Better than predicting today's election result is to deal with "probabilities" a la Nate Silver (LINK) of the 538 political blog located on the NY Times website.
The SCPR only pays attention to two organizations that deal with polling of elections.
The second in line is Charlie Cook's "Cook's Political Report. But first in line is Nate Silver's 538 political blog.
In the 2008 presidential election, Silver corrected called the probabilities for Obama in 49 of 50 states.
This year he is at 90.9% in terms of "probability" that President Obama will be reelected.
And he has Democrat Sherrod Brown "probably" defeating Republican Josh Mandel. And a high "probability" indeed: 96%.
As reported by the SCPR on Friday, the Healy-Abrams (Democrat)/Gibbs (Republican incumbent) race is thought to be safe for Gibbs.
However, the Renacci (Republican incumbent -16th) and Sutton (Democrat incumbent - 13th) race, who are squaring off against one another in the "new 16th" congressional district because of decennial constitutionally required redistricting because Ohio's loss of population results in Ohio losing two congressional seats, is truly "too close to call, meaning that the probabilities are 50/50 across the district.
The SCPR does believe that Renacci will win in Stark.
Why?
Because he and Betty Sutton only has Jackson Township, Lawrence Township (Canal Fulton) and part of Lake Township to deal with. All of these parts of Stark County are known to be Republican indexed and therefore The Report believes he will best Sutton in the Stark County part of the district.
And he likely wins in Wayne County and the parts of Medina County in the 16th.
But it may be a different story over the rest of the district, especially in the northern and northwest parts of the newly configured district.
If Obama has polls well in the 16th overall, then he might well pull Sutton through.
When Statehouse Republicans (including Marlboro's Christina Hagan [the 50th House District] and Plain's Scott Oelslager [the 29th Senate District]) did their gerrymandering redistricting (but not Kirk Schuring who is running in the "new" 48th), they helped carve Stark up into three congressional districts: the 7th (Bob Gibbs/Joyce Healy-Abrams}, the 13th (Tim Ryan/Marisha Agana) and, of course, the 16th (Jim Renacci/Betty Sutton).
Christina Hagan, in particular, said the slicing and dicing of Stark County was a good thing when it happened.
In her warped and highly partisan way of thinking. Former 16th District congressman Ralph Regula takes great exception to her as did Schuring.
Ryan will win easily in the 13th over Agana.
But how about local to Stark County contested races?
The SCPR sees that there are only two contests that could go either way.
The commissioners face off between former Stark County commissioner and Republican Richard Regula and former Canton councilman and Democrat Bill Smuckler is one such race.
The other is the sheriff's match up of Republican Larry Dordea and Chief Deputy Sheriff Mike McDonald (a Democrat).
Who is likely to win in these two races?
In the opinion of the SCPR, it depends on whether or not President Obama wins Stark County, and, if so, by how much. A comfortable Obama win (let's say five percentage points, which The Report thinks is unlikely) would likely mean Smuckler and McDonald wins in a high degree of Silver's "probability."
Any thing less that five percent, it could mean that we will not know on election night which of the candidates for commissioner and sheriff have won.
If Romney wins in Stark, then the SCPR thinks there is a high probability that Regula and Dordea win.
There you have it folks.
Have a great election day and BE SURE TO VOTE!
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