How Sherrod Brown Took the Senate in 2006

Earlier we posted an entry on why Howard Metzenbaum got elected three times to the U.S. Senate from Ohio. Our point was that Metzenbaum, although a Jewish liberal, got votes from white working class voters, even while, in 1988, Dukasis was losing Ohio to George H.W. Bush. We pointed out that he did it by talking about economic issues first, last, and always.

That post got us wondering how Sherrod Brown did with white working class voters in the 2006 election against Mike DeWine. Now, for purposes of this entry, we are defining working class voters as voters who don't possess a four year college degree.

The CNN Exit Poll for the 2006 Ohio Senate Race shows that Brown carried this demographic group of voters against DeWine in 2006. Here are some numbers from that poll:

Brown beat DeWine among all white voters by a 52% to 48% margin. He took white males by a margin of 51% to 49% and white women by a margin of 53% to 47%. He took non-college educated 57% to 43% and he took college graduates by a margin of 55% to 45%. Among white voters who stated religious preferences, the only group that Brown lost were white Protestants, and he took white Catholics, white Jews, whites of other religions, and whites who don't have any religion.

Among geographical regions, the only areas he lost was Southwestern Ohio, and he won in cities and suburbs, but lost in small towns and in rural areas. He won both among union members and among non-union members.

Whoever comes out of the race for the Democratic nomination should take a long look at Sherrod's 2006 campaign for Senator and use that same approach when campaigning not only in Ohio but all over the United States.

Conservative Talk Show Host Repudiated by McCain Claims He was Asked by DeWine to "Throw Red Meat to the Crowd"

Bill Cunningham, the right-wing talk show host from Cincinnati, who introduced John McCain at a rally last week using Obama's middle name and referring to him as a "Daley style" politician from Chicago, says he was recruited to do the introduction by former U.S. Senator Mike DeWine. He claims that he was recruited at a lunch by DeWine and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters. Deters disputes that the recruiting took place at the lunch that he attended with DeWine and Cunningham. All of this is contained in an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Cunningham, who is now ticked off at McCain for apologizing to both Obama and Clinton for Cunningham's remarks, is telling his listeners that he cannot support the person he is calling "Juan Pablo McCain". (We are assuming that Cunningham is calling McCain Juan Pablo to point out McCain's support of immigration reform, but, since we are not a radical, right-winger, we can't be sure.)

One of the constant things we have been told by the media over the years is that Mike DeWine is some sort of "moderate" Republican. (Apparently if you don't foam at the mouth and howl at the moon, you are given "moderate" status by the corporate media.) Like all such "moderate Republicans", however, DeWine is not above using the radical, right-wingers when it serves his political purpose.

Sherrod Brown and the Five Largest Ohio Counties

Earlier we posted an entry on how Senator Sherrod Brown did in the 20 counties that make up southeastern Ohio, excluding Franklin. What we found was that Senator Brown got over 54% of the vote in those 20 counties, winning 18 of them. In this entry we look at how he did in the five counties in Ohio that have a population of 500,000 or over. Those counties are Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery and Summit.

As it turns out, Senator Brown did very well in those counties. He won four of them, and only lost Hamilton by 2,027 votes. In the five counties as a whole, he received 907,007 and former Senator DeWine received 592,406. This gave Senator Brown a margin of 314,601, or a winning percentage of 63.8%.

Interestingly while these five counties were very important to Senator Brown's victory, his margin of victory statewide was greater than his margin of victory in those five counties. Statewide he won by a margin of 496,393, with a winning percentage of 56.16%.

Here are the totals for the five largest counties:

County/ Brown/ Dewine
Cuyahoga/ 319,645/ 133,260
Franklin/ 217,961/ 154,098
Hamilton/ 142,134/ 144,167
Montgomery/ 100,491/ 88,322
Summit/ 126,776/ 72,559

Where Did Mikey Get His Money?

The picture to the left is from www.politicalmoneyline.com and can be viewed here. The information concerns where Richard Michael DeWine got his money. (Did you know that his first name was Richard? Neither did we. We will avoid the obvious in-bad-taste puns.)

According to Political Moneyline, his biggest single source was from what they call "Single-Issue" Groups, followed by people and organizations engaged in "Finance/Insurance", "Health Care", "Communications/Technology", "Business-Retail, Services."

Organized labor gave DeWine $42,500 and public employees gave him $5,000.00.

Interestingly enough organizations and individuals allied with the legal system were 10th on DeWine's list of groups financing his election. We find that interesting because DeWine is an attorney. You think that he would have done better with attorneys and law firms. Makes us feel better about our profession.

The single biggest category of employers listed? Homemakers. Yep, homemakers. Women just staying at home, making brownies, and writing checks to Mike DeWine.

Anyway, that's our report on where Mikey got his money.

The "Secular Vote" in the 2006 Ohio Senate Race

Right after the 2004 presidential election there were a lot of articles on how the Democratic Party was in trouble with members of the religious right and how that trouble led to Bush's re-election. For a long time this theme dominated the media. Very little attention was given to the other side of the equation and that is whether Republicans were in trouble with, for want of a better term, the secular left.

With the 2006 election cycle, however, some commentators began to pay attention to that side of the equation. John Green, director of the Bliss Center for Applied Politics at the University of Akron, was quoted in an article pointing out that Ohioans who were not regular church goers were organizing politically at the same rate as the religious right. Because of Green's comments, the following article at Huffington Post caught our eye: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-scher/the-conservatives-secul_b_42359.html In the article Bill Scher argues that conservatives have problems with the secular voters that are bigger than the problems liberals have with the religious voters.

Based on that column, we examined the results of the CNN exit poll for Ohio's Senate race in 2006. That examination showed some interesting results.

According to the exit poll, 16% of Ohio voters surveyed attended church more than once a week. Among that group DeWine beat Brown by 62% to 38%. The same poll showed 30% attending weekly and among that group DeWine beat Brown by the much narrower margin of 52% to 48%. Respondents who only attended church once a month went for Brown by a margin of 59 to 48% and they accounted for 13% of the respondents. Respondents who attended church a few times a year accounted for 27% of the respondents and Brown beat DeWine by 69% to 31%. Respondents who never attended church accounted for 13% of the respondents and they went for Brown by a whopping 74% to 26%.

The survey is interesting for several reasons. First of all, it shows that respondents who attend church once a month or less accounted for 53% of the respondents. Second, only among the voters who attended church more than once a week did DeWine have a significant lead over Brown of 24%. They accounted for 16% of the respondents. Brown, however, significantly exceed that margin with those respondents who never attended church when he beat DeWine by 48% and they accounted for 13% of the respondents. Third while the biggest group, those attending church once a week did go for DeWine by 4%, the second biggest group, those attending church only a few times a year went for Brown by 38% of the vote. Brown was able to decisively beat DeWine among voters who have no or little church attendance while staying close to DeWine among those voters who attend church weekly.

A lot of this is being missed by the mainstream media. Most media commentators would not find anything "new" in secular voters voting for Democrats. They probably believe that such voting has been taking place for years. Such a belief is probably correct. What is new, however, may be that such voters are now overwhelmingly voting for Democrats.
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You can view the entire CNN exit poll results for the Brown-DeWine race by clicking on this entry's title.