Medina County Primary Voting 1998-2006

Here are the numbers for the voters voting in primaries from 1998-2006 in Medina County with the first column being the year, the second column being the number of Republican primary voters and the third column being the number of Democratic voters:

1998/ 10144/ 6856

2000/ 18814/ 8641

2002/ 11464/ 6341

2004/ 12231/ 14033

2006/ 12191/ 11675

There are several interesting things about these numbers. First, the Republican Party since 1998 has only picked up 2,147 in gubernatorial primaries while the Democratic Party has picked up 4,819 voters.

Second, both parties had their highest turnouts during presidential election years, the Republicans in 2000 and the Democrats in 2004.

Third, while the difference between the Republicans and Democrats in the 1998 primary was 3288 by 2006 that difference was 516. That figure is even more significant when you remember that while the Democratic primary for governor was a lopsided contest between Strickland and Flannery, the Republican primary for governor was a hotly contested one between Blackwell and Petro.

Fourth, the combination of Bob Taft as governor and George Bush as president could be driving down the Republican primary turnout.

Fifth, having a Democrat from a "red" area of Ohio, Strickland, being the leading candidate for Governor in 2006 helped the voter turnout in Medina County for the Democratic Primary. Between 2002 and 2006 the voter turnout in the Democratic Primary increased by 5,334 votes. Compare that to the decrease of 515 from the 1998 to the 2002 primary when we had two Cuyahoga County candidates, Fisher and Hagan as the leading candidates for Governor.

It will be fascinating to see what happens in the March 2008 presidential primary in Medina County since both parties should have contested primaries for president. Since the highest turnout for a primary was in 2000 when McCain was running against Bush, and since McCain will be on the ballot in 2008 there could be a big Republican turnout. On the other hand, since Clinton is the first woman to have a realistic opportunity to win the nomination of a major political party there could be a big Democratic turnout. Of course, it is not an either-or situation since voters who occasionally vote in party primaries come from ranks of independents and not the other party.

This is shown by the fact that from 2002 to 2006 only 886 voters went from voting Republican to voting Democratic in primaries even though the number of Democratic voters increased by over 5,000. Clearly most of the increase came from previously non-affliated voters voting in the Democratic primary since only 1467 voters who registered after the primary election of May, 2002 but before the May, 2006 primary took a Democratic ballot in that primary. Those figures mean that 27.5% of the increase turnout for the two Democratic primaries of 2002 and 2006 came from new Medina County voters while 72.5% came from voters who were registered before the 2002 primary. No matter what, though, the numbers from the March 2008 primary will be interesting to analyze.