COLUMBUS – Ohio Gov. John Kasich has lost ground in his home state to Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump, according to a recent poll of voters in the Buckeye State.
The Quinnipiac University poll, released Wednesday morning, shows 23 percent of Ohio’s Republican voters favoring for Trump, compared to 21 percent in August, while Kasich gets only 13 percent, less than half of the 27 percent he received in August.
“Gov. John Kasich’s big card was his enormous popularity in Ohio, generally considered the most important swing state in the November election. But with Trump zooming well past him in the Buckeye State and Kasich’s numbers in Florida and Pennsylvania in low single digits, the Ohio governor’s campaign is going in the wrong direction,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson gets support from 18 percent of Ohio’s GOP voters, 11 percent are leaning toward Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, 10 percent for former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, 7 percent for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and 4 percent for former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
Despite his poll lead, 29 percent of the Republican voters said they would “definitely not support” the real estate mogul.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton leads the Democratic field in Ohio with 40 percent. Vice President Biden has 21 percent, even though he has not officially declared his candidacy, with 19 percent for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and 11 percent undecided.
Only 14 percent of the Democratic voters said they would not vote for Clinton.
Nevertheless, the candidates can be grateful there is no “none of the above” option on Ohio ballots. Fifty-eight percent of voters have an unfavorable view of Trump and 54 percent said he is not honest or trustworthy. Fifty-six percent viewed Clinton unfavorably and 61 percent said she is not honest and trustworthy.
The poll of 1,180 Ohio voters was conducted between Sept. 25 and Oct. 5 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.