Quinnipiac (4/21-26, likely voters, 3/23-29 in parens):
Lee Fisher (D): 40 (41)
Rob Portman (R): 37 (37)
Undecided: 21 (21)Jennifer Brunner (D): 40 (38)
Rob Portman (R): 36 (37)
Undecided: 21 (23)
(MoE: ±2.5%)
Ted Strickland (D-inc): 44 (43)
John Kasich (R): 38 (38)
Undecided: 17 (17)
(MoE: ±2.5%)
There’s been very little change in Ohio over the last month according to Quinnipiac; the needle barely budged in the Ted Strickland/John Kasich and Lee Fisher/Rob Portman races. Jennifer Brunner improved her position in the Senate race slightly, but if yesterday’s poll of the Democratic primary is any indication, that’ll be a moot point starting next week.
The most movement seemed to occur in Barack Obama’s approval, down to 45/50 from 47/48. It’s encouraging to see the local Dems slightly overperforming Obama’s so-so ratings, although, if anything, that may have to do with the mismatch between Kasich and Portman’s Wall Street leanings and the economic realities of hard-hit blue-collar Ohio.
Despite Fisher’s mammoth spending advantage, he only had a 51% – 45% name recognition advantage over Brunner among Dems?
This race makes less and less sense to me.
While Fisher and Stickland are not candidates that are going to set very many people on fire, as the post mentions, Portmen and Kasich are just so white collar and corporate and free trade and Wall Street — even in a Republican environment, I really don’t see this type of Republican doing well in Ohio.
It’s not a “change” to go from 47/48 to 45/50. Obama was at 44/52 in Quinnipiac’s February poll, so he’s been 44-47-45 approval over 3 months, and 52-48-50 disapproval over those same 3 months. Under the “totality of polling” rule, that’s clearly just noise.
And yes, these numbers are real good for OH-Gov and OH-Sen. I think Strickland is in good shape to survive, but I still worry about Fisher simply because he’ll be so heavily outgunned financially. The DSCC and DNC will have to bail him out bigtime.