I was wrong about vote totals in Ohio. Republicans did get more votes in the races for congressional representatives. I think the final count was about 51.5% for Republicans and maybe 46.5% for Democrats, with 2% for other parties. All the statewide offices except U. S. Senate were won by Republicans. Sherrod Brown won re-election to the Senate, but did not seem to pull many votes into other races for Democrats.
One thing I noticed in reading through the vote counts. Closer races had more voters. Many of the congressional districts in Ohio are quite skewed to one party, four for Democrats and twelve for Republicans. The less skewed districts had more voters show up. Since the four districts set up for Democrats to win are very skewed in favor of Democrats, those races had the fewest voters participating. I have to wonder if that is bad for democracy.
I'm not the only won who wonders about that. Enough people have expressed concern that there was a referendum on the ballot in the primary elections in May, and a strong majority voted to change the process for setting up the districts, requiring a bipartisan committee to make the new districts. If votes from the minority party are not gained for the plan, a new plan must be created in a few years, rather than waiting for the next census. I don't know if that plan will result in more competitive districts, but it should be better than the current plan, which allows the majority party in the state legislature to set all districts, which is what created this system in which an election with a difference of a few percent always results in the same distribution among elected representatives.
My district, for example, had a shift in voting 13% in favor of Democrats in this election, and the Republican still won re-election easily. All but two districts in Ohio shifted in favor of Democrats. The two that shifted toward Republicans were both majority-Democrat districts, which were still won by Democrats. All the majority-Republican districts shifted toward Democrats, ranging from 3% to 32%, with most in the teens. It is hard to say what that will mean in coming elections. A shift of 10% toward Democrats in the 2020 election compared to 2016 would mean more Democrats in the state legislature and a different result for president. It might mean a state house majority, but not a state senate majority for Democrats. Sadly, I don't think it would make a difference in the makeup of the Congressional delegation. A shift of another 10%, meaning a total of 20% from 2016 results, would mean a big change, with eight republicans losing, but it would take almost that to change the outcome of more than two races.
Of course, elections in presidential years always have greater voter participation than off-year elections. In some states, there was a large increase in voter participation for this midterm, but not so much in Ohio. There was an increase, but the voter turnout was still below 50%, and well below the 70% in presidential elections. This year looks about 1% below the turnout in 2010.
The results seem to be within the margin of error of the polls, but instead of Democrats winning statewide elections by a percent or two, Republicans won by a percent or two. Okay, maybe 4%, but a shift of 2% from Republican to Democrat would have turned the races. I based my prediction on the polls and the predictions that the Democratic candidate for governor would win by a percent or two. I figured that would pull along some votes in the congressional races. That didn't happen.
There may be a small, but important systematic error in polling in favor of Democrats here. I have wondered about the accuracy of polls with the rise of cell phones and so forth. It is hard to know whether the samples used are representative. I keep hoping the polling professionals know what they are doing. The general outcome of the election nationwide seems to be within the margin of error of the polls and predictions, so that is good, but the variances still bug me. I really wanted Richard Cordray to win.
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