By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com
The horse races contested in Crawford County polling stations were won by the GOP elephant in Tuesday’s General Election. Republicans dominated not only the local contested races (see related story), but were also the clear favorite by county voters for state and national contests as well.
“By large we are a conservative county and Republicans have an advantage here, especially in a presidential election year,” Crawford County Prosecutor Matt Crall said. Crall ran uncontested for a second term as Crawford County Prosecutor.
The advantage Crall alluded to was insurmountable for Democrats.
While the Trump/Pence ticket won statewide by a 53-43 margin, the difference was much more lopsided in Crawford County. Locally Donald Trump collected over 70 percent of the ballots cast with the actual local vote count of 13,265 for Trump to 4,518 for Clinton.
Rob Portman was declared a winner by the Associated Press almost the very minute polls were closed statewide Tuesday evening in his race for the U.S. Senate against former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland. Portman collected 59 percent of the votes cast in that race statewide and 72.58 percent of those cast in Crawford County.
Crawford County’s representative to Congress will again be Jim Jordan. Jordan was re-elected to his seat from District 4 by a 68-32 margin throughout the district, while in Crawford County he was favored by nearly 71 percent of voters.
Dave Burke, state senator, and Wes Goodman, state representative, ran uncontested.
Turnout was high in the county with 19,042 total ballots cast or 67.63 percent of registered voters. The number included 6,386 absentee ballot and 506 provisional ballots. The number of provisional ballots cast is not high enough to affect the final outcome of any race or issue.
Crawford County Board of Election officials said they would begin the official count on Nov. 21 and complete it sometime Nov. 22.
RELATED CONTENT: Crawford County Election Results – General Election Nov. 8, 2016