Some mixed news out of Ohio today from Quinnipac:
http://www.cleveland.com/...
Ed FitzGerald is closing the gap between him and Gov. John Kasich, but name-recognition remains a high hurdle for the Cuyahoga County executive.
Polling numbers released Tuesday by Quinnipiac University show the Republican Kasich leading his likely Democratic opponent, 44 percent to 37 percent.
For FitzGerald, the good news is that he has cut Kasich's lead in half since the last time Quinnipiac checked in on the race five months ago. However, 71 percent of those surveyed did not know enough about FitzGerald to have an opinion on him. That number, a measure of a candidate's familiarity, is down 5 percentage points since late June.
Adding to FitzGerald's challenges is a 52 percent job-approval rating for Kasich -- down a tick from an all-time high in June, but still above the low-water marks of 2011.
"Ohio Gov. John Kasich enters his reelection year with only a 7-point lead over a largely unknown challenger," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Conn. "On the plus side, his approval ratings mark a huge turnaround from his first two years, when his job approval was in the 30s and Democrats were licking their chops at the prospect of making him a one-termer. But he's below the 50 percent mark in the matchup and on whether he deserves reelection."
Kasich's job-approval score is consistent with the 50 percent rating he received last week in a survey by the Mercyhurst Center for Applied Politics. But Democrats had been trumpeting an earlier poll they paid for that showed the race between Kasich and FitzGerald tied at 41 percent a piece. That poll included Charlie Earl, a Libertarian who has announced his candidacy for governor and who could siphon Tea Party votes from Kasich. - Northeast Ohio Media Group, 11/26/13
Here are some more details:
http://www.dispatch.com/...
Fifty-three percent said Kasich was honest and trustworthy and half of the people said they approved of the way Kasich was handling the economy. Voters don’t feel great about Ohio’s current economy, but 35 percent said it is improving compared with 17 percent who said it’s getting worse; 46 percent said it’s staying the same.
The Republican governor also held a 1-point advantage over FitzGerald among women. Forty-seven percent said they didn’t know if FitzGerald, a one-term county executive and before that a suburban Cleveland mayor for three years, had enough experience to be governor. Also, FitzGerald picked up only 68 percent of African-American voters — a potentially troubling sign for a Democrat.
“A Democrat who gets 68 percent of the black vote is a Democrat who loses in a state like Ohio,” Brown said, noting that FitzGerald recently announced Senate Minority Leader Eric H. Kearney (who is African-American) as his running mate.
The poll did not include Libertarian Charlie Earl, who has said he would run for governor but might not qualify for next year’s race due to recently passed legislation that makes it more difficult for minor-party candidates to make the ballot.
The live telephone survey by the Connecticut-based university of 1,361 registered Ohio voters from Nov. 19 through Sunday has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. It included both land lines and cellphones. - The Columbus Dispatch, 11/26/13
I'd be curious to see how Kasich polls once you include the Libertarian candidate. The poll also shows that Kasich's decision to expand Medicaid has helped his numbers:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/...
The GOP Governor made headlines with his decision to accept federal subsidies to expand the number of people eligible for Medicaid, a major piece of the Affordable Care Act that governors can opt out of. About half of states have accepted the expansion. Many Republican governors have rejected it.
In Ohio, 51% of voters support expanding Medicaid, while 40% say it's a bad idea, according to the poll. Nearly a quarter of registered voters–23%–say they are less likely to vote for Kasich because of his decision, while 19% say it makes them more likely to vote for him. But more than half–54%–say it won't affect their vote.
"Because of Kasich's Medicaid expansion, 24 percent of Republicans say they are less likely to vote for him. History tells us, however, that many of those alienated party members come home on Election Day because they find the other candidates less palatable," Brown said. - CNN, 11/26/13
This was always going to be a tough race but this poll does show that the more FitzGerald is known through out the state, the better his chances will be:
http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/...
But when asked whether their opinion of FitzGerald was favorable or unfavorable, 71 percent of Ohioans in the poll said they didn’t know enough about FitzGerald to form an opinion about him.
“It will take a lot of money and time for the Cuyahoga County Executive to reach those voters, but introducing himself to them is his job one,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “While FitzGerald is trying to define himself, Kasich can be expected to spend a pretty penny trying to negatively define the Democrat.”
Among independent voters, Kasich’s lead is 43 percent to 33 percent. - Zanesville Time Recorder, 11/26/13
Plus FitzGerald's choice in Cinncinatti State Senator Eric Kearney (D. OH) as his running mate might help boost FitzGerald's numbers:
http://www.dispatch.com/...
Kearney, along with two other Cincinnati-area Democrats on the party’s statewide ticket next year, gives Clevelander FitzGerald a foothold in heavily populated Hamilton County, which Republican Gov. John Kasich won by 11,488 votes in 2010, but which Democratic President Barack Obama also won in 2008 and 2012.
Kearney, who is African-American and a good friend of Obama, also helps shore up FitzGerald’s support with Ohio’s black leaders, some of whom have been cool to his candidacy.
Asked about his potential impact on black turnout next year, Kearney played the dutiful No. 2: "Ed FitzGerald is an exciting candidate and that will cause the turnout to increase.”
It might be expected that Obama will campaign for his friend Kearney, and that could be particularly helpful in black wards at the end of the campaign. But at this juncture — and it certainly could change before Nov. 6, 2014 — it’s hard to view the president as anything more than a drag on the Democratic ticket.
History instructs that the challenge for FitzGerald-Kearney already is steep because it’s a curse for a gubernatorial candidate to be of the same party as the president. In the past 14 races for Ohio governor, the candidate from the same party as the president won only three times.
The botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act and longer-term problems with the law portend disaster for Democrats, who just weeks ago were thumping their chests as voters heaped blame on Republicans for the partial government shutdown. - The Columbus Dispatch, 11/24/13
FitzGerald has also been out bashing Kasich for Ohio's sluggish economy:
http://news.cincinnati.com/...
With the 2014 gubernatorial campaign around the corner, the political bickering has started: Who’s to blame?
The reality, economists say, is that no Ohio politician did anything to screw up substantially or save the state’s economy during the recession or the recovery. Forces beyond the control of state politicians drove Ohio’s success immediately after the recession and are again steering the economy now that those days are over.
“There are too many moving parts in the economy to think you can make one small change here and one small change there and really make the economy move,” said Janet Harrah, senior director of Northern Kentucky University’s Center for Economic Analysis and Development.
That isn’t stopping the Democrats’ 2014 gubernatorial candidate, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, from pointing a finger at one of Gov. John Kasich’s signature policy moves. JobsOhio, the state’s privatized economic development agency, has proved “completely ineffective,” he says. The Republican Kasich, on the other hand, has sought to turn the conversation to Washington, saying its gridlock and policies have job creators “worried about where we’re going as a country.”
Neither man has much hope of making a meaningful change in the economy. But if Kasich wants an easy walk to a second term – and a boost in his prospects for a 2016 presidential bid – he probably should hope the economy picks up. And if FitzGerald wants to unseat him, a poor economy might help his case, said Vladimir Kogan, a political scientist at Ohio State University.
“There’s really not all that much evidence that candidates matter that much in state elections,” Kogan said. “The state of the economy matters a lot.” - Cincinnati.com, 11/25/13
In fact, making this race about Ohio's economy might be the best move for FitzGerald's campaign:
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/...
Hammering Kasich on the economy and JobsOhio is a good political move for FitzGerald, even if it’s not fair, said Kogan, the Ohio State political scientist.
“Ohio hasn’t done all that well under the governor,” Kogan said. “I don’t think Kasich deserves any blame for the recovery just like I don’t think Ted Strickland deserves much blame for the pace of the recovery. But politically, that would be the best strategy.”
Even with Ohio’s current economic blahs, FitzGerald might have further to go to convince Ohioans of the state of the economy, much less that Kasich should take the blame for it.
“In spite of recent indications that the performance of the state’s economy is beginning to reflect that of the nation as a whole, more Ohio voters offer positive assessments of their state’s economy than they do of the nation’s economy as a whole,” said analysts from the Mercyhurst Center for Applied Politics, which released a new Ohio poll on Friday. Although 62 percent of Ohioans polled think the state’s economy is “not so good” or “poor,” 80 percent described the national economy the same way.
Half of Ohioans approved of Kasich’s job performance as governor and about one-third disapprove, according to the poll.
The election is 11 months away, giving Kasich and FitzGerald several months for the economy to turn out their way. If the economy continues to stagnate, expect to hear less about JobsOhio from Kasich and more from FitzGerald about jobs. - Chillicothe Gazette, 11/25/13
In the mean time, the election is the last thing Kasich wants to talk about:
http://www.dispatch.com/...
Kasich wouldn’t bite on questions about his re-election chances or about Kearney. It’s doubtful he has ever said anything publicly about FitzGerald, and he certainly refrained last week.
“I feel that I am paying much attention to taking care of the state,” Kasich said. “How I feel about being an incumbent is I have been an incumbent many times in many elections. People judge how you’re doing as the incumbent; that’s what they try to determine.”
After getting a few more questions on the topic, he said: “You can ask this 50 ways to Sunday, that’s just not really where my focus is. My job is to do my job as governor.”
Kasich’s responses were by design; not so much an indication of an incumbent hoping to put off the pressures of re-election, as of a chief executive with the duty to govern while a seasoned core of advisers handles his politics for now.
For instance, during his re-election year, Kasich said, he will introduce another policy-rich, mid-biennium review that could address issues such as more tax cuts and education.
Although he won’t discuss details of his race for re-election, Kasich is raising money. At this time four years ago, when Kasich was the challenger, he raised more than $4.5 million in the quarter. Another large haul is expected this time, which will add to a war chest that will be used to try to define FitzGerald, the one-term Cuyahoga County executive who has never run for statewide office.
Talking about FitzGerald now could be counterproductive to that plan. - The Columbus Dispatch, 11/24/13
In fact, it sounds like Kasich is trying to get in good with his base:
http://www.toledoblade.com/...
Now that Ohio has become the 20th state to join the effort to enact a federal balanced budget amendment, Gov. John Kasich on Monday pledged to work to convince other Republican and Democratic governors to do the same.
With a digital national debt clock at $17.2 trillion and ticking behind him, the GOP governor said at Rhodes State College in Lima that this will be different from similar efforts that ultimately fizzled.
A sign on the stage read, “Ohio can do it. Why can’t Washington?”
“Had we not had a state balanced budget requirement, I don’t believe we would have balanced the budget,” he said. “It forced us to abide by the law, and it forced us to make the decisions that needed to be made to get our budget balanced. And by the way, today we run a $1.4 billion surplus.”
The Ohio General Assembly, with bipartisan support, last week passed Senate Joint Resolution 5 calling for Congress to directly propose a balanced budget amendment for states to ratify or convene a constitutional convention to do it. Ohio neighbors Indiana and Pennsylvania are among the 19 other states to have done the same. At least 14 more must sign on before the resolutions will have any teeth. No constitutional convention has been held in the United States since 1787. - Toledo Blade, 11/25/13
And we'll have to see if this guy will be any help for Kasich:
http://www.limaohio.com/...
John Kasich and Chris Christie are officially bros.
“I love John Kasich,” Christie said today at the Republican Governors Association conference at the picturesque Phoenician resort.
The New Jersey governor’s comments came a day after Kasich, Ohio’s governor, said of Christie: “Chris and I are friends. He texts me, we laugh, we bust each other’s chops.
“He’s like a big teddy bear, he’s just, I like him,” Kasich said.
All of the public, mutual admiration in the desert last week between the two governors has been brought on by a few factors, primarily Christie’s skyrocketing status as a national power for Republicans and an early frontrunner for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination (should he run).
Kasich, by contrast, is also mentioned as a possible entrant into the party’s nomination fight, but in the meantime he was kind of a magnet in Scottsdale for national reporters looking for insight.
There’s also something else that binds them: Christie became the RGA’s chairman, making him chiefly responsible to raise money and help Republican governors win election next year. Kasich, of course, is up for re-election.
“I’ll come to Ohio for John as frequently as he wants me to, and as frequently as I can, given the balance” required of helping other GOP governors and running his own state, Christie said. - The Columbus Dispatch, 11/25/13
So we shall see. In the mean time, if you'd like to get involved or donate to FitzGerald's campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.edfitzgeraldforohio.com/...