Thousands of Ohio Democrats voted in the Republican primary for president on Tuesday — helping Gov. John Kasich defeat Donald Trump, according to exit polls.
About 7 percent of GOP primary voters identified themselves as Democrats who ditched their party to affect the outcome of the GOP race, the polls showed. Ohio allows voters to vote in the primary of their choice regardless of party affiliation.
A majority of the renegade Democrats — 53 percent — voted for Kasich, while 40 percent went with Trump.
The Democratic defections were particularly pronounced in Cuyahoga County, the most populous region of the Buckeye State, which includes Cleveland and its suburbs. About 15 percent of the 88,000 absentee voters in the county were Democrats who requested a ballot to vote in the Republican primary, according to the Board of Elections.
By comparison, fewer than 2 percent of early Republican voters requested a ballot to take part in the Democratic primary in Cuyahoga.
Both the Kasich and Trump campaigns worked feverishly to convince Democrats to abandon their own candidates so they could make a difference in the GOP race.
Former GOP Ohio Gov. and Sen. George Voinovich was among Kasich surrogates calling Democratic households in the Dayton area, according to Ohio political consultant Bill Burgess.
Longtime Brook Park Mayor Tom Coyne, a Democrat-turned-independent, called Democratic households urging them to vote for Trump.
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski boasted that the Democratic defectors represented a national trend.
“A lot of people are changing their voter registration to vote for Donald Trump,” he said. “This is a pattern we have seen in state after state and it’s a good sign for the campaign and for the Republican Party.”
Exit polls, however, showed Kasich romping among moderate voters, 57 percent to Trump’s 34 percent.
Burgess, the political consultant, said it could be a “very bad” sign for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to see so many Democrats ready to vote in the opposition’s primary and abandon her.
But the defectors didn’t cost Clinton in Ohio: She easily defeated rival Bernie Sanders in the state.
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