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OH-Sen: First Poll Shows Tough Race for Brown

by: DavidNYC

Wed Dec 15, 2010 at 10:07 PM EST


Public Policy Polling (PDF) (12/10-12, Ohio voters, no trendlines):

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 43
Mike DeWine (R): 43
Undecided: 14

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 43
Jon Husted (R): 38
Undecided: 18

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 43
Jim Jordan (R): 35
Undecided: 22

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 40
Mary Taylor (R): 38
Undecided: 22
(MoE: ±4.3%)

Says Tom Jensen:

Ohio voters are pretty evenly divided on whether Brown's done a good job in office so far - 40% approve of his performance while 37% disapprove. Democrats overwhelmingly like him, by a 66/9 spread. Republicans for the most part dislike him with only 16% approving to 62% who disapprove. The biggest problem for Brown though is independents - with them only 28% approve to 48% disapproving. To put those numbers into some perspective Ted Strickland, who was just defeated for reelection, is at a 38/42 spread with independents.

This race is likely to be priority #1 for progressives this cycle - and it won't be an easy one.
DavidNYC :: OH-Sen: First Poll Shows Tough Race for Brown
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OH-Sen: First Poll Shows Tough Race for Brown | 54 comments
If the political climate
improves for Democrats, Brown will win. Just because a race is a toss-up now means nothing. Remember when Lee Fisher was tied with Rob Portman, and people said the race would be very, very close? I don't have to tell you they were wrong.
Ballot Tests
Can be very misleading, especially this far out and when most the potential challengers get "No Opinion" from 65-75% of responders.

Still, those approval numbers among independents are mind numbingly bad, and even if/when the economy picks up and unemployment drops its going to be very tough for a devote progressive to get that 48% of indys with a negative opinion of him to come around to a meaninful degree.

Not that it can't be done, but it's a "heavy lift" as my CO would say...

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
I liked Jensen's snark when he tweeted approvals
He said "people in Ohio don't like Koasich, that's too bad, they should have voted"

That's just awesome.

20, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)

If
you didn't vote, stop yer bitching! Good one.

19, Male, Independent, CA-12
[ Parent ]
He's ignoring the fact that
Even though they don't like Kasich, even with this sample, Strikland has a worse job approval rating than Kasich's favorability rating. Its not like this sample magically is making Strickland more popular, he is still unpopular.  
[ Parent ]
Yeah
Strickland kept it so close because of how bad of candidate Kasich was. It was one of those, who's the lesser of two evils if you will. He's really not a good fit for Ohio and had this been a neutral year, even had Strickland still had crappy numbers, he would have lost.  

Proud member of the Indiana Democratic Party from IN-9.  
[ Parent ]
Can't compare
Favorables to job approvals. Approvals are almost always lower for all pols. I'd guess that's particularly true in this climate.
[ Parent ]
Gonna be tough
A predictable tough race, but still going to be tough. That thrashing the Democrats took last month will definately wear off some but how much? Brown has a solid liberal voting record in a state that likes moderates.  
Except it doesn't really like moderates...
Dewine was thrashed despite a very moderate record and at the beginning of the 2010 cycle, Voinavich, another moderate, was looking to get a pounding.  Had he stayed in, he might have been tea bagged.
[ Parent ]
Yeah
And I don't think Rob Portman fit's many people's definition of a moderate. He's not Jim DeMint or anything but he's quite a bit to Voinovich's right yet waltz into the election against an arguable more centrist candidate.

I think there's a subtle but important difference between a state that's closely divided political but sees most of the oxygen in the room taken up by clear left and right wings like Ohio and an actually moderate state, like maybe New Hampshire.

22, Democrat, AZ-01
Peace. Love. Gabby.

[ Parent ]
Portman may not be a moderate
But he definitely looks moderate in comparison to some of the other Republican candidates that ran this cycle. In a strong GOP environment against an extremely vanilla Democrat, a guy like Portman who is polished and comes across as reasonable and sane is nearly unbeatable
[ Parent ]
John Glenn was popular
For a long time in Ohio.
[ Parent ]
Forget Glenn..
Metzanbaum was a liberal icon in the Senate for decades.  He certainly was to the left of the electorate in the state, but he managed to stick around for a long time.
[ Parent ]
Q of the day
How much can Obama lose Ohio by before he drags Brown with him. Not saying Obama will definitely lose Ohio, just speculating. If Obama wins Ohio then Brown wins, barring a scandal or really crappy campaign. If Obama loses 2-4 then I think Brown narrowly hangs on. Anything after that I'm not sure of. I really do think this state will depend a lot on Obama. Brown is very liberal, I don't think there will be a whole lot of R prez nominee voters and Brown. Brown needs a good game from Obama. On a personal note Brown is one of my favorite Senators,  I'm pulling for him.  

Proud member of the Indiana Democratic Party from IN-9.  
I
hope Obama gives Brown a good grown game. But from what I heard in 2008, the Obama campaign was solely focused on electing Obama and no one else. Brown's going to benefit from Obama turning out black voters in the cities, but their fates are intertwined.  

19, Male, Independent, CA-12
[ Parent ]
I've heard that too
except it didn't play out that way in actuality.  There were no senate seats left on the table in 08 (maybe KY, but not really).  Yes, there were a few house seats left on the table, but how much more than 257 could we really have gotten?
[ Parent ]
Though at the time...
when Obama was running to become President for the first time, yeah, it made sense to look out for #1.  Now that he's in office, and will be running as the incumbent, there's more he can do to try to help out downticket, because now he knows how much he needs their votes.
[ Parent ]
Perhaps it was different in other parts of the country...
...but, around here, OFA specifically targeted downballot races all the way down to the statehouse representative level.

So, that blanket statement is not true, but may have been true in some places, depending on who was running the show at the time.

[ Parent ]
Im one who has said this the Obama campaign
So let me make this accurate as I probably did exaggerate and we had a special case here.  First, the Obama campaigned had an extremely hard time working with other campaigns because they wouldn't cede any of their operations or when opportunities arose to work together, they had to be 100% in charge.  The heads of college organizing for OFA and the DFL ended up just agreeing to not bother with each other and just do what they needed to do; it all goes in the same data base anyway.  At my college, this wasn't a problem as I and my fellow College Dems co-chair were hired by both organizations so it was easy to work together.

I also don't think that  here in MN,OFA didn't want to help out Franken because of his baggage as a comedian was the major sticking point to his candidacy. I highly doubt Obama would have had an election month rally here if the state was close enough to warrant one simply because he would have had to invite Franken.  And the first rule in all political campaigns is "do no harm".  Having a rally in MN would have meant snubbing Franken and giving him bad press or meant Obama gets bad press for rallying with someone who has joked about rape.  (This is speculatory, of course, but the logic behind it is very sound.)

[ Parent ]
granted, the Clintons picked up that slack
As they weren't on the ballot and were friends of Al's.
[ Parent ]
I think you nailed it...
Brown should overperform Obama by about 5 points on average, maybe even slightly more due to conservadems in the Southeast who like populists like Brown, but have issues with Obama.

Remember that Strickland's race was a test run for the 2012 Obama campaign.  The fact that he lost only by 2 points is quite a good harbinger for the future.  If Obama's approvals bump up a bit, then he should be able to win.

Still, Ohio is a tough slog... it's a very hard state for a Democrat to win.  I'm still surprised that Obama managed to win in 2008.  Regardless, it seems that the Obama campaign will contest the state hard, so that is good news for Brown.

[ Parent ]
In what way
was Strickland's run a test run for Obama in 2012? I don't mean to come across as hostile if I do, but I am not entirely seeing it. I was under the assumption that Strickland had more of a southern Ohio focus than Obama will have, among other things.

And yes, I agree that Obama will contest the state. I'm not sure what I think of his chances right now, whatever they are worth, but I don't think the state will have a huge margin one way or another unless it's a landslide election, which is one of the reasons why it's so hard to say anything about this state. Bush did a lot better than Kerry, who ramped up his efforts, and he won by...five points. Obama went even further than Kerry in a much more favorable climate, and while McCain might not have matched Bush's efforts dollar for dollar, he wasn't a slouch. Obama won, or McCain lost, by...five points.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
Ugh
If the whole Obama re-elect follows the Strickland model I think the media coverage will make me throw up. It seemed ever other day there was a "Strickland Surging" headline, but then I'd look closer and he was still trailing, still w/ neg approvals

Not that Obama wouldn't pull it out, but just listening to the brainless press try to act like the announcers at a horse race will make me hide in a hole for the last 6 months of '12.

Actually I might want to do that anyway.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
Strickland outperformed every other Ohio dem by at least 10 points... n/t

[ Parent ]
Strickland ran as a true Obama supporter
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...

In an election cycle where so many Democrats are running away from President Obama, Ohio's Democratic Governor Ted Strickland has unflinchingly embraced Obama from the beginning. And the White House and Democratic establishment have gone to the mat for Strickland.

The assumption is that President Obama would have gotten a similar percentage in '10. Even if the economic environment doesn't improve, the result shows that OH is still in reach with some "adjustments".

[ Parent ]
David Plouffe's number one priority...
...was to get Strickland re-elected, and he was in charge of Strickland's campaign. He was tasked by the white house to win this race at all costs. The campaign was used as a proxy for Obama's 2012 campaign.  Ground game, ad spending, and messaging for Obama in 2012 were being tested with Strickland as the guinea pig in 2010.

Strickland's campaign was very much a template for Obama's 2012 campaign.  The fact that Strickland nearly puled it out when every other dem got crushed says that Obama needs only a slight improvement to win the state.

[ Parent ]
I didn't realize
David Plouffe was involved with the Strickland campaign. It makes sense, though.

On a related note, I have to say I am very, very happy that people like Axelrod and Plouffe will be involved with planning the reelection. I'd be astonished if they adopted a radically different and far less aggressive mindset towards winning in 2012. If for no other reason than it breeds complacency and disinterest, I'd hate it if they fell back into pretending it all comes down to Ohio and Florida, yet again.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
Plouffe was in early in Ohio...
He came in later in FL gov and CO Senate... Obama wanted a Dem governor in those two state for obvious reasons, so they pulled out the stops.  Both got very, very close in a very, very bad environment.  I'm sure they will take the experience and make adjustments from there.
[ Parent ]
I hate to
ask this, but I am not sure of the specifics, so here goes: what is the huge advantage to controlling the governor's mansion in a state when it comes to contesting a state at the presidential level? I'm not seeing it clearly.

The way some people make it out to be, it's as if the governor gets to fill out a few boxes of ballots or something.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
In general, having the governorship....
...helps a lot with the ground game.  If the governor is popular, it helps with campaigning as well.  

Strickland had a very large political machine that would have been very advantageous to Obama.  In addition, had Strickland won, Maureen O'Shaunessey might have won with him at the SoS office, which is very important in a state known for suppressing votes.

[ Parent ]
Hmmm
I would think Obama outperforms Brown, can't give a firm defense of why, but that is my sense. I would think if Obama loses Ohio Brown loses badly, if Obama holds on to Ohio he'll need to win by 3-4pts to carry Brown over. As I said this is just a hunch and I'd love to get the take of anyone out there who's done enough campaign work in Ohio to have a sense for how the downstate and non-urban areas view Brown and Obama.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke
[ Parent ]
So you think
Obama would have won Ohio by double digits if the election were 2006?

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Maybe?
Time machine the Obama campaign into the '06 Ohio electorate and I'm pretty sure it would be a romp. Especially if Obama got to run against stiffs like DeWine or Blackwell.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke
[ Parent ]
'06 & '10
Had a lot in common, many Dems were able to win in '06 just by repeating "Failure in Iraq" over and over, just like so many GOP candidates won this year by rotating a message of "Jobs, Defecit, Healthcare".

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke
[ Parent ]
Another good poll for Dems
which reflects on partly how much more unattractive the Dem candidates in 2010 were than the 2012 class.

If a Dem isn't behind in Ohio in Dec 2010, that bodes very well for the Dem if he doesn't have a dead girl live boy problem between now and 2012.

This poll put M DeWine as frontrunner again

Here we can have a new rematch, but I'm not sure of this. I think we should take other republican candidate as not frontrunner even if he is a congressman or a statewide officer. And that gives not advantage to the republicans.

I think this poll gives not surprises. S Brown have a little worse results than J Webb/T Kaine, and a little better resutls than C McCaskill (three potential rematch in swing states in 2008).

After this poll only three senators begin the cycle with negative numbers:

NE-Sen: B Nelson vs D Heineman (running not)
MT-Sen: J Tester vs M Racicot
MO-Sen: C McCaskill vs J Talent

And I have the doubt of ND-Sen because E Schafer can be competitive.  

Where are the numbers
for the last two?  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?
[ Parent ]
PPP poll recently Missouri and Montana

For Missouri:
C McCaskill 45% J Talent 47%
C McCaskill 44% P Kinder 46%
http://www.publicpolicypolling...

For Montana:
J Tester 42% M Racicot 49%
J Tester 46% D Rehberg 48%
http://www.publicpolicypolling...

[ Parent ]
Eh.
In McCaskill's case, 44 percent of the respondents to that survey described themselves as conservative, whereas only 17 percent described themselves as liberal, among things. Such polling is not good, but not a cause for panic.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?
[ Parent ]
Of course

This race is for fight. I only give this data for see what are the most endangered people.

Montana is for fight too.

[ Parent ]
If Conrad runs, Schafer won't run. He probably won't run even if Conrad retires.
nt

28, Liberal Democrat, CA-26
[ Parent ]
I would like to see some number about ND-Sen but PPP will not poll this

Looking to the potential risks, this can be the worst unpulled still.

I would be not surprised if K Conrad lead in poll against E Schafer, but also I would be not surprised if he trails against the republican.

[ Parent ]
This isn't so much
a bad report or a good report for Brown as it is a report of general indifference, which makes sense, seeing as how there are large groups of Democrats and Independents that don't have an opinion on him yet. For better or worse, Brown seems to be one of the guys who went from winning to being thought of as "meh" to slightly but only slightly negative without much happening. The good news is, he has two years to work on this, and he's not really starting from a hole. He has more of a blank slate than a lot of people, even as he has a lot of support amongst the base that is registering an opinion.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?
Crosstabs
Taking a closer look at PPP's crosstabs, couple things caught my eye;

1. Big dropoff in Brown's support w/ AA the lesser known the challenger (Mary Taylor gets 27% whereas Jordan & Husted get 7% each & DeWine get 13%). I dont' think this has anything to do with Mrs. Taylor, but does it tell us Brown's support is potentially weak? If there is a dropoff from Obama's numbers to Brown's among AAs he'll be in serious trouble. Fully 33% of AAs tested gave "no opinion" of Brown...strange.

2. Taylor doesn't do significantly better than Jordan or Usted among women, which leads me to believe there is little room for growth among the GOP candidates among women. If they were soft on Brown you would expect a bump among women polled when they see a women's name. If Taylor or another woman gets the GOP nomination Brown will need to stay strong with female voters to win and this poll gives evidence that holding those voters is probable.

3. The lack of statewide ID among the GOP challengers is amazing, Taylor just won & no one knows who she is, says a lot about the atmosphere downballot in '10 (or really for any Dem not named Strickland), so many people just pulled the R lever (yes I know they don't have those anymore).

4. With no regional breakdown we are left guessing where each candidates geographic base is, this makes it very tough to anticipate how much growth potential each challenger has outside there base region. Are there other polls out for this race with regional crosstabs?

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

Name ID
Taylor won as a running mate, which gives no name recognition.  
[ Parent ]
Thanks
For some reason I had it in my mind she was SoS. No surprise she's ananomous, but with Kasich's approval numbers looking anemic (at best) it's not a great launching pad for your own statewide run.

First campaign ad "I'm Mary Taylor, you probably don't remember me, but I'm the LG to that guy you don't like, but elected anyway - so elect me and I'll more or less be the same, only completely different"

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
I don't know
if I'd be worried about your first point. A full 40 percent of black respondents in the poll said they had no opinion on Strickland, yet if you can believe the CNN exit poll, he scored a full 90 percent of them on election day. The fact that a third of black voters have no opinion of Brown just means that he needs to do outreach, but more so so that a lot of them turn out in 2012. He might do slightly worse than Obama, but I'd be surprised if there was more than five points of black support between Obama and Brown in 2012.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?
[ Parent ]
Precedent?
Is there any reliable info on the dropoff among AA votes for Obama vs those to White Dems who shared the ballot in '08? Curious to know if there was an significant drop off in key states in '08.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke
[ Parent ]
Exit polls
NC - Hagan got 96% while Obama got 95.

VA - Warner got 93% while Obama got 92.

GA - Martin got 93% while Obama got 98.

MI - Levin got 94% while Obama got 97.

KY - Lunsford got 86% while Obama got 90.

[ Parent ]
NJ
Lautenberg 87, Obama 92.
[ Parent ]
In other words, there's not much of a difference,
and having a surge in black voters in 2012 will help us in ways that is pretty hard to describe.

Now, you seem to be pretty knowledgeable, so let me ask you, when I am looking at voter registration information from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, November 2008, am I looking at information that took into account increase registration leading up to that election, or were these numbers not reflecting the huge increase in black voter registration in some states? If it's the former, it looks like we left a truly staggering sum of votes on the table, whether we simply didn't try or tried and failed. I've made this point before, but Florida alone has over 600,000 unregistered black voters. Perhaps that number has changed a little and will be reflected as such in the new information being released next week, but I would be astonished if it changed drastically. Maybe not so much in the House races, but in the Senate races in Virginia, Florida, and Ohio, among others, and in the presidential races in even more states, we have a huge pool of people that is quite literally ours for the taking--if we register them.

I know I sound like a broken record with this stuff, but it's largely unmentioned aspect of the race. It gives us an advantage that the other side doesn't have an equal to in some key states.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
I just looked it up
But I imagine there are always plenty of people unregistered in any given state. Some more than others. Texas being the best example but we've discussed that plenty already.
[ Parent ]
But why not discuss Texas some more?
Ha! Just kidding.

But seriously, I'm curious to see if those numbers from November of 2008 reflect the efforts of the Obama campaign leading up to the last election. My guess is that they do, but hopefully we'll know about it one way or the other next week.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
DeWine leads among GOP primary voters
OH-Sen: First Poll Shows Tough Race for Brown | 54 comments

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