Over at Third Base Politics, a right-leaning blog covering Ohio politics, they think turnout in Cuyahoga County — which includes Cleveland and its suburbs — is down dramatically from 2008. This is a county that Obama won, 69 percent to 30 percent, in 2008.
They summarize:
Data from the Secretary of State showed 253,000 early votes already cast in Cuyahoga County.
23% of in-person voting using total registered Cuyahoga County voters from 2008 would be 255,595 votes for a total of around 508,000 votes.
In 2008, Cuyahoga ended up casting a little more than 678,000 votes.
That means that as of 5:00pm, Cuyahoga County is approximately 170,000 votes short of its 2008 total.
They add, “Reports are that suburban Cuyahoga is over-performing right now, so things may be even worse than these terrible numbers appear.”