Happy Election Year 2025, Cincinnati!

 Just when you want to forget about elections and politics, 2025 has arrived and for Cincinnati that means City Council and Mayoral Elections are this fall. Yes, I can see the joy in your face.  The glee of a local election is like a melted plastic spatula stuck to the burner on the stove:  You can't undue your failure, just fix your mistakes.

The mistakes with local elections in Cincinnati at this point are those who don't vote. Yes, the knee jerk reaction of many who pretend to follow politics is to opine about those in power.  Whenever I hear people complain about those in power in a Democratic City, I can put them in one of two camps: 1) They are a Republican/Conservative whining about not being in power or 2) They are a leftist who wants power and can't come to grips with the fact that their extremist views are not popular.

What sucks about local politics is that most of the people paying attention are extremists or cranks.  Yeah, you could call me a crank, but I am more of the nerdish observer that is content with a main stream Democratic Majority is not against Business Groups, but wants to have reasonable regulations and checks on them.

When local elections come around we tend to get lots of idiots out there.  You know you are.  Various fringe groups, special interests, and Right Wing assholes that are looking to get attention.  In 2025 getting attention for a local election is very difficult.  The public is extra ignorant these days.  People under 40 will barely vote.  What is sad is that those who actually turned out just a a couple months ago will not bother to vote again for years.  I blame them for there idiocy. 

Left leading groups want to blame Republicans for why they don't vote.  Sure, there are efforts to make it more difficult to vote from Republicans.  Yes, these efforts disproportionally affect the poor and racial minorities. That is not an excuse for people who can, but don't vote.  The problem is with adults who don't vote.  Yeah, adults, everyone who is old enough to vote is an adult.  They are charged with being responsible for themselves, but they can't bother to vote. So 18-55 years old would be the age range with shitty voter turnout. People have been worried about alienating the younger voters.  Well, they alienated themselves.  It is time to just call them out as lazy fucking morons. 

IF you can't get off your ass to vote one time a year, then I am will happily call you a lazy fuck.  Yes, the lowest common denominator type defense is the first reaction that I get, but that is just as lazy.  I am not talking about the exceptions. I am talking about the dumb fucks who spend their free time playing video games and smoking weed.  Maybe they watch tik tok or some asshole video from YouTube, but that is such a bullshit way to live.

These ignorant fucks just whine that they can do nothing to change things.  The problem: these fucks don't know what needs to be changed.  They are passive shits who are feed crap and think they are making choices.  They are just sheep. IT is not a surprise that an increasing number of younger men have become so intellectually lazy that they fall for sexist fascism Trumpists preach.

The only ones make an attempt to be activists are those with extremist views.  They are making an effort, but are have their own problems with reality.  They live in a mythical world that thinks purity is best and protest without achievable goal. They make noise and do little else. When you fail to achieve anything, other than pissing off people who could help your cause, you have no credibility.  For Activists, getting attention is more important than achieving goals.

Whilst my rant continues: I must also point out those who are knee jerk against those in office.  They don't have a consistent sense of ideology, but think they do when they want to remove other from power. No sense of what that will bring (See Trump), but they think change will be better.  The problem is just more ignorance.  They can't articulate what needs to change, just that change needs to happen.  This mindset hits into populists more than leftists. When they know they can't change, they don't bother to participant and point fingers at others or the system, anything but their own ignorance.

Do not forget that the Republicans and Trumpists will do something this year to hurt the city, it is their way.  COASTers or the like will make trouble and get suburban funding to make it happen. They could claim a "legitimate" effort in City politics if they get Chris Smitherman to run for mayor.  Based on my observation of Smitherman over the last 20+ years in local politics, it is obvious that his dream is to be Mayor of Cincinnati.  He has no realistic chance to win. He has pretended for most of last 20+ years to NOT be a Republican.  This past year he sloppily danced around direct support for Trump, something he has avoided.  He is surrounded by hardcore Trumpists as his core potential campaign leadership. I do not recall seeing him directly endorse Trump, but he pushed fringe issues championed by Trump and Vance. Before I left Twitter you could interpret his tweets as a bad RFKjr imitation.  I think Smitherman is unhinged and delusional. As the Republican Party's sane wing has drunk the Kool Aide or gone on an ethics holiday, they could see it as a wise play to try and demonize the City with Smitherman as their voice and a ploy to gain more black votes for County elections. Exploiting black men is not new for Republicans, but what kind of man allows himself to be exploited?

Yes, happy election year, Cincinnati! This will be a clusterfuck. People will bitch about the lack of candidates that they "like."  When people do that, they likely don't have a clue about the candidates.  They don't know about any of the issues facing the city and are not going to make any efforts to find out. Unless outside group put shitty Charter Amendments on the ballot, no issues will be discussed.  We can't have discussions on issue because any issues to be discussed will be usurped into a national debate that has little or just no relevance to the actual issue.  Groups will form and demonize others who disagree with them on the issue.  There will be no room for compromise.

The best thing you can do, is to ignore the assholes who are pushing you to join their cause. 98% of them are full of shit and lying about some part of their "cause." I observed this from the Rail Road sale. A bipartisan coalition of asses opposed the sale based on lies. It was sad to see people do this and join forces with extremists. Right Wing extremists and Left Wing Extremists mixed with some who in the past were not extremists and those non-extremists lost a lot of credibility. They burned so many bridges that I don't see how they get back into politics, locally. I don't suppose it matters anyway, least of all toe them.

I expect this year's election to end up two ways: 1) Democratic candidates win a fairly quiet and easy reelection or 2) Democratic candidates win a nasty election, maybe one or two less council members, but maintain their vast control of the City.

The only question at hand: Will the Republican Party OR the Charter Committee actually field any candidates for the general election? I will not be surprised if we don't see them publicly endorse any candidates. When they complain about the lack of choice, they get all of blame for that.

Hamilton County, Ohio Presidential Election Results by Neighborhood

 The results for Hamilton County shifted slightly towards Republicans in the Presidential race.  The table below lists out the Cincinnati neighborhoods and County municipality or township.

The data used for the Cincinnati Neighborhoods are approximations based on assignment of each precinct to one neighborhood. Therefore the underlying totals do is not exactly match the defined boundaries by census data. The County municipalities and Townships match up as precincts are tied to municipal borders.

The results by area are not surprising. There are some margins that are surprising. Obvious the conservative far west portion outside the City has vote totals like rural farm country. The east and north areas outside the City show a far more moderate or even Dem majority. 

In the City the same few Republican dominated areas exist. There a few more areas smaller Dem margin than one would expect Avondale, Camp Washington, Corryville, CUF, East Westwood, Lower Price Hill, Madisonville, Mt. Auburn, Riverside, South Fairmount, Villages at Roll Hill, and Westwood and saw Republican vote gains of over 2.5%.  Lower Price Hill increased over 6%.

Some neighborhoods saw percentage gains Dems, oddly California was the highest by far at over 6%. The Republican neighborhood is small, so a small shift of a couple dozen people shows out more. Most had smaller variances. Dems in HamCo worried about local Democrats and that helped with local candidates. State and National Dems do not have a clue about Ohio and don't seem like they are trying at all.

2024 Hamilton County Election Turnout Analysis

Turnout in Hamilton County was down 3.5% compared to 2020. Here's a breakdown by City vs Non-City:

If you want a simple representation of the Macro analysis of the election, all you have to do is compare this to a few other counties in Ohio:

Turnout fell in suburban counties, but less than it dropped in the urban county.  The hypothesis that follows is that Republican votes retained more from 2020, while Democratic votes dropped. The two data points that are available for additional review are age and race.  Race is very limited, as it relies on census data in a precinct and can't be tied directly to voter's data.  When looking at areas with a majority black population, there is a larger drop in turnout.  The difference is over 2%, which while significant, is not conclusive with the sourcing of the data.  Age, on the other hand, can be tied directly to voters.

Here is a breakdown by generation within Hamilton County.

This data is based off of the Registered voter database.  That data is live and not exactly the same as certified results, but the total differential is at most a few hundred. My definition of each generation is consistent by year.  The inflated size of the Boomer generation is tied to the commonly accepted period of the "Baby Boom" and rounded up to 20 years.  Using 15 years for all other subsequent generations, as well as the Silent generation, provides for reasonable consideration of a generation.

Changes in registration numbers for Zoomers and Millennials contributes to some of their variation.  Millennials had a significantly higher drop in registrations than GenX. This would follow logically if you consider that Millennials are more likely to be either newer parents moving to the Exurbs or more likely moving farther away for work.  Additionally, since they have not been consistent voters, they could also be more likely to have been purged for inactivity or other partisan targeting.

Zoomers had a natural increase in registration, as more people reach age 18, but the turnout lagged far more than older generations. Young voters in Hamilton County continue their propensity to have lower turnout.

There is an Election Next Month, Have You Noticed?

Yesterday I was updating some data files that I normally use for my election analysis and I was thinking about why I am doing it.

I enjoy analysis, so I want to know how Hamilton County (HamCo) votes breakdown.  Which areas in the City will beat turnout from 2020?  Have voting precincts changed?  Lots of interesting items to play with.  So much of this seems like it is just for my own amusement.

Early voting data is available as well. It is annoying, however. As a true data geek, I like my control totals to match. The detailed absentee voter data one can download from the BOE does not exactly match the totals the BOE publishes. The differences are not huge, but noticeable. They would not change a basis point, only a small fraction. It would just make sense to have these match. Maybe after while things will catch up, as delays would account for much of the variances, but if there are other differences, I wish they would summarize the causes. I like to know why.

I Am Giving Up On The News Media

 I made a choice about this blog.  I changed the tag line.  I took out the "media analysis," but kept the "analysis."  I am giving up on the news media.

My efforts at blogging has entailed many things over my 20+ years of activity, but being a critic of the media has been a fairly constant thread through it all.  I am publicly stating I am taking that off the masthead, so to speak.  The news media is hopeless and there is nothing to be done about it.

I am not saying I won't consume the news, I will continue to do that, but I no longer respect what is left of the profession anymore.  The only thing remaining is trying to entertain an audience, and this is from the "reputable" outlets.  The disreputable outlets are unabashed agents of propaganda and manipulation.  I'm not going to name names, but they are obvious.

I am giving up on all forms of the news media: broadcast tv, cable tv, newspapers, websites, and radio.  This is includes national and local outlets. The death of local news has been the most painful to watch the last decade.  The slow death of local newspapers and the nationalization of local TV news programming has turned local news into a mockery. The only way people will know somethings local is by individuals posting about it on their varied social media accounts.  That is a dangerous and terrible situation as social media is a cesspool without any reliability or trustworthiness.

I will point out that there is still good journalism going on.  There are individuals, even those employed by vapid outlets, who do good work. I am not trying to bash every journalist.  I am hitting at the profession. That is what I am giving up on and if I have disappointment in some individual journalists it is when they defend their outlets or colleagues actions when they chase after drama and entertaining stories. Seeing some journalists get defensive at criticism has exasperated me. They don't want to come to the reality what they are doing is not journalism, it is entertainment.  Some of them don't see a difference and that is just sad.

At this point I am going to guess you might be looking for someone to blame.  Some of you might want to throw blame on corporate media.  Sorry Charlie, they only get a relatively small portion of the blame.  The overwhelming majority of the blame goes on the public. Most of the public does not care.  They don't consume news.  They may say they follow the news, but they don't. At best they read some headlines, but they don't regularly consume anything.  Sure, they know about the sports and entertainment news.  They know what is trending on social media.  They are immersed into the marketing feeds (TikTok, YouTube, Instagram) and are up to date on what they are spoon fed while sitting on the couch or on the crapper.

All of this is done willingly, by the way.  People are inherently lazy and foolish.  They want what is easy and quick.  They make time to play endless video games, or watching sports or viewing reality TV (modern day soap operas), but they don't want the mental veggies that is the news. They are willingly embracing a path that would lead society to Idiocracy and not Star Trek.

So, the failure of the corporate world is not in marketing to these people, but instead for requiring the news media to pay for itself. In the broadcast TV world of the long past, news programming was a loss for the networks.  They could make more money from a sitcom.  They provided the news as a service to society.  Partly for legal reasons, but also for civic reasons.  Owners had a tiny shred of duty that kept news coverage going.  That eroded over the years, but prior to the internet, it sort of worked.  The Internet killed the newspaper. With the death of the newspaper, the Wire Services have been decimated.  The blood of the news is reporting: who, what, where, and when. With the lack of reporting, an artificial blood of drama and entertainment has been created and killed the credibility of the news. With apathy of the public, the news media has been gutted. So, no one else cares, so I am giving up on media analysis.  

I am admitting defeat.  I am still not sure what I am going to write about.  Politics is pointless at this point as well, much because of the same terrible media and apathetic public. I am not sure if I will even keep this blog going. This was always just a fun little project and 20 years ago it had a small but consistent audience.  Well, that is long gone. There is not much point as people don't care.  I suppose this is blog post is just a tree falling in the woods. No one will notice.  Well, if I am going to go down, I wanted to at least say something on the way to ground.

What to Write About for 2024?

It is 2024. Happy New Year!  Ok, so the honeymoon should be over in a Presidential Election year at about 12:04 AM on the 1st. It is day two of the year and I am looking ahead. Local elections are happening this year, but for Cincinnati there is not going to be much for me to write and think about. The Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney and Sheriff races will be interesting to watch and should be competitive, but that's about it. 

Hamilton County has gone "Blue" in a partisan sense.  Compared to other urban counties, it is NOT as close and there are many more moderate voters that in certain races will easily split tickets.  For the Prosecutor's race the Republicans have had the edge for a long time.  This year is setting up to be one that the Democratic candidate has a very good chance of winning, with Joe Deters not on the ballot.

The most interesting thing I am seeing so far: All of the statehouse races in Hamilton County will be  contested by both parties.

 

National politics is something that is very difficult to write about.  State wide politics is also something that is difficult to write about for a large state like Ohio. I have no plans to write much about the Ohio Senate race as there is little I can add.

The only thing I may play with is using the State wide Voter Registration datasets.  I have linked in year end datasets and I plan on working on some statewide data.  I think getting turnout rates based on generation would be most interesting information I could compile.  In Hamilton County I have been doing this for years now, but seeing how different it would be statewide or for certain types of counties.  I don't have a profile created for all counties, but I could come up with some general variations.

I will be thinking about other topics to write about.  This blog used to be more active with more snark and more traditional political banter.  This blog is now almost 22 years old.  I used to care about being in the trenches, bare knuckle punching policy, parties, and pols.  I don't give shit about that. When I argue on something I am like a dog with a bone, I don't let it go.  I think it is better to avoid arguing.  Discussing, sharing ideas, maybe even debating can be good and high level.  On social media, it is not not.  On a blog, it can be better.  There can be depth, there can be facts and support.  There can be a pause to reflect before one just reacts. I am going to be thinking about other topics to write about.

Media has been something I long have cared about.  Locally, the news media is dying.  There are good journalism going on, but we just have failures going on in what is being covered and we have so much garbage journalism.  I don't think there is much I can write about that.  The causes are evident to me and no one is willing to change, as the average person is the problem with the media and the average jane and joe are too lazy to change or learn anything.  It is like we are doomed and I don't know the value of that.  Maybe there is some data to collect on who and what media exists.  Maybe there is something I can add.  I will try, but as I age my expectations don't expand like my waist.

Hamilton County 2023 Turnout by Generation

Hamilton County voter turnout was the highest level for a local election in recent memory. Abortion rights drove most of the additional turnout. Here is voter turnout by Generation:

These numbers are based on the updated voter registration data, not the final results, so there is a small variance. Below are final summary turnout results in the county.  First broken down by City vs Non-City:

 

Additionally, for those who like detail, here is turnout based on Neighborhood in the City and on Municipality outside of the City.  

Note that the City Neighborhoods are approximate, based on a precinct breakdown.  All 52 are included, but some neighborhoods are unable to be broken out separately.