Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is in a dead heat, with incumbent Republican Rob Portman and Democratic challenger Ted Strickland each polling at 42 percent, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The Quinnipiac University poll is one of a number of surveys in recent months that show the two candidates tied or Strickland ahead by a very narrow margin.
Wednesday’s survey, however, shows Strickland’s approval rating dropping since the last Quinnipiac poll of the race in May. Strickland, a Columbus Democrat, received an unfavorable rating from 42 percent of those polled in the new survey, while 38 percent had a favorable opinion of him.
Last month, Strickland got a favorable rating from 37 percent of voters surveyed by Quinnipiac, compared to 31 percent who disapproved of him.
Meanwhile, Portman, a Cincinnati-area Republican, has a job approval rating of 44 percent, compared to 32 percent to disapprove of his performance in office. Last month, 35 percent of voters polled gave him a favorable approval rating, while 22 percent disapproved of him.
“The Ohio Senate race is unusual because it is the rare situation in which the challenger, former Gov. Ted Strickland, is better known than the incumbent being challenged. Only 19 percent say they don’t know enough about Strickland to form an opinion of him, while 34 percent, one in three voters, say they don’t know enough about Sen. Rob Portman,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, in a statement.
Both candidates have been targeted by tens of millions of dollars worth of negative advertising.
Portman campaign spokesperson Michawn Rich noted in an email that since Quinnipiac started polling Ohio’s U.S. Senate race in April of 2015, Strickland’s image has worsened with each successive poll.
“We are excited about the growing support for Rob Portman across Ohio’s 88 counties as Rob fights for a better future for Ohio families. More than 1,000 volunteers have helped us contact nearly 2.3 million voters because they are excited about Rob’s message and record of delivering results for Ohio families,” Rich said in a statement. “On the other hand, Ted Strickland has the worst record of any Senate candidate in America.”
Strickland campaign spokesman David Bergstein stated in an email that the new poll “shows the ineffectiveness of Senator Portman’s campaign and that voters aren’t buying his message – he and his allies have spent $25 million on false attacks and claim to have made hundreds of thousands of field contacts – but they’ve failed to dislodge Ted’s deep connection with Ohioans who know Ted is a champion for working families.”
Bergstein continued: “Portman is the ultimate Washington insider who is beloved by his rich and powerful friends in D.C., but one in three Ohio voters can’t even pick Portman out of a lineup.”
Meanwhile, the Quinnipiac poll found Ohio Gov. John Kasich has a favorable approval rating of 58 percent, the same level of support the Republican had in last month’s survey. Thirty-two percent disapproved of the governor’s job performance.
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