Ohio's Seesaw Vote Count Expected to Run Late

A nail-bitingly close race for Ohio’s 18 electoral votes is going into the late hours of the night -- or perhaps later -- as the state’s largest counties struggle to provide rapid counts.

After an initial lead due to a rush of absentee ballot reporting, Biden began to trail Trump by roughly 300,000 votes starting around 10 p.m. as in-person voting was reported across the state. “That was to be expected,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said, and Democrats believe Biden will claw his way back as larger counties report their results and mailed-in ballots trickle in over the coming days.

Two Democratic strongholds -- Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) and Franklin County (Columbus) -- were reporting only 50% of votes cast around 10:30 p.m. Meanwhile, many smaller rural counties were reporting at or near 100% of their votes, allowing Trump to rack up points in Appalachian Ohio, where he has strong support from white working-class voters.

“We need to make sure every ballot is counted,” Pepper said in a conference call with reporters. Election offices in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties didn’t immediately returrequests for comment about how long it would take to report the bulk of their votes. -