Tag: Jennifer Brunner

Quinnipiac (1/29-2/2, registered voters):

Lee Fisher (D): 42

Rob Portman (R): 27

Jennifer Brunner (D): 38

Rob Portman (R): 28

Lee Fisher (D): 41

Mary Taylor (R): 27

Jennifer Brunner (D): 38

Mary Taylor (R): 26

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Rob Portman (R): 33

Mary Taylor (R): 11

(MoE: ±5.1%)

Lee Fisher (D): 18

Jennifer Brunner (D): 16

Tim Ryan (D): 14

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Quinnipiac polls a whole bunch of different permutations on the Ohio Senate race, including the primary races, and you gotta like what you see here. Lt. Gov Lee Fisher and Sec. of State Jennifer Brunner both lead ex-Rep. and ex-OMB Director Rob Portman by double digits. The only missing element is head-to-heads involving Rep. Tim Ryan, who also seems likely to run (and they do poll him in the primary)… but judging by the similarity between Fisher and Brunner’s numbers, it seems like the candidates are running more as ‘generic D’ and ‘generic R’ right now, and he’d do just as well.

The unknowns are very high even in the general, but they’re catastrophically high in the primary heats, with the majority of the electorate in the “don’t know” camp right now. This is especially the case in the hypothetical GOP primary, where Portman (who has already committed to the race) is tested against the little-known Auditor Mary Taylor. (Taylor hasn’t publicly expressed any interest in the Senate race; discussion of her at this point seems to be limited to online GOP fanboys depressed with the drab Portman and casting about for someone Sarah Palin-esque to give them the twinkles.)

A few weeks ago, PPP tried out Fisher, Brunner, and Ryan against Portman, and Portman won all three of those tests, although not by particularly large margins. So this Q-poll, in and of itself, shouldn’t be taken as a promise of a pickup; this is going to be a hard fought race for the next two years. (H/t Leftist Addiction.)

Ohio Republicans appear to have won a major court “victory” that could throw this year’s election into chaos.  A Federal Appeals Court in Cincinnatti ruled 9 to 6 that the Secretary of State must provide detailed localized lists of newly registered voters whose Motor Vehicle IDs and/or Social Security numbers provided for voter ID don’t match centralized lists.  Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimates that at least 200,000 of the 666,000 voters registered this year would fall in this category.

Newspapers in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnatti and Akron reported this matter of factly, largely relying on the AP feed.  Brunner felt that the decision was too late, relied on an incorrect reading of the Federal HAVA (Help America Vote Act) law, and planned to appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.

It is totally clear that much of the same obstructionist policy implemented by Ohio Republicans under Ken Blackwekk would return in 2008.  More Republican challenges.  Hundreds of thousands of provisional ballots.  :ong lines and lots of problems in Democratic districts.  Easy times and no challenges in predominantly Republican districts.  

These votes are primarily Democratic and many were triggered by the high intensity Ohio primary.  Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) said that it had 100,000 new voters with 34,000 coming after the primary and the rest coming earlier.

CNN reported that many of these voters participated in the heated Ohio primary.  That would tend to make those results at least suspect.  CNN suggested in its broadcasts that the fairest result would be to clean this up after the 2008 elections are held.