Athens city among rare bright spots for Obama in Ohio
By Nick Claussen
March 6, 2008
Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama won the city of Athens, but Democrat Hillary Clinton won Athens County by more than 1,000 votes on Tuesday.
Overall in Ohio, Sen. Clinton beat Sen. Obama 54 to 44 percent, and picked up some much-needed steam to continue her presidential bid. She also won in Texas and Rhode Island, while Obama picked up Vermont.
On the Republican side, John McCain won handily throughout Athens County, although two of his challengers picked up wins in several precincts. Nationally, however, McCain picked up enough votes in Ohio, Texas and the other states to put him over the top in delegates, and seal the GOP nomination.
In the Democratic primary in Athens County, Clinton received a total of 7,019 votes to Obama’s 5,978.
The vote totals for this race in the county were split into the part of the county that is in the 18th Congressional District (the northern part of the county) and the 6th District, which includes the city of Athens and the rest of the county.
Obama won a narrow victory in the Sixth District portion of the county by a total of 4,540 to 4,416, while Clinton won by a wide margin in the 18th District portion by a total of 2,603 to 1,438.
In the entire Sixth District, Clinton beat Obama 98,826 to 37,661 (70 to 26.7 percent), while in the entire 18th District, she won 72,950 to 33,725 (66 to 30.6 percent).
In the city of Athens, Obama won 21 of the 23 precincts. He scored big victories in the Ohio University student-dominant precincts, such as precinct 1-5 (where he won 121 to 29), precinct 2-1 (127 to 28) and precinct 4-5 (169 to 34).
He also won several other precincts by wide margins, including precinct 4-4 (which he won by a count of 110 to 47) and 1-4 (97 to 32).
In the city of Athens, Clinton won in precincts 3-8 (by a count of 50 to 41) and 4-1 (83 to 74).
Outside of the city of Athens, Clinton won all of the precincts except for four. Obama’s only victories outside of the city occurred in Athens Township East, Athens Township South, Amesville and Canaan Township South. Those were all narrow victories.
Clinton won big in areas such as The Plains (in the two precincts, she received a total of 455 votes to Obama’s 302), Carthage Township (201 to 119), Lee Township (269 to 170), Stewart (163 to 71), Troy Township (in the two precincts, Clinton received a total of 246 votes to Obama’s 97), Trimble Township (330 to 146) and Millfield (183 to 99).
Clinton also won all eight of the precincts in Nelsonville, but the vote totals in each polling location were relatively close.
Around the county on Tuesday, several people said they were voting mainly because of the presidential election.
Dionna Baker, an OU sophomore from Pickerington, said the presidential election was the main reason she was voting.
Alisa Schink, a freshman from New Jersey, said she was also voting mainly because of the presidential election. She said she talked about the candidates with her mother, and decided to vote for Clinton.
Chauncey resident Daniel Parkinson said he was also most interested in the presidential election. He said he was impressed with Clinton’s experience and thought she was the best candidate.
ON THE REPUBLICAN side, McCain easily gained the most votes in the presidential election in the county, receiving 1,821 compared to 950 for Mike Huckabee, 353 for Ron Paul, 60 for Mitt Romney and 39 for Fred Thompson. Thompson and Romney had previously dropped out of the race, and Huckabee ended his campaign Tuesday night.
In Athens County, McCain won most districts, but Huckabee and Paul each picked up a few victories, albeit in precincts where the voter turnout was light, and there were a few ties.
Huckabee scored victories in Bern Township (he received 15 votes, to McCain’s 10 and Paul’s 1), Waterloo Township East (18 to 11 to 4), Waterloo Township West (16 to 13 to 8) and York Township East (6 to 5 to 0, plus Thompson received 1 vote).
Paul won in Athens precinct 1-2 (he received six votes, while McCain, Huckabee and Romney each received three), Athens precinct 1-6 (he received three votes compared to two for McCain and one for Huckabee), and Nelsonville 4-1 (where Paul received seven votes, McCain received five, Huckabee three and Thompson two). Precincts 1-2 and 1-6 in Athens are student-dominated precincts.
McCain won handily in most places in the county, such as in precinct 2-4 in Athens (where he received 58 votes and the most anyone else received was 19 for Huckabee), Alexander Township East (where he received 94 votes and Huckabee came in second with 47) and Lee Township (where he received 108 votes while Huckabee came in second with 64 votes and Paul received 23).
Pete Couladis, chair of the Athens County Republican Party, said he’s not surprised with how local Republicans voted.
“I kind of anticipated that McCain would win around here,” Couladis said.
Republican turnout was strong in the election, as there were 2,500 registered Republicans before Tuesday, and more than 3,000 Republicans who voted, Couladis said.
While Democrats still far outnumber Republicans in the county, Couladis said he has high hopes for the party’s local candidates in the November general election.
“I think we’ve got several good candidates for commissioner, coroner and sheriff, as well as state representative and state senate,” Couladis said. “We just need to raise the resources in order to push their message.”
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