Quinnipiac (11/5-9, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parentheses):
Ted Strickland (D-inc): 40 (46)
John Kasich (R): 40 (36)
(MoE: ±2.9%)
There’s been a lot of up and down in the Ohio governor’s race, as pollsters don’t seem to have this race in sharp focus yet; today’s Quinnipiac poll seems to be a down day, with incumbent Dem Ted Strickland falling into a tie with ex-Rep. John Kasich after having posted a 10-point lead last time. The overall Pollster.com regression line gives Strickland a 48-45 edge.
The numbers seem driven by lukewarm feelings toward Strickland, whose approval rating is 45/43. By contrast, few people seem to remember Kasich, with a favorable of 23/7; he seems to benefit by virtue of not being an incumbent governor in today’s climate. The state’s two Senators are still putting up tolerable approval numbers: George Voinovich is at 47/36 while Sherrod Brown is at 46/31.
RaceTracker Wiki: OH-Gov
Wow, that’s much better than i would have expected. I thought he would have had much higher disapprovals, mainly coming from the Republican base, seeing as how Brown is not much of a moderate.
Good for him, one of my 3 favorite Senate wins from 2006. 🙂
“he seems to benefit by virtue of not being an incumbent governor in today’s climate.”
It’s tough being in charge of the executive branch, or running for executive in the party that controls the executive branch, when the economy sucks. Just ask Corzine, Deeds, or McCain. You can have good policies, but it seems that many people vote their pocketbooks and take out their frustration on the party holding executive power.
Given these numbers, it’s impressive to me that Strickland is doing as well as he is–though “good for the circumstances” may be pretty irrelevant to actually winning an election.
Gotta love my home state. The two things you can always expect are the unexpected, and close races.
This is a bit of a shock to me to see Strickland polling this poorly. It’s even more of a shock when you consider that both Fisher and Brunner having been leading Portman in the Senate race in virtually every poll taken thus far. I figured it was going to be the other way around, with Strickland cruising to re-election and the Senate race being a difficult pick-up, particularly if Fisher was the nominee.
Even stranger, outside of maybe the economy and the national mood, I can’t really think of many good reasons for why Strickland is struggling. He’s been a good governor, he’s getting blamed for a lot of stuff outside of his control. I’m guessing that his unpopular (and un-Democratic) stance against casino gambling has eaten into his numbers a bit. He was campaigning against Ohio Issue 3 because he and the legislature had their own plan to put in slot machines into Ohio’s 7 racetracks. Issue 3 ended up passing and now casinos are headed to Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus (though since the measure failed in Columbus they might amend it so that C-bus doesn’t get one). Really Strickland is actually quite conservative when it comes to social issues for a Democrat, which doesn’t play well at all in the Democratic base of the state in the northeast. If you were to look at the crosstabs, I’m guessing you’d see Strickland way underperforming Obama in the Cleveland, Youngstown, and Akron areas, probably Toledo too.
As for Sherrod Brown, yes he’s quite liberal, probably one of the most liberal in the entire Senate based on his voting record. But he is always in the process getting his hands dirty, helping to draft bills, and he votes in such a way that sticks up for the interests of Ohioans. He’s from OH-13, people in Cleveland LOVE him, and have ever since he was a member of the House. Outside of a scandal, it would take the rural south and west, Dayton, and Cincinnati all coming together in lockstep against him for Brown to be in any sort of danger of not being re-elected. He’s just too popular in the northeast.
to keep him. They’re just giving him a scare. (Finger’s crossed. . .)
at this stage of the race people just don’t know who Kasich is and they are willing to consider replacing Strickland.
Once people get to know Kasich, your going to see Strickland pull away as Kasich’s negatives go up.
If it’s this heavily anti-incumbent come next year, I absolutely believe Kasich could pull this one off. However, Strickland’s probably just popular-enough to survive if the climate’s a mixed bag or, of course, if it’s considerably less contentious as now.
Given his relatively-liberal views, Brown’s numbers are very impressive though.
considering the state Ohio’s in.