The lead story in this morning's Cleveland Plain Dealer had plenty of good news for Ohio Democrats. According to Mason-Dixon...
Ted Strickland leads Ken Blackwell, 53-36, in the Ohio governor's race. These figures are very much in line with other recent polls on this race, including the recent Columbus Dispatch poll. PD columnist Brent Larkin reporetd that 23% of Republicans plan to vote for Strickland, while only 7% of Democrats plan to vote for Blackwell. (Who are these people?) Blackwell's favorable/unfavorable numbers are 32/45, compared to Strickland's 46/20. Larkin went on to state that "candidates with Blackwell's type of unfavorables don't usually lose. They always lose."
Stick a fork in Blackwell. He's done.
The Ohio Senate race is considerably tighter than the gubernatorial race. Sherrod Brown leads Mike DeWine, 45-43, which is well within the 4-point margin of error. Brown holds a big lead, 52-33, among independents, and the results of this poll represent a 13-point swing toward Brown since the last M-D poll four months ago. (See
http://www.dailykos.com/....) Brown's lead over the last few polls has ranged from 1-10 points, and one has to go back a while to find DeWine's last lead. And 43% support for a two-term incumbent is pretty poor no matter how you look at it. Brown and DeWine will slug it out for another month, and this race is far from over, but I have to like Brown's chances.
The Plain Dealer also provided poll results for other statewide races. Demopcrat Jennifer Brunner holds a slim 35-32 lead over Republican Greg Hartmann in the race for Secretary of State. Democrat Richard Cordray holds a substantial 40-31 lead over Sandra O'Brien, his opponent for state treasurer. Democrat Barbara Sykes leads Mary Taylor, her Republican opponent for state auditor, by a 38-33 margin. Republicans lead only one statewide race; Betty Montgomery leads Marc Dann 47-37 in the race for attorney general.
Other nuggets...
A proposed amendment to raise the state minimum wage to $6.85/hour has overwhelming support; it leads by a 73-20 margin.
A proposed amendment to expand slot-machine gambling, a measure which has been touted as a source of funding for education, is failing by a 52-36 margin. I have no moral objection to gambling per se, but I object to government funding essential services by taking advantage of the ignorance and greed of the electorate. If we need the money, be honest about it and raise it through taxation. Just once, I would like to see a candidate - any candidate - say that we get what we pay for. OK, enough preaching for tonight...
George W. Bush's performance was rated as excellent or good by 39% of respondents, fair or poor by 60%. Even after throwing out the 18% of respondents in the "fair" category, GWB's ratings were still negative, 39/42.
A 54-36 majority disapproves of GWB's handling of the war in Iraq.
Democrats received higher marks than Republicans on their ability to handle the economy and jobs (46-32), takes and government spending (43-31), and education (48-28). When asked which party was better suited to deal with the issue of honesty in government, 35% choce the Democrats and 21% choce the Republicans.