COLUMBUS, Ohio – Sitting in Starbucks in downtown Columbus I happen to strike up a conservation with a local woman about early voting in Ohio. After I tell her that I’m reporter for a conservative media company, the woman tells me that she is “the Lone Romney Early Voter.”
“I feel like I should be in The Onion. ‘Lone Romney supporter casts early vote.’ ” she said referring to the popular satirical faux news publication.
I asked the woman, who requested not to be named for fear of blowback because of her political views, why she thought she was the “Lone Romney Early Voter.” She told me it was because from what she had heard President Barack Obama was beating Mitt Romney by something like 65 – 35 percent in early votes.
The woman’s perception of Obama’s lead in early votes is consistent with claims from the Obama campaign. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter claimed on CNN’s “Starting Point” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning that Obama was beating Romney two to one in early votes in Ohio.
These numbers are based on flawed exit polling by news organizations like Reuters that ask voters if they have already voted and who they voted for.
But the data coming out of the state’s board of elections tells a different story. According to the Associated Press’ most recent early voting update, of the 1.6 million early votes that have been cast, 29 percent of them have been cast by voters who most recently voted in a Democratic Party primary and 23 percent have been cast by Republican primary voters.
It’s possible that some of Ohio’s 2012 Republican primary voters are Democrats who voted in the GOP primary this year in hopes of helping nominate the weakest Republican candidate possible to run against Obama. But considering Mitt Romney was widely considered a lock for the GOP nomination by the time the Ohio primary took place, it’s unlikey that approximately seven percent of early ‘Republican’ early voters are actually Democrats who are being incorrectly categorized as Republicans because they voted in the GOP primary this year.
That said, the woman told me that it was obvious to her that she was one of only a few Romney supporters at the early voting location in Columbus (there was only one location for the entire county) because the sample ballots volunteers were passing out on behalf of the political parties to let voters know who else from their party of choice would be appearing on their ballot looked radically different. She said based on which sample ballot and information sheets fellow early voters were carrying it was obvious the majority of them were planning to vote Democrat.
“I’ll give credit where credit’s due. I think the Democratic Party has done a phenomenal job getting people to the polls early,” she said, adding that Democrats in this area of Ohio were treating early voting like an Ohio State University tailgate, playing corn hole while they waited in line to vote.
While I didn’t personally visit any early voting locations, based on reports from other news outlets such as Slate and the account from the “Lone Romney Early Voter,” it is difficult to believe that the Romney campaign is only losing the early vote in Ohio by six points. And, as the Lone Romney Early Voter also pointed out, Republicans like to vote in person on Election Day. She said all of her Democratic friends had already voted, but none of her Republican friends had.
After I told the woman the early voting numbers the Obama campaign is using and she personally cited were not the state’s, she didn’t seem shocked.
“They want to give off the impression that they have this election all wrapped up,” she said.
The Obama campaign has been claiming since the first weekend of early voting in Ohio that it is substantially ahead of Romney in Ohio based on the unreliable exit polling released in October. Is the Obama campaign’s claim that it is winning the early vote in Ohio and therefore the election a self-fulfilling prophesy? I guess we’ll find out after all the votes have been counted (and possibly recounted).
