It’s Election Day. That means sometime after polls close at 7:30 p.m., voters around the state will be watching TV and for the most dedicated, compulsively reloading voting returns on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website.

I’ll be doing the same.

To help with your doomscrolling, here are a few things I’m going to be looking for tonight. 

And a quick disclaimer: when I evaluate state elections, I tend to look at the Democratic framing, since it’s simpler than visualizing the Republican path to victory, which involves racking up votes in dozens of rural counties. 

In other words, describing it this way doesn’t mean I’m rooting for Democrats to win. It’s just easier for me to keep results straight. Even some Republicans I talk to view it the same way.

Here are five things I’ll be watching in tonight’s election.

Get live election updates and results after polls close at 7:30 p.m.

Early vote numbers might be cloudy 

Professional, sophisticated elections analysts can call an election even before all the results are in by using statistical analysis of detailed Election Night data.

But for the rest of us, the rule of thumb is if a Democratic candidate gets close to 60% of the early vote, it’s a good sign that they’ve won the election. 

The same has been true of ballot issue campaigns where there are clearly delineated partisan positions, like the November 2023 abortion-rights amendment that voters passed, or tonight’s Issue 1, which would change Ohio’s system of drawing congressional and state legislative maps. (Republicans oppose it and Democrats support it, although the measure’s key spokesperson is Maureen O’Connor, a Republican former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.) 

So how a statewide issue or candidate is performing after the early vote can make it instantly clear if likely to win or not.

Bernie Moreno has worked this truism into his stump speech, describing a fantasy scene to supporters who might be watching the news on Election Day. 

“If Sherrod Brown is below 55% on early voting, turn off the TV. Come see me,” Moreno said at a campaign event in Columbus last month.

But I’m just not confident about the significance of the early vote this year. Data show that Republicans are voting early in greater numbers. And the “60%” rule was based on the idea that Democrats are more likely to vote early. 

So these numbers could just end up looking different this year.

Bellwether counties

In lieu of that, another good measuring stick could be “bellweather” counties, or counties that tend to vote like the rest of the state. 

My favorite examples include Wood County, which includes Toledo’s southern suburbs. In 2020, former President Donald Trump won nearly 52.9% of the vote in Wood County, compared to 53.2% of the entire state. 

Delaware County north of Columbus also voted in a similar range in 2020, with Trump winning 52.5% of the vote there. It’s reasonable to suspect Republicans might do worse in these two counties, if Democrats are able to make the gains with suburban voters that polls project. Election-night returns will show whether or not this is the case. Brown has predicted he’ll win Delaware County, and his campaign has made the area a key focus.

Another county I’m watching especially closely this year is Portage County, which includes Kent. Sen. Sherrod Brown won the county in 2018 with about 53% of the vote. Republican Sen. JD Vance won there in 2022 with about 53% of the vote. And both candidates won the statewide election with 53% of the vote. The county is a little Trumpier than the average county, so Brown’s performance there should foreshadow whether he’s able to get the crossover support he needs to win. 

Finally, I’ll be watching Trumbull County. Part of Brown’s path to victory involves doing better in the Mahoning Valley than other Democrats have recently. In 2018, Brown got 58% of the vote there. 

But in 2020, the county voted nearly 55% for Trump, and Vance got 53% of the county’s vote in 2022. Brown has campaigned heavily in the Youngstown area, and has predicted he’ll win there like the last time he ran for reelection. At least keeping it close to his 2018 number would show whether there are enough Trump-Brown crossover votes there for Brown to win.

Where it might get better for Democrats

Unless something really unexpected happens, Trump will win Ohio tonight. The question is whether he will do better or worse than the 8 percentage points he won the state by in 2016 and 2020. There are polls that support each scenario.

Trump’s margin of victory will help determine whether or not down ballot Democrats like Brown and Brown and U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Emilia Sykes of Akron are able to win their competitive races.

So if Vice President Kamala Harris is going to improve on President Joe Biden’s numbers, Biden’s 2020 Ohio performance could provide a road map.

Biden lost net votes in 76 Ohio counties compared to Hillary Clinton in 2016. But he gained them in 12 counties. Generally, these are the state’s most suburban areas that have gotten more Democratic since Trump took over the Republican Party. Most of them voted for the abortion-rights measure last November. They are:

1. Franklin (+46,040 votes for Biden)
2. Hamilton (26,326)
3. Delaware (8,075)
4. Montgomery (7,923)
5. Summit (4,605)
6. Butler (3,555)
7. Greene (2,323)
8. Warren (1,994)
9. Clermont (325)
10. Lake (494)
11. Wood (40)
12. Hancock (21)

Where it might get better for Republicans

Meanwhile, Biden lost votes compared to Clinton in the remaining 76 counties. 

The worst performing ones include legacy union manufacturing areas where state Democrats used to win regularly. For some of them, including the Mahoning Valley, the party has yet to bottom out.

Here are the top ones:  

1. Mahoning (-6,027 votes compared to Clinton)
2. Stark (-4,951)
3. Trumbull (-4,655)
4. Lorain (-3,984)
5. Ross (-3,984)
6. Richland (-3,425
7. Columbiana (-3,327)
8. Clark (-3,079)
9. Muskingum (-2,963)
10. Wayne (-2,860)

Urban turnout

In 2022, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan ran a surprisingly competitive race against Sen. JD Vance.

But one of the things that did Ryan in was lagging turnout among Black voters in Ohio’s largest cities, including the “Three Cs” of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.

Early-vote numbers have shown Ohio’s largest counties, namely Cuyahoga County, are making up a smaller share of this year’s early vote compared to  previous presidential elections. If this translates to lower-than-average turnout in the big cities, that’s a problem for Democrats.

I don’t have a specific number in mind, but I’ll know it when I see it. In 2020, the big urban counties trailed the state average of 74% turnout by a few percentage points. If that range looks different this year, it’s a bad sign for Democrats.