Sen – COLUMBUS – The first poll of Ohio voters since the May primary indicates the race for governor between Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine and his Democratic predecessor, Richard Cordray, is too close to call while Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has a comfortable lead over his Republican challenger.
The poll also shows Ohio voters are less than enthusiastic about the notion their governor might run for president in two years.
OH – If the election for governor were held today for whom would you vote https://t.co/R1MXwrzyQN #RichardCordray #MikeDeWine GRAPH pic.twitter.com/hSF8JMCQuG
— Quinnipiac University Poll (@QuinnipiacPoll) June 13, 2018
The Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed DeWine with a slim lead of 42 percent to 40 percent, well within the 3.7 percent margin of error for the poll of Ohio voters conducted between June 7 and 12.
“The closeness between Richard Cordray and Attorney General Mike DeWine should not be surprising, since this race for governor is a re-run of the race between the two men in 2010 for the attorney general’s job that DeWine won by one percentage point,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll.
Brown says there are wide gender and racial gaps in the polls with as men backing DeWine 47-36 percent and women favoring Cordray 48-35 percent and white voters going Republican 44-39 percent and non-white voters preferring Democratic candidates by a healthy 56-23 percent margin.
Name recognition may be a factor in DeWine’s lead as only 39 percent of voters said they didn’t know enough about the former U.S. Senator and Lt. Governor to have an opinion about him while 51 percent said the same about Cordray, a former Franklin County and Ohio Treasurer and director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Voters also gave DeWine a 39 percent approval rating to Cordray’s 32 percent.
The race for U.S. Senate is not nearly as close with Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown leading Republican Jim Renacci 51-34 percent. Brown is favored by 58 percent of women while men are almost evenly divided between the two.
OH – If the election for US Senator were held today for whom would you vote https://t.co/8ku0Pr5Ivf #SherrodBrown #JimRenacci GRAPH pic.twitter.com/kTu58U6AEW
— Quinnipiac University Poll (@QuinnipiacPoll) June 13, 2018
In the Senate race, 28 percent of Ohio voters said health care was the most important issue in deciding how they will vote, along with the economy (25 percent), immigration (15) and gun policy (14).
By a margin of 51 percent to 41 percent, Ohioans do not want Gov. John Kasich to run for president in 2020.
The idea is okay with Democrats, 52 percent of them saying yes, but a whopping 73 percent of Republicans say no. Kasich is seen as a potential challenger to Pres. Donald Trump, who gets a 91 percent approval rating from GOP voters in the state.