As the chart to the left shows, the Medina County Democratic vote has grown dramatically over the last three presidential primaries, especially when compared to the Republican vote in the same period.
The Democratic vote in the 2008 Ohio presidential primary in Medina County was 3.90 times the 2000 presidential primary vote and it was 2.40 times the 2004 presidential vote. Over the course of that eight year period, the Democratic vote went up by 24,574 votes. The biggest increase was in the period between 2004 and 2008 when the Democratic vote in the presidential primary went from 13,836 to 33,283, an increase of almost 20,000 voters.
Does these numbers mean that Medina County is turning "blue"? No, but it is certainly becoming more and more purple. It also means that the Democratic Party can be competitive with the Republicans in gubernatorial elections, and possibly even in presidential elections.
During that same period, the Republican vote went down in 2004, as compared to 2000, and then back up in 2008, but nearly as much as the Democratic vote. In 2000, 18590 Medina County voters took Republican ballots in the March primary. In 2004, that figure declined to 12,109, and in 2008, it went up to 18,994, an increase of only 404 between 2000 and 2008.
Of course, to a certain extent, these figures represent the fact that in 2004 and 2008, there were contested Democratic primaries for president in Ohio. Among Republicans, there was no contest in 2004, since Bush was unopposed.
Still, considering that Republicans outnumbered Democrats by over 10,000 in the 2000 primary, but were outnumbered by over 14,000 in the 2008 primary, the GOP has to be worried. This is especially true when you consider that the Democratic vote in the 2006 primary was almost double that of the 2002 primary. In both types of primaries, presidential and gubernatorial, the Democratic vote has seen significant growth, while the Republican vote has gone up only incrementally.
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