Candidates focusing on ground game in Ohio

In Ohio Thursday Trump vows: ‘We are going to win.’

Donald Trump’s first campaign stop after leaving the debate stage in Las Vegas Wednesday was Ohio, where he told 1,500 supporters at the Delaware County Fairgrounds: “In 19 days we are going to win the state of Ohio and we are going to win the White House!”

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That the Republican presidential nominee chose Ohio to kick off the last leg of the campaign should surprise no one. He and Hillary Clinton are flooding the state with TV ads, mailers and campaign appearances from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.

But it’s also not surprising that he chose Delaware County, a fast-growing suburban county north of Columbus rich with Republican voters. He needs Delaware County — and other Republican vote-heavy counties — to have any chance to defeat Clinton in Ohio.

Welcome to the ground game. With a number of polls showing the race neck-and-neck in Ohio, the post-debates stage of the race will focus on who can rally their supporters and get the right people out to vote in what is still a very important state to both candidates.

No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio and the last Democrat to do so was John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Clinton is focusing her efforts on a different part of the state, one needed by any Democrat hoping to carry Ohio. She’ll be in Cleveland today, and Trump will be there on Saturday. Vice President Joe Biden will be in Dayton on Monday.

Trump may have angered some with his suggestion during Wednesday’s debate that he may not accept the election results if Clinton wins, but he seemed to have fun with the controversy on Thursday.

“I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election,” he said, adding, “if I win.”

Clinton’s Ohio strategy

Clinton seems to be targeting young voters as part of her Ohio strategy.

She is holding a rally today at Cleveland State University. Last week she was at Ohio State University for a rally.

Wright State University political scientist Lee Hannah said the key for Clinton is to hit college campuses, make some of the rural counties less Republican to cut into Trump’s margins, focus on early voting and turn out members of the “Obama Coalition” — minorities and young people.

Cedarville University political scientist Mark Caleb Smith said Clinton, like Obama, needs to maximize her votes in urban areas, run up huge numbers in Cleveland to offset Trump throughout the state, and sweep the counties along the Lake Erie shore between Cleveland and Toledo.

The Clinton campaign also appears to be going after voters in blue-collar counties that have swung Republican in recent years. This would include Clark County which has gone Republican since 2004 but was in the Democratic column in 1992, 1996 and 2000. Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine campaigned in Springfield earlier this week.

Mike Dawson, a former top aide to Republicans George Voinovich and Mike DeWine and creator of OhioElectionResults.com, predicts Clinton will win Ohio, in part because she will pick up votes in areas that have traditionally supported Republicans.

“He (Trump) has to run up the score in the economically depressed areas of the state, but there is barely enough votes to eek out a win that way,” he said. “There seems to be no question that she will outperform the typical Republican in suburban areas of the state. That should be enough for her to win.”

Trump’s Ohio strategy

Hannah said it appears Trump’s strategy is to exceed 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s numbers in northeast Ohio, especially the Mahoning Valley.

“When you look at the map of Ohio in 2012, eastern Ohio is very light red,” he said, noting the lighter color indicating a modest majority of the vote. The key for Trump?

“Can Trump make that area dark red? He did well there in the primaries,” Hannah said. “When you look at the suburban counties around Columbus, they were heavy for Bush in ‘12, light for Romney. Same in the suburban counties around Toledo and even some in Dayton.”

Trump’s shot at winning Ohio depends on his ability to maximize the rural and suburban votes, he said.

Trump will also be looking for a big margin in the suburbs of Cincinnati such as Butler and Warren counties. In 2012, Romney won 69 percent of the vote in Warren County and 62 percent of the vote in Butler. While those numbers seem strong, they weren’t enough to help him win Ohio. Just eight years earlier, Bush won 72 percent in Warren County and 66 percent in Butler helping him defeat John Kerry statewide.

“This will be an election that could be defined by mobilization,” Smith said. “The Trump campaign seems convinced that rallies and large events — a very old-fashioned kind of politics — is just as useful as micro-targeting and direct mobilization

“If Trump wins Ohio, while Clinton was far better organized there, that will tell us something. Not everything, but something. We will see if Clinton’s ground game matters in rural and semi-rural spots.”

‘Terrible and frightening’

Reading from a TelePrompter at the Delaware County Fairgrounds Thursday, Trump continued questioning whether the election will be fair, and suggested Clinton is culpable in the fraud he predicted will occur.

“A candidate like Crooked Hillary Clinton, who will lie to Congress, lie to the FBI, destroy 33,000 emails, put her office up for sale and put our confidential information in the reach of our enemies, is a candidate who is truly capable of anything, including voter fraud,” he said.

He went on to say that 14 percent of illegal immigrants are registered to vote, 2.8 million Americans are registered in multiple states, which could allow them to vote more than once, and 24 million voter registrations are either invalid or inaccurate.

“Those are terrible and frightening statistics,” Trump said during his 35-minute speech.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has openly criticized Trump for many of his statements, including the suggestion that the election is rigged, and has vowed not to vote for him. Smith thinks Trump’s ongoing feud with the Republican governor could hurt him in Kasich’s home state.

“My gut tells me Kasich’s refusal to endorse Trump or to work closely with the Trump campaign will be critical. If Kasich has managed to pull state GOP support from Trump, it will be up to towns and counties to fill in those gaps. Even if it hurts Trump’s mobilization efforts by five or ten percent, that could be enough to matter. If Trump loses Ohio, the narrative afterward, among Republicans, will be to blame Kasich.”

But Hannah isn’t so sure Kasich sitting this one out will matter.

Trump, he said, appears to have an effective Ohio organization even without Kasich acting as a surrogate.

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