What makes Ohio a bellwether?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think the fact it has a lot of very swingy and non-polarized areas plays a big role (not that there aren't very polarized areas granted.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What's kind of funny is despite winning the state Obama didn't do well in the bellwether portions of Ohio itself. Which kind of shows why using bellwethers to guess things is a folly.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What's kind of funny is despite winning the state Obama didn't do well in the bellwether portions of Ohio itself. Which kind of shows why using bellwethers to guess things is a folly.

That's not really true outside of the Southeast. Obama won almost all of the other bellweather parts of the state: Lake, Stark, Montgomery, Ottawa, and Hamilton Counties. The only remotely swingy county outside of the Southeast he lost was Clark, which is a bit of a stretch to call a bellweather anymore.

The Southeast is kind of my point though, for a Democrat to win the state and not there is pretty unprecedented. Especially winning Hamilton County as well. I mean pre-2008 who would've been able to come up with a scenario where a Democrat wins Hamilton County and loses most of the Southeast.