Ohio, hit economically, votes Obama
COLUMBUS -- When an important polling place in Ohio is called the Barack Recreation Center, that's a pretty good omen for a certain presidential candidate named Barack Obama.
On Tuesday, voters in this heavily African-American neighborhood streamed into the Barack building and helped deliver the state to the Democratic candidate. "Who do you think I voted for?" joked Anthony Turner, 20, a student and first-time voter. "As you would expect."
Obama did what John Kerry could not in 2004: win Ohio's 20 electoral votes — and, with them, a major step toward the presidency.
The Barack Recreation Center's name has no connection to the presidential candidate — it was named in 1964 after a former city recreation director who pronounced his name differently, like a military "barrack." But what happened in the precinct was crucial to Obama's victory.
Obama won overwhelmingly in urban areas of Ohio, picked up new support in suburbs and cut slightly into the traditional Republican advantages in small towns and rural areas.
Surveys of voters leaving the polls showed the economy dominated the election in this economically troubled state. Nine out of ten voters said they were worried about the state of the economy in the next year.
"We're losing jobs left and right. I think Obama cares about that," said Rafael Atorino, 54, an electrician who voted for President Bush in 2004.
Many of the hardest hit counties in Ohio — some of which have unemployment rates above 9% — are traditional Republican strongholds. Those areas helped Bush beat Kerry in Ohio by 118,601 votes of 5.6 million cast.
Kerry would have won the presidency if he'd taken Ohio.
"I was devastated when Kerry lost. I thought I'd never volunteer again — then Obama came along," said Keyiana Lee, 22, a cashier, after voting for Obama in Columbus.
McCain and Obama both spent enormous amounts of time and money in Ohio. In a reversal from 2004, the Democrat out-spent and out-organized the Republican. Bush's grass-roots efforts to turn out an unexpectedly higher number of conservatives, especially evangelical Christian voters, was a key to his Ohio victory.
This year, Obama targeted Republican areas that Kerry did not. The Democrat opened campaign officers throughout the state, so that no voter was more than 38 miles from a campaign office. Paid staff and volunteers from Ohio and throughout the country devoted enormous resources to getting voters to the polls.
On Election Day, Obama volunteers were stationed at nearly every precinct in the state.
Obama's seven volunteers at the Barack Recreation Center sometimes outnumbered the actual voters present. No McCain volunteers were to be found. "I wanted to do something, anything, to help," said volunteer Mark Mechum, 26, who took the day off from work as a lobbyist for a child welfare group.
The Ohio Republican Party filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the way voter registrations were checked at the polls. But, overall, few problems or lines were reported at the polls, a contrast to 2004 when lines of four hours or longer marred the election.
Most Ohio polling stations had lines in the morning when the polls opened. After that, lines were rare and, at some places, voters were scarce, too.
The Ohio Secretary of State estimates that 1.5 million of 8 million registered voters cast their ballot before Tuesday. In addition, election officials added thousands of new electronic voting machines to make lines move quicker.
"The mood is decidedly different from four years ago when people were angry and upset about long lines and badly managed polling places," said Ohio State University law professor Daniel Tokaji, an elections expert. "It's hard to get the words out: Things look good in Ohio."
"Voting went like a charm," said Rebecca Strong, 44, a nurse who voted for McCain. "It was organized for a change."
McCain fought hard for Ohio, right to the end. On Tuesday, he appeared live by satellite on the noon broadcast of a Cleveland television station.
Obama made his final appearance Sunday, drawing 60,000 to the state capitol. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin spent Sunday and Monday in the state.
Early election returns show that Obama performed like a rising boat, improving on Kerry's margins in both Democratic and Republican counties.
"I considered McCain at first because I was angry," said Suzanne Ferris, 30, a high school teacher from Columbus who had supported Hillary Rodham Clinton. "As the election went on, I realized that McCain was worse than I thought and Obama was better than I thought."
Other important Ohio races:
• Democrat Richard Cordray, the state treasurer, raised more than $2.5 million to compete against Republican Mike Crites, a former U.S. attorney for southern Ohio, for attorney general. He enjoyed an almost 17 percentage point advantage, according to early results.
Former Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann resigned in May amid a sexual harassment scandal that involved his top aides and female subordinates.
• Issue 6, rejected by voters, would have given the state its first Las Vegas-style casino near the southwest Ohio town of Wilmington. Ohio voters have rejected statewide gambling three times before since 1990.
• Democrats eyed two seats on the Supreme Court. A pair of northeast Ohio judges — Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo and Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Sikora — tried to break the all-GOP hold of the court and failed.
• Republicans hold an 11-7 majority in the Ohio congressional delegation, but saw three of their veteran lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Deborah Pryce, Ralph Regula and David Hobson — bow out of their re-election efforts. Democrats believe the first two seats are their best shots for party turnover.