For the first time in three years, the news team at cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer will be together in the newsroom for a big night of election coverage, and people are pretty excited by the prospect.
As I’ve written before, I can’t think of a better place to be on Election Night. The big news comes in fits and starts, creating flurries of reporting and writing interspersed with lulls when reporters and editors can sit back, eat Election Night pizza and crack wise.
With nothing but anecdotal evidence to support it, we get the feeling that our readers have a keener interest in this election than usual. I’ve received quite a few emails and text messages about our coverage. (We appreciate all the kind words.) People on both sides of the political fence are anxious.
Because of that interest, I’m doing something unusual this year. I’m laying out our tentative plan for Election Night ahead of time, partly so you know which reporters are covering each of the stories. That way, if you have a perspective you’d like to share, you can reach out to them. You can find their emails attached to any of their stories on cleveland.com. Generally, it’s their first initial and last name followed by @cleveland.com. For example, I am [email protected].
Another reason I’m providing this plan is so you can see how many people we commit to this important work. It takes a robust, thriving newsroom to be able to do what we aim for, and we’re proud that Cleveland has a newsroom that can provide the service. Your support, through subscriptions to the newspaper or cleveland.com, make it all possible. (If you don’t subscribe, you can do so at https://www.cleveland.com/subscribe )
Here’s the plan, largely in the form of the budget that Content Director Laura Johnston has built:
U.S. SENATE -- Chief political writer Andrew Tobias has the biggest race of the night, the battle between Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance to replace Rob Portman. Andrew will be at the GOP gathering in Columbus as the evening unfolds. He will produce stories as the results unfold, as will everyone on this list.
OH GOV – Statehouse reporter Jeremy Pelzer has been covering this race, between incumbent Republican Mike DeWine and Democratic Nan Whaley, and he will see it to the finish.
OH SC – The race for chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court is a big one, with two incumbent justices seeking to replace the much-admired Maureen O’Connor, who is retiring. Democrat Jennifer Brunner takes on Republican Sharon Kennedy, and Statehouse reporter Laura Hancock will bring you the news. She will also report the other Supreme Court races and whether Republicans maintain their majority.
OH STATEWIDES – Jeremy and Laura will track what’s happening with the races for attorney general, secretary of state, auditor and treasurer, where Republican incumbents are expected to maintain their seats. If one does not, we’ll break that out as a separate story.
OH STATEHOUSE – Jake Zuckerman has the duty of tracking the trends in the Ohio House and Senate races in a year with new district maps. We know which way the districts are supposed to lean, and Jake will tell the tale on whether they do. Jake will do his work from the Youngstown area, where he will be at the Tim Ryan gathering, so we have someone with each of the U.S. Senate candidates as the race gets called.
OH CONGRESS – Sabrina Eaton, our Washington D.C. reporter, has profiled the Congressional races of interest in a year with new district maps, and she’ll have the rundown on how they break down on Election Night.
ANALYSIS – Andrew will offer the first blush look at what the overall mid-term results tell us about Ohio, to be followed by plenty more of his analysis in the ensuing days and weeks.
ABORTION – In Cleveland, reporters Megan Sims, John Tucker, Courtney Astolfi and Gretchen Kroen will visit polling places from morning until night to ask voters how much the abortion issue played into their voting choices. John and Gretchen will write this one.
ECONOMY – While they are asking people about the abortion issue, they will also ask voters how the economy played into their choices. Gretchen and Courtney will write.
POLLS – With all the work some Republican politicians have done to undermine your confidence in our elections, Megan and Courtney will report on whether things went smoothly in Northeast Ohio, as they almost always have.
EXEC – Kaitlin Durbin has chronicled the robust debate between Democrat Chris Ronayne and Republican Lee Weingart over the future of Cuyahoga County, and she will bring you the story of who wins the battle to replace Armond Budish as county executive. Kaitlin will note who wins the sole contested County Council race as well.
ISSUES – Perhaps the biggest local issue is whether East Cleveland voters once again recall their mayor amid a stunning run of indictments of the city’s police force, but we also have tax issues for the Cleveland Metroparks and the port, among others. Bob Higgs and Pete Krouse will track it all, breaking out issues for separate headlines as news dictates and producing a roundup of the rest.
TRENDS – Numbers guru Zachary Smith will spend the evening with his editor, Rich Exner, looking for patterns or expectation-defying trends in the numbers. Zachary also is the guy who will analyze the precinct-by-precinct voting patterns once they are available, usually the day after the election.
RESULTS – Colin Toke and Kaylee Remington will publish results as we receive them throughout the night for Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Summit, Medina and Lorain Counties.
We’ll have other reporters, including Lucas Daprile and Molly Walsh, on standby for unexpected news and a half-dozen editors in the newsroom shepherding all of the stories. Separately, Statehouse and politics editor Rick Rouan will handle the stories rolling in down in Columbus.
To read all of this material, cleveland.com is the place to be. The stories will churn all night long and into the morning on our website. We will get whatever results we can into the print edition of The Plain Dealer, and the digital replica of The Plain Dealer will have complete results for the key races. If you’re tracking the returns across the nation on Election Night on television, we’re the ideal second screen for the local and state results.
We hope to see you online Nov. 8.
Thanks for reading.
