There was a little craziness last night in Ohio's House races, but the Senate primaries provided some hopeful news as well.  Sherrod Brown took 78% of the vote against a no-name nutcase, while Mike DeWine mustered a comparatively measly 72% against two Republican malcontents.  Let's take a deeper look:

Republican Primary:

Mike DeWine (R) - 544,320 - 72%

David Smith (R) - 111,184 - 15%

William Pierce (R) - 104,253 - 14%

Total Republican votes: 759,757

Democratic Primary:

Sherrod Brown (D) - 537,715 - 78%

Merrill Keiser (D) - 156,025 - 22%

Total Democratic votes: 693,740

If what I'm told is correct, Ohio has open primaries, in which voters ask for either a Democratic or Republican ballot when they arrive at the precinct.  And while yesterday's vote had a much smaller turnout than can be expected in November, it's always fun to play with the numbers.

In a theoretical match-up between DeWine and Brown using the primary results, DeWine would've narrowly won with 50.31% to Brown's 49.69%.  (The polls predicting this to be one of the year's tightest races would thus be correct.)  If we assume that DeWine would get all of the Republican votes and Brown all the Democratic votes, DeWine also comes out on top, 52.27% to 47.73% -- but still close, and still doable.

This is all academic, of course, but we finally have numerical proof that Brown will be able to pull of a victory in 7 months.

Just posted this on Kos, but thought I'd spread the news. Here are some fundraising figures for the top Senate races this fall. Numbers are due to the FEC imminently, but a few notable names -- Conrad Burns, George Allen, Rick Santorum -- have yet to release them publicly.

Things I found a little surprising:

• After Hillary, Bill Nelson is our most prolific fundraiser?
• The difference between Mike DeWine and Sherrod Brown is nearly exactly what the Bush fundraiser brought in
• Jon Tester is doing a bit better than last quarter, though he still trails John Morrison by a decent amount
• Steve Laffey again out-raised Lincoln Chafee

PS: Numbers before the "/" are funds raised in the first quarter of 2006, the number after is cash-on-hand; if nothing's there, it hasn't been reported yet.