Mercer County, Ohio

 

 

The interesting information below was relayed to me.

 

Washington Journal ran an article, "How the Bush camp won Ohio," remarking that "in some small conservative counties which have experienced net job losses nearing 10% of business payrolls, Republicans still lined up for the president. In Mercer County, which has lost 5% of its jobs in the last four years, residents voted 3-to-1 -- 15,022 to 4,924 -- for Mr. Bush, a sharp increase over his winning margin in 2000". 

 

My informant notes, “this is very peculiar since over 4,800 people voted in this year's Democratic Primary in Mercer county.” So, “Mercer County has over 30,000 registered voters and yet Kerry was only able to pick up a measly 87 additional votes compared to the March primary”? 

She also points out that not only did Kerry allegedly receive only 87 more votes than people who voted in the Democratic primary, but Gore had over 5,200 votes in 2000 (when there were 6,227 fewer registered voters in MercerCounty).  

She provides some numbers:

Mercer County, Ohio: 

Year 2000:       25,079 registered voters; 18,285 votes cast

Bush 12,485

Gore 5,212

Ralph Nader 392, Howard Philips 13, John Hagelin 24, Pat Buchanan 125, Harry Brown 43

Year 2004:       31,306 registered voters, 20,058 votes cast

Bush 15,022

Kerry 4,924

Other 112

She adds that people might think “this is a conservative county and that many voters may have switched to Bush especially with gay marriage on the ballot.  But with 5 percent of the people losing their jobs in the past four years in this county, I think people are far more concerned about putting food on the table and meeting mortgage payments than worrying about gay people getting married.”

Makes sense to me.