In-person early voting is underway in Ohio. Find your nearest polling booth here.
The vice presidential debate is tonight. The debate will be between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan. After the last debate, some pundits are saying Biden needs to win this one to slow down the Romney-Ryan momentum. But keep in mind political scientists say debates have little to no electoral impact in the long term, so it’s possible most of the post-debate polling in favor of Mitt Romney could indicate a temporary bounce. The debate is at 9 p.m. and will be aired on all the big networks. The full schedule of presidential debates can be found here.
Romney might campaign in Lebanon, Ohio this weekend. Ohio is considered a must-win for the Republican presidential candidate. Even with a post-debate bounce, Romney still looks to be the underdog in Ohio. The latest poll from NBC, Wall Street Journal and Marist shows Romney down six points to Obama among likely voters in the state with a margin of error of 3.1. The poll does show the race tightening from the eight-point gap measured on Oct. 3, but it’s apparently not enough. By itself, the poll could be considered an outlier and too optimistic for Obama, but it actually echoes the latest CNN poll and aggregate polling taken after the debate. In aggregate polling, Romney is down 1.6 points in Ohio after the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll. Before the latest poll, he was down 0.8 points.
A new poll shows a slim majority of Ohioans now support same-sex marriage. The poll found 52 percent of Ohioans support it, while 37 percent want it to stay illegal. The poll gives a shot of optimism to Freedom to Marry Ohio, an amendment that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Supporters say the amendment could be on the Ohio ballot as soon as November 2013.
State Auditor Dave Yost wants to put the attendance fraud investigation in context. When talking with Gongwer yesterday, Yost explained that the potential data rigging going could have cost schools additional funding for at-risk students: “I suspect we probably have schools in Ohio that ought to be getting that extra money for those extra services to help those schools that are most at risk, and that money is not flowing because the data is not accurate.”
Will county budget cuts hurt public safety? As the county commissioners try to sort out the budget without raising taxes, Hamilton County’s sheriff department could see some cuts, according to Commissioner Greg Hartmann.
He insists the cuts will not hurt public safety, however.
An Oct. 1 analysis by left-leaning Policy Matters Ohio found the casino tax will not be enough to make up for cuts in state aid. Even in cities hosting casinos, the extra tax revenue will only cover about half of cuts.
Only a few weeks remain in Hamilton County’s free electronics recycling program.
A Nuns on the Bus tour is encouraging voters to support politicians that provide for the poor. The tour will avoid being partisan and mentioning candidates' names, but the general vibe of the tour implies support for Democratic candidates.
Josh Mandel, Ohio’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has gotten another rating from PolitiFact Ohio. This one is “Mostly False” for Mandel’s claim that opponent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown has missed more than 350 votes in the Senate. Brown has only missed 21 out of 1,779 votes since he joined the Senate, and he hasn’t missed any votes this year. The Mandel campaign claims the ad was keeping track of Brown’s entire public career, but 83 of the votes Brown missed in that time period were in 2000, when Brown was in a car accident in which he broke his ribs and vertebrae.
The NBC/WSJ/Marist poll also had some bad news for Mandel. He was found to be down 11 points to Brown among likely voters. Mandel is now down 4.2 points in aggregate polling.
The right-leaning Tax Foundation ranked Ohio No. 39 for business tax climate. The conservative research group gave Ohio good marks for unemployment insurance and the corporate tax rate, but it criticized the state for its individual income tax and property tax. New York, New Jersey and California were at the bottom of the overall rankings, and Wyoming, South Dakota and Nevada were at the top.
Jobless claims fell to 339,000 — the lowest in four and a half years. Coupled with last week’s employment numbers, the news indicates that an economic recovery is truly underway. However, jobless claims are very volatile, so it’s uncertain whether the drop will stick.
Science has found some stars die in style.
