Some surprising numbers from Ohio
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
The latest Quinnipiac poll from Ohio shows Barack Obama’s job rating at just 49%-44% positive, down sharply from 62%-31% in early May. That’s a sharp and surprising drop. In the race for the Senate seat left open by Republican George Voinovich, Republican Rob Portman is running better than in previous Quinnipiac polls. He now trails Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher 37%-33% and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 35%-34%. In three previous Quinnipiac polls this year Portman trailed both of them by an average of 39%-31%, so this is also a significant change. Other previous polls showed similar results.
What to make of this? This is just one poll, and thus a possible outlier. But if the trend it suggests is in fact real, this suggests trouble for Obama and the Democrats in the industrial heartland. Ohio is a high unemployment state (10.8% in May) and a very slow population growth state (population up only 1.2% in 2000-08, the lowest of any state but Michigan, West Virginia, Rhode Island and population-losing North Dakota and Louisiana). Ohio was a target state in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, arguably the prime target state in all three; voter turnout rose only 1.7% between 2004 and 2008, an indication that both Democrats and Republicans have turned out just about every vote they can. In other words, this is a pretty stable electorate. In that context the shift shown in this Quinnipiac poll could be very significant. Let’s see if we see similar results in Ohio and other demographically and politically similar states.
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