Quinnipiac (5/10-16, registered voters, no trendlines):
Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 44
Ken Blackwell (R): 35
Undecided: 18
Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 45
Josh Mandel (R): 31
Undecided: 21
Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 44
Kevin Coughlin (R): 28
Undecided: 23
(MoE: ±2.6%)
Apologies are in order: It turns out that Quinnipiac is more than happy to provide demographic information for its polls — you just have to ask. In fact, I had a very nice conversation with April Radocchio of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute, and she emailed me the following breakdowns:
Q: Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?
Democrat: 32
Republican: 27
Independent: 35
Other: 5
DK/NA: 1
White (non-hisp): 83
Black (non-hisp): 13
Other (non-hisp): 2
Hispanic (all races): 2
The racial demographics match up with PPP's last poll of the race — which you'd expect, since Quinnipiac, like Public Policy Polling, weights for race (as April confirmed to me). But the party IDs are very different: PPP pegged the electorate as 45 D, 33 R, 21 I. It's very hard to say who's right, especially since recent exit polls don't really resemble either of these snapshots of the electorate.
Regardless, these numbers look pretty decent for Sherrod Brown when you dive into the cross-tabs, even though the incumbent currently sits in the mid-40s. Brown is at 80% among members of his own party and has sizeable leads among independents against all three candidates. His job approval is at 49-30 (almost identical to his re-elects), and that's a net gain from 43-27 a couple of months ago. The relatively high number of undecideds gives Brown "room to grow" — even though he is the sitting Senator — particularly because fully a quarter of independents haven't yet made up their minds. Republicans will have to start doing a lot better with indies in order to make up enough ground.
And speaking of the GOP field, here's how it looks:
Ken Blackwell (R): 33
Josh Mandel (R): 17
Kevin Coughlin (R): 5
Undecided: 43
(MoE: ±4.6%)
Former SoS Ken Blackwell (who got trounced by Ted Strickland in the 2006 gubernatorial race) leads the pack, but I am sure it's only because of his higher name recognition. None of these three candidates have officially announced, though Mandel and Coughlin have both formed exploratory committees. (Blackwell previously said something about waiting until his latest book came out this month.) This may not be an impressive crop, but it seems hard to imagine Sherrod Brown not winding up with a serious fight on his hands no matter who emerges as the GOP nominee.
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