Ohio Loves The Battleground Spotlight

Ohio will be a player in tonight’s election. Nothing new for the Buckeye State.

In 2016, Ohio has 18 electoral votes, which is 3.3 percent of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs and 6.6 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the general election.

Out of 29 elections between 1900 and 2012, Ohio cast votes for the winning presidential candidate 93.10 percent of the time (27 out of 29 elections), more than any other state in the country. In that same time frame, Ohio supported Republican candidates for president more often than Democratic candidates, 58.62 to 41.38 percent.


The state, however, favored Republicans and Democrats equally between 2000 and 2012, with Republican George W. Bush winning in 2000 and 2004 and Democrat Barack Obama winning in 2008 and 2012.

Presidential primary elections in Ohio took place on March 15, 2016. Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary with 56.1 percent of the vote. Ohio Governor John Kasich won the Republican primary with 47 percent.

Video provided in this story comes from WOIO TV Cleveland our LIVESTREAM partner. Some information was provided by Ballotpedia.

Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.