Below is a comparison of votes from Tuesday's special election
and votes from November's general election in 2004.
I divided Tuesday's vote totals with those from November and
called it voter retention%. What I saw was that Hackett got
anywhere from 47% to 74% of the vote that the Democratic
candidate got in November. While Schmidt only got 23 to 27%
of the votes Portman got in November.
Without doing a stellar exit poll or interviewing every
voter, it's impossible to know how many votes switched from
Portman to Hackett etc.
But this crude comparison does show how depressed the
Republican vote was on Tuesday OR how inflated the vote was
in November.
Very, very consistent from county to county.
Please kick for others to absorb.
Nov-2004 Aug-2005
County vote % vote retention% from 11/04
Adams Portman 8,310 72% Schmidt 1911 23.0%
Sanders 3,169 28% Hackett 2101 66.3%
Brown Portman 13,796 72% Schmidt 3100 22.5%
Sanders 5,293 28% Hackett 3950 74.6%
ClermontPortman 66,158 77% Schmidt 17320 26.2%
Sanders 20,210 23% Hackett 12439 61.5%
HamiltonPortman 89,743 70% Schmidt 25011 27.9%
Sanders 38,237 30% Hackett 23597 61.7%
Pike Portman 6,047 52% Schmidt 1559 25.8%
Sanders 5,578 48% Hackett 2659 47.7%
Scioto Portman 10,099 56% schmidt 2638 26.1%
Sanders 8,004 44% hackett 4925 61.5%
Warren Portman 32,949 78% schmidt 7556 22.9%
Sanders 9,107 22% hackett 5420 59.5%
Final Portman 227,102 Schmidt 59095 26.0%
Sanders 92,767 Hackett 55091 59.4%