OH-Sen: First Poll Shows Tough Race for Brown

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (12/10-12, Ohio voters, no trendlines):

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 43

Mike DeWine (R): 43

Undecided: 14

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 43

Jon Husted (R): 38

Undecided: 18

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 43

Jim Jordan (R): 35

Undecided: 22

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 40

Mary Taylor (R): 38

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Says Tom Jensen:

Ohio voters are pretty evenly divided on whether Brown’s done a good job in office so far – 40% approve of his performance while 37% disapprove. Democrats overwhelmingly like him, by a 66/9 spread. Republicans for the most part dislike him with only 16% approving to 62% who disapprove. The biggest problem for Brown though is independents – with them only 28% approve to 48% disapproving. To put those numbers into some perspective Ted Strickland, who was just defeated for reelection, is at a 38/42 spread with independents.

This race is likely to be priority #1 for progressives this cycle – and it won’t be an easy one.

54 thoughts on “OH-Sen: First Poll Shows Tough Race for Brown”

  1. improves for Democrats, Brown will win. Just because a race is a toss-up now means nothing. Remember when Lee Fisher was tied with Rob Portman, and people said the race would be very, very close? I don’t have to tell you they were wrong.

  3. A predictable tough race, but still going to be tough. That thrashing the Democrats took last month will definately wear off some but how much? Brown has a solid liberal voting record in a state that likes moderates.  

  4. How much can Obama lose Ohio by before he drags Brown with him. Not saying Obama will definitely lose Ohio, just speculating. If Obama wins Ohio then Brown wins, barring a scandal or really crappy campaign. If Obama loses 2-4 then I think Brown narrowly hangs on. Anything after that I’m not sure of. I really do think this state will depend a lot on Obama. Brown is very liberal, I don’t think there will be a whole lot of R prez nominee voters and Brown. Brown needs a good game from Obama. On a personal note Brown is one of my favorite Senators,  I’m pulling for him.  

  5. which reflects on partly how much more unattractive the Dem candidates in 2010 were than the 2012 class.

    If a Dem isn’t behind in Ohio in Dec 2010, that bodes very well for the Dem if he doesn’t have a dead girl live boy problem between now and 2012.

  6. Here we can have a new rematch, but I’m not sure of this. I think we should take other republican candidate as not frontrunner even if he is a congressman or a statewide officer. And that gives not advantage to the republicans.

    I think this poll gives not surprises. S Brown have a little worse results than J Webb/T Kaine, and a little better resutls than C McCaskill (three potential rematch in swing states in 2008).

    After this poll only three senators begin the cycle with negative numbers:

    NE-Sen: B Nelson vs D Heineman (running not)

    MT-Sen: J Tester vs M Racicot

    MO-Sen: C McCaskill vs J Talent

    And I have the doubt of ND-Sen because E Schafer can be competitive.  

  7. a bad report or a good report for Brown as it is a report of general indifference, which makes sense, seeing as how there are large groups of Democrats and Independents that don’t have an opinion on him yet. For better or worse, Brown seems to be one of the guys who went from winning to being thought of as “meh” to slightly but only slightly negative without much happening. The good news is, he has two years to work on this, and he’s not really starting from a hole. He has more of a blank slate than a lot of people, even as he has a lot of support amongst the base that is registering an opinion.  

  8. Taking a closer look at PPP’s crosstabs, couple things caught my eye;

    1. Big dropoff in Brown’s support w/ AA the lesser known the challenger (Mary Taylor gets 27% whereas Jordan & Husted get 7% each & DeWine get 13%). I dont’ think this has anything to do with Mrs. Taylor, but does it tell us Brown’s support is potentially weak? If there is a dropoff from Obama’s numbers to Brown’s among AAs he’ll be in serious trouble. Fully 33% of AAs tested gave “no opinion” of Brown…strange.

    2. Taylor doesn’t do significantly better than Jordan or Usted among women, which leads me to believe there is little room for growth among the GOP candidates among women. If they were soft on Brown you would expect a bump among women polled when they see a women’s name. If Taylor or another woman gets the GOP nomination Brown will need to stay strong with female voters to win and this poll gives evidence that holding those voters is probable.

    3. The lack of statewide ID among the GOP challengers is amazing, Taylor just won & no one knows who she is, says a lot about the atmosphere downballot in ’10 (or really for any Dem not named Strickland), so many people just pulled the R lever (yes I know they don’t have those anymore).

    4. With no regional breakdown we are left guessing where each candidates geographic base is, this makes it very tough to anticipate how much growth potential each challenger has outside there base region. Are there other polls out for this race with regional crosstabs?

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