2nd Congressional District (OH) Live Blogpost (Schmidt, Hackett Win)

Perched on a couch in an undisclosed location, Ethernet connection at the ready:

(click “more” to read the live blogpost)

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11:25–As final live-blog act, noting the Enquirer’s “Expensive Lessons” and “Expect a 1st in the 2nd stories. Nicely done. I may quote some of their content in my analysis post to come (different from the “Numbers” post, which is done).
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11:10–Channel 12 covering, noting that Schmidt is not from Hamco. Hackett is optimistic about his chances and mentions if Ted Strickland can hang onto his seat, “the right Democrat” (i.e., him) can certainly win. They summarized an interview with Schmidt (she did not appear on camera), and she is emphasizing her familiarity with all seven counties and her conservative values. Smart in both cases. Very smart.

Officially tuning out the local TV newscasts to avoid involuntary IQ reduction.
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11:07–Channel 5 merely mentioned the results. NO interviews. No crawl. Double zheesh.
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11:04–Great, I picked Channel 12 and all they’re showing is the crawl at the bottom. They announced that the results are in the crawl at the very start, and have said nothing else. Lightning strikes and runaway trains are more important. Reminds me of why I never watch local news. I think doing so too much may actually be hazardous to your mental stability. Zheesh.
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Recess for numbers post.
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10:15–Fox is done with coverage. Will see if 55KRC has cut in….nope. I know WLW won’t cut in on the Reds, so my TV-radio visits are done until the 11PM news stations start their broadcasts.

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10:10–Some coverage of the low turnout (27 people voted at the Cincy Public Library Branch).
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10:08–Gracious concession statement by McEwen to Fox News person. Hackett emphasizing belief that we are not training the Iraqi forces fast enough.
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10:00–SCHMIDT WINS, SCHMIDT WINS. With 100% of 753 precincts counted, it’s:
Schmidt 11486, 28.37%
McEwen 10781, 26.63%
Brinkman 8550, 21.13%
DeWine 5041, 12.45%

Out of 30,000 votes, almost exactly 75% were for Republicans and 25% were for Democrats. No other GOP candidate got over 2,000 votes (Minamyer’s 1,940), and no one else got 1,000.

On the Dem side, Hackett got 56% and Wulsin 28%.

Reaction after I digest the news and the interviews.

JUNE 15 UPDATE to supposedly “final” results: Somebody needs to tell me how the Hamco site could have posted the above numbers last night at 10 PM as 100% counted in every county (trust me-they did), but yet today the totals are different, and show a more-convincing Schmidt victory (BTW, the TV stations posted the first set of totals above as the last word too, so I’m not alone here; Jan. 30, 2006 — bold figures listed AFTER percentages are those FINALLY posted to the Secretary of State’s web site on roughly Jan. 27, 2006):

Schmidt 14232, 31.35%; 14331
McEwen 11565, 25.48%; 11663
Brinkman 9211, 20.29%; 9320
DeWine 5455, 12.02%; 5467

Other final totals posted to the SOS web site on Jan. 27, 2006: Austin – 217, Bemmes – 687, Fossett – 1029, Minamyer – 2113, Mink – 90, Morgan – 403, Smith – 362.

JUNE 16, 7:30 AM Mystery Solved: Per the Enquirer (item entitled “vote glitch”):

Schmidt’s victory over former Congressman Bob McEwen was even more impressive than it first seemed.

When all seven counties had reported their votes to the Hamilton County Board of Elections Tuesday night, Schmidt led McEwen by 705 votes. But when Hamilton County Elections Director John Williams came to work Wednesday morning, he found a second corrected version of Clermont County’s final results on his fax machine.

The new totals increased Schmidt’s lead to 2,667 votes.

Williams said Clermont County officials explained to him that one of their workers accidentally marked an earlier report with the word “final” and sent it to the Hamilton County board, where all the county reports were being collected.

“It was just a mistake and didn’t change the result, so no harm done,” Williams said.

Clerco’s final results reported at 9:20 remain correct, it’s just that they weren’t all included in the Hamco aggregate when Hamco indicated that 100% of all precincts in all counties had reported.

That person who marked “final” is the luckiest person on the face of the earth. If that screwup had affected the race…..whew.
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9:58–With 2/3 of Brown County NOT in the aggregate at the Hamilton County side, it appears that McEwen may have a lead of a few hundred votes at the moment. Fox 10PM News coming on shortly in Cincy.
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9:55–Whoops. Warren Co. has been done duh-done-done for a while. The final totals for the 48% of the precincts that are in the 2nd District are:
McEwen 2199
Brinkman 1105
Schmidt 1410
DeWine 778

Warren is already in the Hamco districtwide aggregate, so it has no impact on the view that this one’s a McEwen-Schmidt dead heat.
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9:47–Thanks to Eric Kephas for a Scioto County report:

Huge margin for McEwen, low turnout:
McEwen had around 930 votes, 54%
DeWine had 231 or so, 15%
Schmidt had around 229, 15%
Brinkman hovered just above 100 votes.

Sorry I don’t have real results, but we don’t seem to
have a real media. I’m very disappointed in the
coverage over here. I’ll rant about that later.

I think McEwen might have been hoping for more turnout in Scioto, and that Schmidt had hoped to make more inroads.

NOTE: McEwen’s margin here is also mostly NOT at the Hamco totals page (only 20% of Scioto is in), so Schmidt and McEwen have to be seen as in a virtual dead-heat at this point. Wow.
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9:43–It’s clear that the Dem nominee will have a tough road. In a district with two heavily contested primaries, GOP votes are outnumber Dem votes by at least 3-1.
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9:37–Other than Warren County, the only web locale to visit now is the HamCo PDF page, and it is close. BUT Clermont’s last 30% is NOT in there, so though McEwen appears to be ahead by a hair, Schmidt is really winning, and I would estimate by about 500 votes.
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9:32–Hackett appears certain to not only win, but to win with a sizable majority of all Democrat votes counted. Props to Hackett. His victory is a tribute to what appeared to be a very strong campaign targeted at the traditional Democrat grass-roots of county committees and labor. I had the impression the other candidates weren’t serious about courting those obvious targets.
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9:30–Brown County is done, du-done done: A huge margin for McEwen in a very light turnout:
McEwen 948 (42.4%)
DeWine 399
Schmidt 390
Brinkman 352
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9:25–A little less than half of Warren County is counted, and it’s McEwen-Schmidt-Brinkman-DeWine, 2199-1410-1105-778. Schmidt showing more strength than I would have expected in Warren County. Could be interpreted as a backlash against perceived “interference” of Club for Growth attacks if she wins.
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9:20–Clermont County is done, du-done done: A huge margin for Schmidt:
Schmidt 5839 (almost 48%)
McEwen 2351
Brinkman 1996
DeWine 1297

Even if you grant that Clerco is for the most part her home district, that is a lot of votes for the other three to make up.
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9:15–The districtwide grand totals are showing 25% of the vote counted and McEwen up by 3318-2923-2043-1525 over Schmidt-Brinkman-DeWine. Less than 1% of Hamilton County precincts are counted (how typical).
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9:12–Hackett has to have it locked up on the Democrat side. He’s winning everywhere I’ve looked by a lot.
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9:10–The Hamilton County totals aren’t picking up Warren County’s posted totals yet. Zheesh. Schmidt is cleaning up in Clermont with 70% of the precincts in (wow). Schmidt-McEwen-Brinkman-DeWine, 3093-1567-1339-883. Looking like DeWine needs to hit a grand slam in Hamilton County.
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9:05–The Hamilton County PDF link is for the entire election, with very small numbers reported from every county. McEwen 32% of roughly 3,000 votes, Brinkman 2nd (22%), Schmidt and DeWine 3rd and 4th.
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9:00–In Brown County, McEwen’s 534 votes put him up more than 2-1 on all other candidates with 57% of votes counted (seems like very light turnout).
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8:56–Warren County has 35% of precincts in, and its McEwen-Schmidt-Brinkman-DeWine, 1641-969-797-556. Would be nice to know which parts of Warren County. Looking like the beginnings of a DeWine wipeout, but of course Hamilton County could change all that.
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8:50–Clermont County absentees broke heavily towards Schmidt and Hackett (assuming they are absentees because it still says zero precincts counted). Schmidt-McEwen-Brinkman, 1405-636-611, others distant. Brinkman a big surprise on Clermont absentees (to me). DeWine weakness also a surprise (374).
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8:40–Just did a bit of wandering to find this: Here is the apparently official local of realtime updated results, moved to the Hamilton County BOE web site (not clickable because it is a PDF–copy and paste the link into your browser):

hamilton-co.org/boe/inputdata/Electionsresults/Final/2ndcongressional.pdf

You may need to type “http://www.” before this address.

Now let’s settle in for the long haul.