Rasmussen validates what we already knew.

Last week we had Reuters/Ipsos calling showing a 9 point lead for Kasich and a 7 point lead for Portman.

This week we have Rasmussen confirming the trend for both Republicans with new polls showing an 8 point lead for both Kasich and Portman.

In polling, validation is important. When you see a number of polls showing the same thing, it's safe to say they are more likely than not to be accurate reflections of the state of the race.

And utilizing the aggregate of all polls, here's the state of each race.


No matter how you look at it, this is very bad news for Ted Strickland and Lee Fisher.

Some other bad news for both Democrats?

Despite their efforts to tie Portman to Bush and Kasich to Wall Street, it isn't substantively affecting each candidate's favorability rating.

In fact, Kasich's favorability went from 47-34 just a couple weeks ago up to 51-34 in the latest Rasmussen poll.

Portman? His favorability went from 46-27 two weeks ago to 51-23.

So all that negativity you Democrats are spewing? Please, please, please keep it up.

Annnnnd the bad news doesn't end there.

Guess how many Ohioans rate the economy as "good" or "excellent"?

6%. Seriously. That's it.

Ohio needs a change. Ohio needs Kasich and Portman.

We're well on our way, everyone.

Keep up the hard work.