OH-06: Here’s a really good example of why, even if we have more than 10% of the expected vote reporting, you still can’t take early numbers to the bank. In tonight’s special election for Ohio’s dark-red 6th Congressional District, the AP says that 19% of votes have been tallied… and Democrat Michael Kripchak is up 61-39 on Republican Michael Rulli.
Do not get excited about this! Ohio, like many other states, counts mail votes and early votes first. And as we know, thanks to Trump’s war on voting by mail, Republicans these days tend to heavily prefer in-person voting on the day of the election. So as more ballots come in, this result will shift. But it will still be very interesting to see whether Kripchak can outperform the district’s usual lean (Trump won it by 29 points).