Breaking it Down: The 2/8 Ohio Senate Poll

According to Scott Rasmussen, Rob Portman's lead in the Ohio Senate race continues.

43-39 over Fisher and 42-38 over Brunner.

Statistically speaking, not much has changed since their 1/14 Rasmussen Poll.

And 9 months out, stagnation in statewide polls only 3+ weeks apart isn't much of a surprise.

Until we start seeing some ads on the air and major stories developing, we can't expect any substantive changes. The questions are, when will those ads begin, and who will be airing them?

Clearly, Jennifer Brunner won't be running any television ads on her own. She simply doesn't have the money for a serious ad buy. Lee Fisher will dominate the airwaves and win the day.

But what we don't know is whether Rob Portman will use his 6-1 cash-on-hand advantage to put up any adverts during the primary season. His primary opponent still hasn't shown any interest in throwing in enough of his own money to make the GOP primary competitive, but Portman may want to get his face on the air so Fisher isn't dominating Ohio televisions in the spring without competition.

Now looking a little deeper into the poll, we find that any efforts by Democrats to attack Portman have been ineffective, as his favorable to unfavorables are still at 2-1. The good news for Portman is Fisher's approval ratio is 1-1.

Looking down at some other questions asked by Rasmussen, one caught my eye in particular. The question asks which is a better way to create jobs, cutting taxes or increasing government spending. By 54-17, tax cuts were preferred. Even Democrats went for tax cuts by a margin of 32-24. In other words, the stimulus is not popular, even among the base, and any continued support of it by Lee Fisher will be a major misstep.

By 53-46, Ted Strickland is still finding a majority disapprove of him. But with another poll on the Guv race coming soon (hopefully), we'll go over that later.