ADA, OH (WLIO) - Students at Ohio Northern University are doing research into several sides of Tuesday's election, and what these results could tell us about Ohio voters.
Members of ONU's Institute for Civics and Public Policy, a political science organization better known as ICAPP, have been hard at work this election season collecting data about state Issues 1 and 2, which were both approved by voters.
The students who run a podcast about current events called "Un-CAPP It!" found that many of their peers were unwilling to go on the record about their beliefs ahead of Tuesday's vote.
"One of the questions we asked them is 'Why are they so uncomfortable talking about this?' And it was because politics has such an impact on your relationships, whether it's romantic, whether it's friendships, whether it's family. It can divide people and so taking an open stance about these issues can create division," explained Carmen Mancuso, a sophomore majoring in political science and Spanish, who co-hosts the podcast.
A few ICAPP students were out on the day of the election conducting exit polls to gather more in-depth details about how demographics influenced results. Simran Caur, a freshman studying political science pre-law, realized that many people had voted against their party's platform.
"After we had those conversations, I did notice that they did express their opinions on what they had put onto the surveys and I noticed that a lot of Republicans were really for Issue 1, even if the elected officials representing the Republican Party aren't," Caur said.
Though both issues passed by about 7%, it's still too early to tell if this outcome points to Ohio possibly swinging blue in 2024. Still, analysts and politicians may be looking at the results in Ohio and other states to predict and plan for next year's races.
"I think it's kind of hard to differentiate voting for candidates who support abortion or marijuana versus voting just on the issue. For example, in Kentucky last night, an anti-abortion politician was defeated, and that might be slightly stronger evidence for how opinions about these matters translate to actual candidates," said Gabriel Mott, a sophomore studying applied statistics and political science.
Over two-thirds of Ohio's counties voted against Issues 1 and 2 this week, but the more populated counties had enough affirmative votes for them to succeed. Many anticipate that Ohio will vote red in the upcoming presidential election, but only time will tell.
