Editor's note: the video in the player above is from Oct. 29, 2020
With the 2020 Presidential Election underway, plenty of eyes are now on Ohio and its 18 votes in the electoral college.
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And while Ohio Governor Mike DeWine stands by his prediction that President Donald J. Trump will beat Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the Buckeye State, he also said he's anticipating a tight contest.
"I think it's going to be a very, very close race and I think the President squeaks it out," DeWine told CNN's Erin Burnett on Tuesday afternoon.
Why?
"The President's going to do well again in the Ohio Valley, which is historically been Democrat area -- the Steubenville, Youngstown, Mahoning Valley, that area along the river," DeWine said. "He's going to do exceedingly well in all rural counties of the state. I think he could exceed even the votes that he got the last time [in 2016]. He's going to be obviously weaker in some of our suburbs -- the suburbs around Columbus, for example.
"So it's going to be a close race. The President won with a big margin last time. But I think he's going win this time. I think the intensity is there. The ground game, it seems to me, from what I can observe from the Trump team, has been a lot better than the ground game for the Biden team."
Considering the surge in absentee voting amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been some question as to whether a clear result will be available on Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday morning. DeWine, however, said that thus far, Ohio's voting operation has been running smoothly and there's currently no reason to expect that the state that has also picked the winner of every Presidential Election since 1964 won't have a timely result on Tuesday.
As for what Ohio's returns will look like, DeWine noted that absentee ballots will be counted first. And based on polling and projections, that likely means that Biden will start from ahead, with Trump attempting to catch up.
"Those will be the votes that will be counted first. After 7:30 [p.m.], they can count those, they can put them in the machine and they can run them. The early numbers that will come back, those will be the absentee," DeWine said. "One would expect at that point that Biden will be ahead and the rest of the night, frankly, is the President trying to catch Biden. He either will or he won't. I think he will."
Gov. DeWine will also talk to 3News' Russ Mitchell at 5:30 p.m. on tonight's What's New.