Democratic leaders from across the state, including Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, cast ballots for Joe Biden on Tuesday to promote early voting two weeks from Election Day and amid an exceedingly close presidential race in Ohio.
“This has already been such a monumental election, and I’m excited that so many people are participating. We have seen numbers like we’ve never seen before when it comes to early vote,” said Mr. Kapszukiewicz, a Democrat who has endorsed Mr. Biden.
He joined mayors from Akron, Columbus, Dayton, and Youngstown who made similar shows of voting for Mr. Biden in events that his campaign organized.
The mayor said that about 25 percent of early voters in Ohio are people who are first-time or infrequent voters, a figure he said likely came from Gov. Mike DeWine. That data is not publicly available at the county level.
“People are showing up who both campaigns — Biden, Trump, Issue 3, Issue 4, Issue 17 — were not expecting to vote. Which is exciting in a real way because it means more people are participating in this election, and it is a terrible sign for Trump,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said.
Lucas County’s Early Vote Center has been averaging about 1,000 voters a day since early in-person voting began two weeks ago. It took the mayor less than an hour to reach the voting booth from the back of a line that wrapped around the building.
Asked about Issues 3 and 4, two of the biggest local tax issues on the ballot, the mayor said a poll in August showed more than 60 percent support for both issues — an income tax renewal for police and fire and new income tax for road improvements.
“That’s not a guarantee they’re both going to pass. But when this campaign began they were both in a position where they felt very comfortable they would pass,” he said. “Meanwhile, there hasn’t been much of an opposition campaign. We’ve had a campaign with five different mailers and digital advertising.”
Mr. Kapszukiewicz’s previous campaign for a temporary income tax, Issue 1, would have paid for road repairs, as well as funding for police and fire, parks, and universal pre-kindergarten. It failed in April’s primary, with 56 percent votes striking it down.
After the election, the mayor said he was able to deduce that Issue 1 would have passed if the primary had not been pushed back from March 17 to April 28 because of the pandemic. Election officials pushed back on his assertion, arguing it would imply that Mr. Kapszukiewicz somehow had access to early vote totals.
Statewide, both presidential campaigns this week are promoting appearances from surrogates and local supporters in the last frenzied days of the election. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to stump in Cincinnati on Wednesday, but neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden has scheduled their next appearances in Ohio, which has lost some of its appeal as a swing state in the current cycle.
Politico reported that Mr. Trump’s Ohio campaign adviser Bob Paduchik told him not to bother coming to the state because “he had it locked up.”
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman — who voted for Mr. Pence in 2016 after Mr. Trump’s leaked Access Hollywood remarks in October, 2016, but has since become a backer of the President — told reporters the same thing on Tuesday.
“My sense is that he will win Ohio, and I’m supporting him here in Ohio,” Mr. Portman said. “I don’t know how much campaigning he’ll do in Ohio, to be honest. I think he’s focused more on other states. Ohio is not viewed as being the ultimate swing state anymore. I think he may be spending more time in Pennsylvania, even Florida, North Carolina, states like that.”
First Published October 20, 2020, 9:13 p.m.
