Some real smart analyst/blogger recently said that Ted Strickland was in trouble because unemployment was high – and likely to stay that way – the larger political environment was trending against him and he faced a credible opponent who would take advantage of these factors. While I try to remember who that was, please take a moment to look at some number that back that argument up:
Despite continuing to be relatively unknown Republican challenger John Kasich leads Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland 42-37 in his quest to be the state’s next Governor.
The numbers seem to be much more a referendum on Strickland than Kasich. 50% of voters in the state say they don’t know enough about Kasich to have an opinion, and those who do are pretty much split on him with 25% holding a favorable opinion and 24% seeing him negatively. Those usually aren’t the kinds of popularity numbers we see for someone leading an incumbent.
Strickland though is an unusually unpopular incumbent. Just 33% of voters in the state approve of the job he’s doing, with 47% disapproving. His own party is not enthusiastic about him with 53% approving, 23% disapproving, and 23% with no opinion. He has poor numbers with independents at 28/54 and with Republicans at 14/69.
The technical term for this sort of position for a sitting governor is SOL:
Right now the Ohio Governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on Ted Strickland and that’s not going to work out too well for the Democrats,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Strickland’s either going to have to change people’s minds about him or convince them that Kasich’s worse.
Um, yeah, good luck with that …
Some additional links below.
A sample of some of the headlines that result from this sort of polling:
As I said in the last post, Democrats in Ohio have to be worried.
