COLUMBUS, Ohio – Legal marijuana and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland came out ahead in a recent poll of Ohio voters.
A poll released Monday morning by Quinnipiac University shows that Ohioans overwhelmingly support legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, favor recreational use by a much narrower margin, and are leaning toward the Democratic former governor in his bid to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Rob Portman in 2016.
Ohio voters approve of allowing medicinal marijuana by a margin of 84 to 14 percent, while only 52 percent favor allowing residents “to legally possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” according to the survey.
While voting for legalization is one thing, actually taking advantage of the freedom is another: 84 percent of Ohio voters said they “definitely” or “probably” would not use pot for recreational purposes, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll.
One proposed ballot initiative seeks to make Ohio the first state to go from a complete ban on marijuana use to allowing medical and recreational use in one vote. The Ohio Ballot Board certified the Marijuana Legalization Amendment as a single issue, so signature collection may begin.
In the 2016 Senate race, former Strickland leads Portman 48 to 39 percent in a head-to-head contest, according to the poll. Strickland enjoys a 49 percent favorability rating, compared with Portman’s 38 percent, though 49 percent of those surveyed said they believed Portman was doing a good job.
“One reason may be that Portman, who is now finishing his first term in the U.S. Senate, is not all that well-known to voters,” Brown said. “Only slightly more than half of voters say they know enough to have an opinion of him. Strickland, who has been out of office since 2010, is very well-known. Three quarters have an opinion and it is favorable by 20 percentage points.”
Portman tops another possible Democratic challenger, Cincinnati City Council member P.G. Sittenfeld, 47 – 24 percent. Sittenfeld is hampered by a lack of name recognition, Brown says.
Voters approve 52 – 27 percent of the job Portman’s Democratic colleague, Sherrod Brown, is doing. Republican Gov. John Kasich gets a 61 percent job approval rating, one of the highest-ranked governors in any of the nine states surveyed by Quinnipiac.
The poll was conducted from March 17 through the 28 and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.