Although there are still outstanding absentee ballots to be counted, the final pre-Aug. 8 election early vote numbers are in. 695,561 Ohioans have voted early.

That's around 8.7% of overall voter turnout and more than the 638,708 that voted overall (8% turnout) in August 2022. Responding to a question, there are roughly 68,000 outstanding absentee ballots. It's reasonable to expect around 90% of these will be returned, so that's another 61,000 or so potential early votes yet to be counted.

With Ohio Democrats getting hopeful about poll results in the Senate race, the Ohio Republican Party has issued a press release that includes this story I wrote in 2020.

cleveland.com/election/2020/… "Recent polls showing a tied race between JD Vance and Lyin' Tim Ryan may not be wholly accurate based on pollsters' performance in recent election cycles, but we are taking nothing for granted," says ORP spokesman Dan Lusheck.

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor is delivering her final State of the Judiciary address.

"We've come a long way together," she kicks off. O'Connor basically has been excommunicated from the Republican Party over her repeated rulings against the GOP in redistricting litigation this year, and the GOP state leg leaders have taken to basically ignoring the court on redistricting, so I'm interested to see what she says.

Montrose Group, a Republican public affairs firm in Columbus, has released a wide-ranging poll that includes #OHGov and #OHSen. It was conducted Sept. 6-11, the week Republicans ramped up their spending in the race.

Toplines:

DeWine 49 Whaley 37

Ryan 46 Vance 43 The poll was done by Fallon Research, which I'm not very familiar with, but which did some polling for Mary Taylor's Super PAC in 2018.

Montrose generally deals with economic development issues, and there are a bunch of Cap Square-type Qs.

Cross tabs:

s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2241…

Per @ZackMS, JD Vance won 74 of Ohio's 88 counties, while Josh Mandel won 11 and Matt Dolan won 3. Check out a map here:

cleveland.com/data/2022/05/d… There's also a map showing which counties Tim Ryan won in the Democratic Senate primary. Spoiler alert: it's a map of Ohio.

cleveland.com/data/2022/05/d…

Hello from the Ohio Redistricting Commission. A new front has opened up in Ohio's fight over redistricting. Republicans are questioning expenses paid to an outside Democratic mapmaking consultant as Democrats request permission to pay him more money. In case you're wondering, Gov. Mike DeWine said before this meeting that he went to bed last night at 10:30 p.m. "Early for an Election Night."

Fox News just showed JD Vance's lead in Ohio's Republican Senate primary on the screen here at Vance HQ. The crowd let out a cheer. Shifting to a straight up celebration here as Fox News cuts in with a live shot of the room.

I've landed in Versailles, Ohio for a Republican U.S. Senate candidate forum tonight. It will be the first one of these that I'm aware of, and many more are to come. The only major candidate who won't be here is Sen. Matt Dolan, who has a scheduling issue. Ahead of the event, a text has gone out promoting this Big League Politics post as a "question for tonight's forum" to ask of Josh Mandel. So the funny business has commenced.

bigleaguepolitics.com/exclusive-ohio…

New state legislative maps from Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman are in. Download them here:
redistricting.ohio.gov/assets/distric… Here are the new Ohio GOP state legislative maps.

House:

davesredistricting.org/join/3edabdce-…

Senate:

davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::…

Gov. Mike DeWine gathered reporters this evening to say that there's progress being made toward a bipartisan deal on new state legislative lines, and that he thinks it should be worth considering missing the deadline. DeWine says he's gotten more hands-on in the process today. "I’d rather, frankly, go over the time limit and still try if we think we have a chance to get a bipartisan map, still continue to try to get that bipartisan map. That’s the goal. And it’s not an easy thing to do."

The Ohio League of Women Voters is calling on their members to call Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Auditor Keith Faber, two Republicans who conceivably could broker a redistricting deal with Democrats. An excerpt from an email that just went out: I passed LaRose and Faber just now chatting in the Statehouse Rotunda on my way to the Senate session. I didn't eavesdrop, but I have a decent idea of what they're talking about.

Good morning from the Ohio Redistricting Commission! They were scheduled to meet five minutes ago. Midnight tonight is the constitutional deadline to pass new Ohio House and Senate maps. I have a sinking feeling it’s going to be a long day. Senate President Matt Huffman has moved to recess until 3 p.m. Gaveling in to immediately gavel out!

Greetings from the Ohio Redistricting Commission. After a late night last night in Cleveland last night, House Speaker Bob Cupp, a co-chair of the commission, came prepared with snacks. If I heard correctly, there will be _90_ witnesses. Fortunately I found an available outlet to plug in my laptop.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper says he is stepping down at the end of the year. "I look forward to the ideas, energy and perspectives a new leader can bring to the fore, building on important foundations we have laid while taking needed new directions as well." In three-page letter to ODP exec committee, Pepper touts candidate recruitment efforts, gains on Ohio Supreme Court and other judicial seats among his achievements since taking over in 2014.

Gov. Mike DeWine is doing a panel discussion in Columbus organized by the Success Group, a prominent lobbying firm. The event is a post-election tradition, although obviously the election hasn't exactly ended. Asked why Trump is so popular in Ohio, DeWine brings up Howard Metzenbaum, the longtime liberal U.S. senator in Ohio. "I don't always agree with him, but. That's what you'd hear people saying. I heard that a lot with Metzenbaum, and I hear that a lot with the president."

The reported number of unreturned absentee ballots in Ohio has grown from 243,023 to 251,646 tonight so far. The Ohio Secretary of State's Office has said counties will report their outstanding absentees to the state after they finish their unofficial counts. Here's the link showing the breakdown of outstanding absentees by county.

liveresults.ohiosos.gov

Turnout in Cuyahoga County is just under 63%, compared to 69.5% in 2016. That includes just 48% turnout in Cleveland, around 10 points behind. I'm hearing concern from Ohio Democrats that it's not high enough, especially if there ends up being increased turnout around the state. Here's one of them in fact, former ODP Chair Chris Redfern:

https://twitter.com/ChrisRedfern419/status/1323735215173472258

Something that strikes me about today's news: So much of what prosecutors call a corrupt scheme played out in public. Not that it was easy to connect the dots, but Ohio reporters (including my co-workers) did the dogged work of connecting them. Some examples: Householder's slate of candidates was bankrolled by FirstEnergy. via @jpelzer

cleveland.com/open/2018/04/f…