Washington Secrets received some very good news for Mitt Romney about Ohio, from American Majority Action, which culled the statistics together from Ohio college professors who are tracking the state's absentee ballots used for early voting.
American Majority Action President Ned Ryun tells Washington Secrets "The five largest counties in Ohio have all shifted at least 6 percent and as much as 27 percent to the Republicans since 2008. While the polls show an Obama lead, these real votes--assuming registered voters vote for their candidate--demonstrate a Republican shift since 2008."
Via Secrets:
Ryun sent this to Secrets from his analysis of Ohio early voting:
In 2008, there were 1,158,301 total absentee ballots requested, 33 percent registered Democrat and 19 percent registered Republican--a 14 point gap. So far in 2012, 638,997 ballots have been requested, 29 percent Democrat and 24 percent Republican--only a five point gap.
The Republicans have shrunk the gap nine percent overall since 2008, but when we examine key counties in Ohio, the numbers become even more dramatic.
--Champaign County: Was +3% GOP, now +23% GOP - 20 point shift.
--Columbiana County: Was +9% DEM, now +9% GOP - 18 point shift.
--Crawford County: Was +3% DEM, now +12% GOP - 15 point shift.
--Cuyahoga County: Was +36% DEM, now +30% DEM (GOP already has 6,000 more requests than in 2008) - 6 point shift.
--Erie County: Was +24% DEM, now +7% DEM -17 point shift.
--Franklin County: Was +5% DEM, now +5% GOP - 10 point shift.
--Greene County: Was +4% DEM, now +19% GOP - 23 point shift.
--Harrison County: Was +22% DEM, now +5% DEM - 17 point shift.
--Hamilton County: Was +7% GOP, now +13% GOP - 6 point shift.
--Licking County: Was TIED, now +16% GOP - 16 point shift.
--Montgomery County: Was +29% DEM, now +5% DEM - 24 point shift.
--Muskingum County: Was +1% DEM, now +16% GOP - 17 point shift.
--Pickaway County: Was +12% DEM, now +15% GOP - 27 point shift.
--Seneca County: Was +1% DEM, now +13% GOP - 14 point shift.
--Summit County: Was +33% DEM, now +6 DEM - 27 point shift.
--Wood County: Was +10% DEM, now +1% GOP - 11 point shift.
If these numbers are correct, then pollsters using samples favoring Democrats highly, sampling more Democrats than Republicans, are going to get the surprise of their career and their reputations are going to be in shambles.