County anyway, we saw normal Republican turnout but highly elevated Democratic turnout.

Implications:
1. Outside help and money and volunteers do make a significant impact.
2. Jean Schmidt needs to build up some trust and rapport with the Brown County GOP.
3. McEwen could have helped a lot if he had stuck around to sell Jean to his primary voters in the eastern counties. He was the biggest vote getter in Brown. That he did not says a lot about his character and his true desire to be involved in Ohio GOP politics.
4. 2nd District candidates can ignore the eastern counties, but only if they have very significant margins in Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren. Even then, ignoring the east would not be a wise course of action, you might need that margin.

Other implications? Post in comments or email me at d a v e at nixguy.com.

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