A look at Schmidt's numbers

Today, rookie Rep. Jean Schmidt went to work in Washington secure in the knowledge that after just eight months on the job, voters in Ohio aren' t ready to toss her out.

"I'm so grateful that voters once again placed their trust in me," she said by phone from her Washington office last night.

Is that what voters did?

Schmidt, a Miami Township Republican, won nearly 48 percent of the vote in Tuesday's GOP primary election for the 2nd Congressional District, to beat challenger Bob McEwen, a former congressman from southern Ohio who got 42 percent.

But Republicans Deborah Kraus and James Constable got 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

That means that more people voted AGAINST Schmidt (36,449 people, or 52 percent) than voted FOR her (33,314, or 48 percent).

That also means that if McEwen - who lost to Schmidt by 3,703 votes - had gotten about half of the 6,838 votes that went to Kraus and Constable, he would have won.