Saturday, September 25, 2010

New Ohio Poll coming?

I've heard some rumors that a new Ohio poll may be coming out this weekend.

The question is where this one will place the race.

With a swarm of polls last week that showed the race all over the place - from Kasich +6 to Kasich +17 - it's hard to guess how this one will look.

In polls going back to June of last year, the Ohio Poll has conducted two tests of the electorate. In both of those polls, the two that showed the highest level of support for Governor Strickland of all polls taken both came from the Ohio Poll. In October of 2009 they had him at 48%. In May of this year they had him at 49% with a 5 point lead on Kasich - the only poll besides Quinnipiac to show a Strickland lead all year.

With that in mind, it's safe to say this one will likely be fairly friendly towards the Governor.

I wouldn't expect a lead or even a level of support equaling previous Ohio Polls, but considering the Ohio Poll's history, something closer to what we've seen from the recent Rasmussen and CNN/Time polls seems to be a fair assumption.

That would place Strickland at anywhere from 41-43 percent support and a 5-8 point deficit.

While that would shrink Kasich's aggregate lead, it shouldn't give the Strickland campaign room to cheer.

First off, you're still losing. Second, if you are well under the 50% threshold it means you've got a lot of work to do - especially if you're an incumbent Democrat in this environment.

And don't forget, there are only 38 days left in this race. History shows that undecideds near the end of an election tend to break towards the challenger - and in a political environment like this one it's very unlikely that will change.

As we said before the debate last Tuesday, the Governor's polling has already hit its basement. Without a major scandal, it's unlikely that his level of support could shrink anymore than the 40% average we were seeing. That means the Governor has nowhere to go but up, and with his decision to finally embrace some moderately positive advertising, it's expected.

The problem for the Governor is that the combination of the environment, the poor strategic decisions at the campaign level, and his own conduct means it's going to be especially difficult for him to reach the all-important 50%+1 mark that he hasn't seen since April of 2009.

If the poll does come out this weekend, it should be on Sunday. Keep an eye out.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, you're actually giving Quinnpiac more credibility than the Ohio Poll?

    You ARE a hack. The Ohio Poll is the gold standard of polling in Ohio. It has, by far, the best track record in the state of any state or national poll.

    It's near the top of Nate Silver's rankings.

    Your "aggregate" is crap because it's unduly influenced by a minority of polls showing the race at margins TWICE what the majority of the most recent polling says.

    Like me, you know the result. That's why you attempt to pre-empt the bad news with this post by dismissing a poll because of its results, not because of any problems with it.

    Both the Strickland campaign and Mary Taylor have told their respective supporters that their internals show a much tighter race than the public polling. Team Kasich doesn't even buy your aggregate theory as a true measure of the State of the race because they know that aggregate is filled with junk polling data.

    That bead of sweat rolling down your forehead as you try to spin a poll before the results are even publicly known is a big tell.

    After the RGA and Kasich hit Strickland as hard as they could in August, it's starting to close. Invacare worked. Strickland's positive ads are having a profound affect on the race.

    You keep spinning from the cheap seats, Keeling. Those of us who are actually here on the ground have some work to get done.

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  2. Well said, Baghdad Esquire. We are in full control, and oh, the stimulus is working too!!

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  3. Saw it on Enquirer's website and now I can't find it. 49-45 Kasich. Senate race still a total blowout for Portman. It didn't give much in the way of internals, and offhand, I don't remember if it was RV or LV. I'd think it would be LV this late in the game.

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  4. B4 Modern Esquire gets too turned on I would remind him that the last Ohio Poll had Ted up 49-44 while the latest has John Kasich up 49-45. That's hardly good news. His candidate is moving in the wrong direction and is nearly out of time to "turn around" -pun intended.

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