Breitbart flags this tweet from The Hotline’s Josh Kraushaar, which suggests good news for Mitt Romney in the Ohio early voting numbers:
Overall, early vote turnout OH up 2.44% in state. Down -4.1% in Obama/Kerry counties; up 14.39% in Bush/McCain counties.
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) November 6, 2012
Obama won Ohio in 2008 thanks to his strong early vote advantage. Whatever ground he loses to Romney in early voting, he’ll need to make up for with higher Election Day turnout. According to the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, this could be a problem for Obama, based on the turnout trends since 2008:
In my view, Obama can’t afford for E-Day turnout ’08-’12 trend to mirror early vote trend and still win OH docs.google.com/spreadsheet/cc…
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 6, 2012
We won’t know the actual early vote results until the polls close (the Gannett numbers from this appear to be inaccurate), but the latest indications are good for Romney. Keep in mind, if the early vote breakdown is very close or favors Romney, that’s also a sign of serious flaws in the state polls. Rasmussen’s Ohio poll yesterday had Obama leading Romney in the early vote by 23 points, and PPP’s had Obama up by 21.
