News Summary

Even Republicans admit that Barack Obama and the Democrats have created an impressive campaign in Ohio.

During last weekend alone, the Obama campaign says it had 9,712 volunteers out knocking on 387,000 doors statewide.

The so-called ground war — registering and engaging new voters — has resulted in close to 830,000 new registrations this year, more than 450,000 of whom are under 30, a Dayton Daily News analysis of Ohio registration data has found. In addition, the analysis found that 57 percent of the new voters — defined as having registered since Jan. 1 and not having voted before then — were recorded in the 16 counties that went Democratic in the 2004 presidential election.

Many experts believe those trends bode well for Obama on Election Day.

"There's no question that Barack Obama's campaign has focused very heavily on mobilizing, registering and getting to the polls minority voters and young voters, and I think you see a lot of that in the registration numbers," said Jim Nathanson, a member of the Montgomery County Board of Elections and former political director of the Republican National Committee.

"When it comes to registering voters, the greatest source of new voters will tend to be among minorities and the young, which tend to have lower registration. So the Democrats have been focusing on that.

"It's a smart strategy. They've worked it hard. They've done it well. And there's no question it's going to help them this coming Tuesday."

But Nathanson said the Republican Party has been working its areas of strength hard for several election cycles, so dramatic changes are harder to come by. And, he said, the party expects to beat the Democrats in getting Republican voters to the polls on Nov. 4.

One reason: Turnout among new voters is always a problem, Nathanson said. "If individuals haven't tended to register on their own, they're not going to tend to vote on their own."

Still, he said, the Obama campaign has put a lot of new names on the rolls, and if they get "even a good number" to vote, it will be an advantage.

"I think our voters are still very excited about this race," Nathanson said of Ohio Republicans. "So I think we will be proud of the turnout we get on Election Day. I would have loved to have had 600,000 new voters, though."

No doubt about it: registration is not turnout. The newspaper's analysis found the 16 counties that went for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 had close to 208,000 more registered voters than the 72 counties that supported President Bush. Bush, however, took the state by 136,483 votes.

Longtime Democratic activist Jerry Austin, among others of his party, thinks this year is going to be different. "I've never seen anything like this," said Austin, who began working on Democratic political campaigns in 1968. "I've just been very, very impressed with them all year."

As a new voter 40 years ago, Austin said, one of his preferred candidates, Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated, and the other anti-war candidate, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, didn't get the Democratic nomination. But this year, he said, the young people's candidate not only got the nomination, he has a good chance of winning.

"They have been involved, enthusiastic, experiencing, some of them, their first election, and they're going to win," Austin said. "That's a tremendous combination of things that bode well for both Obama and the Democrats, in terms or what I think will be the largest turnout in the history of presidential politics, nationally and certainly in this state."

Austin said younger voters are more open-minded and less partisan than other generations.

"They look at Obama and they say, wait a second, this guy is more my age than anybody else, certainly than McCain. He's got two young daughters. He's got the demeanor that I like and his race doesn't bother me at all. It's what he has to say. He is change, and I want change.

"That has been a match since Obama started."