Ohio voters finally picking president, lawmakers

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohioans lined up early Tuesday to cast ballots in a historic election that ended hard-fought campaigns set to change the White House, the U.S. Capitol and the Ohio Statehouse.

Voters also faced a choice to replace a scandal-riddled attorney general, whether to allow casino gambling, and whether to keep a law capping interest rates on payday lenders. And the all-Republican state Supreme Court could be shuffled if two Cleveland-area challengers prove successful.

Most eyes focused on the high-profile contest between Republican McCain and Democrat Obama, who spent $2.7 million during the campaign’s final week on television ads. A small plane pulling a banner with the Obama “O” logo and the words “Vote Obama Today” repeatedly circled Ohio State University’s main campus in Columbus Tuesday morning.

Polls showed Obama slightly ahead, but in a campaign that has been remarkably unpredictable, Obama and McCain aides alike were bracing for a long night.

No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio. Only two Democrats have done so. The state has voted for the winning candidate in every election since 1964.

Election officials predicted an 80 percent turnout, and in some cases, lines began forming outside polling places more than an hour before the polls opened at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. Scattered voting problems were reported, including a handful of voting machines that malfunctioned in Fairfield County, southeast of Columbus.

Ines Lambert, 64, a retired marketing research worker from Loveland, said this was the most important election in the 42 years she has been voting. She voted for McCain because she said she had a vague feeling of unease about Obama that she was unable to explain.

“Even though I’m Puerto Rican and all the Puerto Ricans are for Obama, I’m a Republican,” she said.

In the Democratic-leaning Cleveland area, Casmira Dorenkott, 76, of North Olmsted and her 82-year-old husband, a retired union electrician, both cast their ballots for Obama.

“He’s young, he’s a fresh face,” she said. “The economy is the most important issue. This country is losing jobs. The market is crashing and I don’t think we have seen the worst of it.”

Outside Cleveland’s Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Danielle Ury, 27, wore a hooded sweat shirt and had her two young children bundled up in blankets in a stroller as she waited in the 52-degree pre-dawn darkness for her polling place to open.

“Either way it goes, we’re either going to have the first female vice president or the first African-American president,” she said. “And I think that’s historic and wonderful that we are getting more diverse.”

Republicans across the ballot faced an uphill climb after eight tumultuous years with President Bush, who won his re-election bid by a scant 10 votes per Ohio precinct in 2004. During the last statewide campaign, Democrats took control of four of five major state offices, yet fell short of reclaiming the Legislature.

With momentum on Democrats’ side, the Ohio GOP honed its efforts to defend existing offices and capture a few other targeted seats. They acknowledge they faced long odds.

Millions of dollars flowed into U.S. House races, with Democrats trying to capture long-held GOP seats.

Republicans hold an 11-7 majority in the Ohio congressional delegation, but saw three of their veteran lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Deborah Pryce, Ralph Regula and David Hobson — bow out of their re-election efforts. Democrats believe the first two seats are their best shots for party turnover. Pryce won by only 1,055 votes in 2006 over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, who is repeating her run this time against Republican state Sen. Steve Stivers.

Democrats, likewise, were eyeing two seats on the Supreme Court. A pair of northeast Ohio judges — Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo and Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Sikora — tried to break the all-GOP hold of the court. They were running against Justice Maureen O’Connor, a former lieutenant governor to Bob Taft, and Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, who is seeking her third, six-year term.

A campaign to replace disgraced former Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann seemed to heavily favor Rich Cordray, a Democrat who serves as state treasurer.

Cordray raised more than $2.5 million to compete against Republican Mike Crites, a former U.S. attorney for southern Ohio. Crites raised less than a tenth of what Cordray collected and badly trailed in a campaign that Republicans had hoped to make a referendum on Democrats’ ethics.

Independent candidate Robert Owens, 35, a Delaware lawyer, also was on the ticket.

Dann resigned in May amid a sexual harassment scandal that involved his top aides and female subordinates. Dann maintains he did nothing wrong, although the Ohio Democratic Party took just days to turn on him and demand his resignation.

In the Statehouse, Democrats were aiming at capturing the Ohio House for the first time since 1994. To do so, Democrats would have to win four GOP-controlled seats in the 99-seat chamber. The breakdown as of Tuesday morning was 53-46.

Operatives from both parties expected Republicans to hang on to the state Senate, where they have a 21-12 margin.

Voters also looked to proposed ballot measures, such as Issue 6, which would give the state its first Las Vegas-style casino near the southwest Ohio town of Wilmington. The $600 million project could create thousands of much-needed jobs, yet Ohio voters have rejected statewide gambling three times since 1990.

But as the region’s economy lagged, supporters looked at frustration as a potential opening. August recorded its highest unemployment rate in 16 years: 7.4 percent. Nine in 10 Ohio voters said they worried about the economy, according to the final Associated Press-GfK poll last week.

Other statewide issues on the ballot included possible repeal of part of a new payday lending law that would cut the annual percentage rate that lenders can charge to 28 percent and limit the number of loans customers can take to four per year.

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Associated Press writer Terry Kinney in Cincinnati and Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland contributed to this report.