Race in Ohio's 9th District heads to a recount
Ohio's 9th District in the state's northwest is another U.S. House race with a razor-thin margin that will head to a recount before a winner can be officially determined. There, longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur leads Republican Derek Merrin by about 0.3 points, 48.1% to 47.8%, putting the race's margin inside the state's 0.5-point threshold to precipitate an automatic recount.
Kaptur's lead in the raw vote tally is just 1,193 votes, but the race could get even closer before the formal recount process begins. That's because there are probably at least 12,000 absentee and provisional ballots that counties in the district still must tabulate before officially reporting their results to the secretary of state on Nov. 20. That said, those ballots might actually be decent for Kaptur because Democratic-leaning voters have shown a greater preference for voting absentee than GOP-leaning ones in recent years. But that may also depend on just how many votes are provisional and how many are absentee, as this is a district that Trump likely carried by 6-to-8 points this year, which could make any vote cast on Election Day (like a provisional ballot) potentially a more GOP-leaning one by comparison.