Tuesday’s special election in Ohio to fill a vacant U.S. House seat showed Democrats have an advantage among active voters, with the district’s vote share favoring Democrats by about 20 points compared to the last election.
In the special election for Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, Republican State Senator Michael Lurie defeated his Democratic opponent Michael Krypchak by just under 10 points, a disappointing result in a district that just two years earlier had been won by outgoing Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) by more than 30 points.
“Republican State Sen. Michael Rulli is poised to lose significantly in tonight’s Ohio’s 6th special election,” Dave Wasserman, senior editor at the Cook Political Report, said on X as the results were being announced, noting that former President Donald Trump won the same district by 29 points in 2020.
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Left: President Biden. Right: Former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
The results are considered confusing by many political observers because Ohio has tended to lean strongly Republican in recent elections and the 6th Congressional District has been a Republican safe haven for more than a decade.
But the results underscore the Republican Party’s growing problems nationwide ahead of this year’s general election, Wasserman said, noting that Democrats’ enthusiasm is growing as November approaches.
“Voter turnout in #OH06 looks awful. And as we’ve seen in numerous special surveys and polls, Democrats are increasingly gaining an advantage among the most engaged voters,” Wasserman said on X.
Ohio Senator Michael Rulli. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Wasserman’s comments came on the heels of the Cook Political Report’s Battleground States Polling Project last month, which surveyed the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and divided voters into three groups.
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The first group, which the report calls “highly involved” voters, includes voters who “have voted in all four past federal elections or will vote in the 2022 midterm elections if they registered after 2020.” The middle tier includes what the report calls “low/medium involved” voters, who “have missed at least one of the past four federal elections.” The final group includes new registrants since 2020, and may include people who have moved between states.
The report found a widening “participation gap” in presidential preferences, with President Biden holding a four-point lead among “high participation” voters — those most likely to vote on Election Day — while Trump holds a 10-point lead among “low-medium participation” voters and newly registered voters.
These disparities could have an impact in close battleground states where “active voters” make up the majority of the electorate.
President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at Pullman Yard in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 9, 2024. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
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Ohio is traditionally a battleground state, but Trump has won handily in the past two elections and is likely to dominate again in November, with the former president holding a 10-point lead over Biden in the state, according to the latest polling average from Real Clear Politics.
