46/31 for Brown?

Wow, that's much better than i would have expected. I thought he would have had much higher disapprovals, mainly coming from the Republican base, seeing as how Brown is not much of a moderate.

Good for him, one of my 3 favorite Senate wins from 2006. :-)  

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by: trowaman @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 11:49:09 AM CST

Executives In Recessions

"he seems to benefit by virtue of not being an incumbent governor in today's climate."

It's tough being in charge of the executive branch, or running for executive in the party that controls the executive branch, when the economy sucks. Just ask Corzine, Deeds, or McCain. You can have good policies, but it seems that many people vote their pocketbooks and take out their frustration on the party holding executive power.

Given these numbers, it's impressive to me that Strickland is doing as well as he is--though "good for the circumstances" may be pretty irrelevant to actually winning an election.

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by: dsimon @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 12:33:07 PM CST

Ohio, Ohio, Ohio

Gotta love my home state.  The two things you can always expect are the unexpected, and close races.  

This is a bit of a shock to me to see Strickland polling this poorly.  It's even more of a shock when you consider that both Fisher and Brunner having been leading Portman in the Senate race in virtually every poll taken thus far.  I figured it was going to be the other way around, with Strickland cruising to re-election and the Senate race being a difficult pick-up, particularly if Fisher was the nominee.  

Even stranger, outside of maybe the economy and the national mood, I can't really think of many good reasons for why Strickland is struggling.  He's been a good governor, he's getting blamed for a lot of stuff outside of his control.  I'm guessing that his unpopular (and un-Democratic) stance against casino gambling has eaten into his numbers a bit.  He was campaigning against Ohio Issue 3 because he and the legislature had their own plan to put in slot machines into Ohio's 7 racetracks.  Issue 3 ended up passing and now casinos are headed to Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus (though since the measure failed in Columbus they might amend it so that C-bus doesn't get one).  Really Strickland is actually quite conservative when it comes to social issues for a Democrat, which doesn't play well at all in the Democratic base of the state in the northeast.  If you were to look at the crosstabs, I'm guessing you'd see Strickland way underperforming Obama in the Cleveland, Youngstown, and Akron areas, probably Toledo too.  

As for Sherrod Brown, yes he's quite liberal, probably one of the most liberal in the entire Senate based on his voting record.  But he is always in the process getting his hands dirty, helping to draft bills, and he votes in such a way that sticks up for the interests of Ohioans.  He's from OH-13, people in Cleveland LOVE him, and have ever since he was a member of the House.  Outside of a scandal, it would take the rural south and west, Dayton, and Cincinnati all coming together in lockstep against him for Brown to be in any sort of danger of not being re-elected.  He's just too popular in the northeast.    

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by: StephenCLE @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 12:50:28 PM CST

I like Sherrod Brown

he's not afraid to be a liberal in a state where being liberal isn't something to be automatically proud of. Also I was impressed he led the effort to try to stop CAFTA from being passed.  

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by: ehstronghold @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 13:22:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Ohio...

In Politics voters don't use reason to decide if they re-elect someone or not.

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by: Hamtree @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 16:48:15 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Ultimately, I think people like him enough

to keep him. They're just giving him a scare. (Finger's crossed. . .)

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by: andgarden @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 15:01:17 PM CST

Not to worried

at this stage of the race people just don't know who Kasich is and they are willing to consider replacing Strickland.  

Once people get to know Kasich, your going to see Strickland pull away as Kasich's negatives go up.  

Check out http://electioninspection.word... for the latest news, election results, poll analysis, and predictions

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by: skywrnchsr509 @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 15:41:54 PM CST

Strickland's hopes are attached to the national climate...

If it's this heavily anti-incumbent come next year, I absolutely believe Kasich could pull this one off. However, Strickland's probably just popular-enough to survive if the climate's a mixed bag or, of course, if it's considerably less contentious as now.

Given his relatively-liberal views, Brown's numbers are very impressive though.

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by: andyroo312 @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 15:56:33 PM CST

Brown isn't surprising

From what I've gathered, he's done a very solid job in constituent services which has generated good press for him locally.  That makes a huge difference for a legislator.  Plus, while he's a vocal liberal he's not acerbic like Alan Grayson.  He's very progressive but has such a conciliatory tone that he doesn't generate too much ire from the right.

Strickland could be in trouble, but as I've said before all of his polls indicate that Kasich would garner 20+% of the Democratic vote.  I just don't see that happening come Election Day.

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by: DFLer @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 16:35:43 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Strickland's doing pretty well

considering the state Ohio's in.

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by: SC @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 16:40:09 PM CST

ehh

I'm not sure Ohio's any worse off than most of the country as a whole.  Median income is about average, poverty rates are in the middle, unemployment is a little above average, but by less than 1%.  Really I think there's this idea out there that Ohio is turning into the next West Virginia economically, and that's just not fair.  

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by: StephenCLE @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 18:55:51 PM CST

[ Parent ]