Posted on 10/13/2012 6:27:43 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
PPP's newest Ohio poll finds Barack Obama leading 51-46, a 5 point lead not too different from our last poll two weeks ago when he led 49-45.
The key finding on this poll may be how the early voters are breaking out. 19% of people say they've already cast their ballots and they report having voted for Obama by a 76-24 margin. Romney has a 51-45 advantage with those who haven't voted yet, but the numbers make it clear that he already has a lot of ground to make up in the final three weeks before the election.
We've found a major improvement in Mitt Romney's image in most of the states that we've polled since the Presidential debate, but Ohio is an exception. His favorability now is a 45/51 spread, showing no improvement from his 45/49 breakdown two weeks ago. Obama meanwhile has seen a small spike in his approval rating, from 48/49 to 50/48.
The Vice Presidential debate may have given Obama at least a small boost as well. 46% of Ohio voters think Joe Biden won it to 37% who believe Paul Ryan was the victor. Biden's advantage is 44/32 with independents. 62% of both Democrats and Republicans say they're 'very excited' to vote this fall, reversing a trend we saw in some post-Presidential debate polling of GOP voters expressing more enthusiasm about the election this year.
One thing clear from our poll: Republican efforts to make a big deal out of Libya aren't succeeding. By a 51/43 margin, voters trust Obama more than Romney on dealing with that issue. Obama also has a 51/46 advantage on dealing with the economy that mirrors his overall lead.
One reason Romney might be struggling to get traction in Ohio even as he surges elsewhere is his record on the auto bailout. Voters in the state support it by a 54/37 margin, including 58/35 with independents. They think Obama would be better than Romney for the auto industry 50/43, and 79% of voters consider it to be an important issue including 42% who say it's 'very important.'
In the US Senate race Sherrod Brown leads Republican challenger Josh Mandel 49-42, little change from a 49-41 advantage two weeks ago. Brown has narrowly positive approval numbers on this poll with 45% of voters giving him good marks to 43% who disapprove. Mandel meanwhile continues to be unpopular with only 37% of voters expressing a positive opinion of him to 50% with a negative one. Mandel may have more to worry about in 2014- he trails a generic Democrat 40-39 for reelection as State Treasurer. This campaign- at least to date- has been pretty damaging to his image. Others notes from Ohio:
-The state's referendum to create an independent commission on redistricting looks a little bit more alive than it did two weeks ago, although it's still an uphill battle. 37% of voters support it to 44% opposed, compared to a 26/49 spread last time. The main movement has been among Democrats who've gone from favoring it only narrowly (37/34) to pretty strong support (58/24).
-John Kasich has a 42/41 approval spread and leads a hypothetical Democratic opponent 45-42.
-John Boehner's very unpopular in his home state with a 33/46 approval rating. Nevertheless Republicans lead the generic Congressional ballot 44-42.
-Rob Portman has a 35/25 approval rating. 40% of voters have no opinion about him.
Full results here
If you look at internals they have Obama getting 11% of Repubs. And Romney only getting 5% of Dems.
However, in the last 3 presidential elections (even in 2008) the Dem never pulled more from GOP base. It was always GOP winning over Dems. (according to Jay Cost)
Yet after 4 years of Obamanomics we are to believe Obama will beat Romney 2-1 in pulling from base?
IMO, that is the skew.
If base vote were same (90-10), which most every national poll shows, Romney would be tied.
Are they trying to tell us that nothing has changed in Ohio with the polling since the First debate of Romney/Obama and now the VP debate too?
I think they must be having push polls.
For ppp to get Obama such strong base support (not matched in other Ohio polls) they had to poll a lot in Cleveland and Columbus.
Anyone who believes or gets nervous about a PPP poll really needs to be locked up in an insane asylum. The are unadulterated scam artists completely in the business in trying to fabricate momentum.
All other Ohio polls are trending in our favor. Zero is in big trouble.
Great, for the 220,374th time FR declares the election over.
Can we begin to at least try and use common sense when these silly polls come out?
THINK! What is PPP national vote? Is it tied, is Romney ahead? If so then it is impossible for Obama to be ahead five points in a state like Ohio. Is Obama under 50% nationally? If so he can’t possibly over 50% in a state like Ohio.
My poll, at least as accurate as PPP says Romney carries Ohio 52 to 47.
http://gop12.thehill.com/2012/06/ppp-battleground-polls-skewed-in-favor.html
http://battlegroundwatch.com/2012/08/21/one-more-reason-i-dont-blog-ppp-polls/
Thank you :)
Why does RCP even factor in PPP if they are that skewed an bias?!
I have no doubt it will tighten as we get closer with early voting. The goal is to just prevent the utter domination of 2008 in that regard by the Dems. I see no way they make up the difference unless no GOP do the in-person early voting later.
>>The fate of the election is still up in the air and it rests on the persuasion of a relatively small group of the less-informed and less-motivated.
On that note, there was some interesting commentary regarding that and the recent Lilo (Lindsey Lohan) endorsement of Romney. Let me see if I can find it.
Here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2944249/posts
Key lines:
Lindsay Lohan came out in support of Mitt Romney yesterday.
While most would, at first glance, write this off as gossip, it’s the latest instance of an evolving trend that jeopardizes President Obama’s chance at winning the White House.
Lohan, by all accounts, is a typical low-information voter. And low information voters, like it or not, will decide this election.
You have asked a very good question. People assume they are the authority. Rove said that there were over a 100 different polling outlet this year. If you do search of my comments about RCP, I call them Real Crappy politics.
I have one word for Ohio and hope the pubs get it = COAL
pffffftttt.....”concern” much?
Definitely not what I was hoping to see, but some of this poll’s results defy logic.
Do the Rats really have a 3 - 1 edge in early voting? I know another recent poll showed they had 63% of the early vote, and that strained credibility. If they really do have 76% currently, then go ahead and concede the election now.
Has there truly been zero movement in the race since the first Presidential debate in Ohio? Everywhere else in the country, there was significant movement towards Romney. Was Ohio exempt?
Why did Pres. Obama’s own pollsters say earlier this week that they were leading Ohio by “a couple of points”? Campaign pollsters tend to overstate their support just a bit when reporting it to the public. Why are PPP’s numbers twic as optimistic as the President’s own numbers?
Why did PPP’s own pollsters a couple of days ago say everything in Ohio they were seeing indicated the race was extremely tight? 5 points at this stage of the game is not extremely tight. It is an Obama blow out.
My sense is that this is a BS poll, but until other pollsters start showing Romney ahead here, Ohio is my biggest concern heading into election day bar none.
I certainly hope so. But will it be a big enough win to overcome any efforts of fraud? Or the Obamaphone city vote? That’s the big question!
If you look at Fox News when they breakdown the 2008 results by county, Ohio is nearly entirely red except for those counties around Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo areas.
A relative of mine went to the Cleveland Clinic this year. Twice. A block or so away from the place, there is a grocery store that they came to call the 3rd world mall.
I think Cleveland must just be generally beaten up pretty bad, from the sound of it.
Has the population shrunk so much that even the Cuyahoga County cemeteries have more bodies now than actual Cleveland citizens?
This 74-24 margin is hard to reconcile with reports of the number of absentee ballots ordered based on party affiliation which had Democrats only having a marginal number of them ordered to Republicans. Seems their sampling methods must be badly skewed.
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