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Ipsos: Portman pulling away from Fisher

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 11th, 2010 at 04:30 PM  | 

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Fisher Portman

From Unlikely Voter: I keep insisting the Ohio Senate race is going to be as drum tight as the Pennsylvania race, but polls like the Ipsos survey for Reuters may force me to re-think that.

Especially when Rob Portman is showing a massive fundraising advantage, a 43-36 lead (MoE 4.3) over Lee Fisher among likely voters is serious news.

Now obvious when the leader is only at 43, the race is far from locked up, but one doesn’t expect anyone in an open seat to be at 50, the way an incumbent is supposed to pull that off easily. So even if I slide this race from “toss-up” to “Republican” in my mental categories, I’m not completely dismissing Fisher’s chances.

One thing that seems clear: If 86% of voters blame the Bush administration as one contributor to the economic problems we’re having, then Rob Portman is not being blamed for his role in that administration. How could he lead otherwise?

The problem we’re seeing in the specific is the same we saw nationwide in the Public Opinion Strategies battleground poll: “There is no momentum and no energy at all in the Democratic base,” says Julia Clark of Ipsos.

The biggest caveat for Republicans, and the best hope for Democrats, is the fact that the survey was weighted according to Census Bureau statistics. Any time we alter our random sample, we possibly insert bias. I will be interested to see if other pollsters confirm this widening of the Portman lead.

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  • rdelbov

    why registered voter polls are a waste of good paper-417/600 registered voters are deemed as “likely to vote”. So why take into account the views of 30% of the voters in a survey who are unlikely to vote.

  • Death_of_the_Donkey

    Remember that Stickland is not well liked in Ohio either and is likely going down to Kasich, so Fisher’s link to Stickland is probably hurting him more than Portman’s link to Bush.

  • sarg01

    And since they support that lefty, it makes the race look better for the Dem, and thus easier for them to get campaign contributions from people trying to buy themselves a pocket congress-critter.

  • The Moat

    Last week’s referendum in Missouri showed a significant disconnect between polls and actual voting behavior.

    Then look at primaries in places like California where D turnout was 32% and R turnout was 45.5%. This is in CALIFORNIA of all places, and nearly 50% more people turned out for the Republican primary than for the Democratic!

    All told, there may be a massive enthusiasm gap that isn’t being properly captured by the opinion polling. As all the votes have been intra-party so far, I’m not sure anybody’s really taking note.

    It should be fun to see the inter-party contests in November!

  • The Moat

    Wow… little misstatment.

    It’s not that 50% more people voted in the republican primary. It was actually slightly less. But the turnout was 50% for the republicans.

    Either way, the Missouri vote shows us there’s something out there that’s not being captured by the opinion polls, and when Republicans can have nearly as many people show up to vote as the Democrats in a state like California, it’s clear it’s not a single-issue sentiment.

  • The Moat

    I need to sleep. Should have read:

    “But the turnout was 50% greater for the republicans”

  • Kyle-MI

    According to Rasmussen,
    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/ohio/ohio_senate_portman_r_45_fisher_d_39
    59% of Ohio voters favor repeal of Obamacare and 58% disagree with the Obama justice department’s lawsuit against the AZ immigration law. Obama’s job approval in Ohio is only at 46%. Those numbers should well counter balance any negatives from Portman’s association with Bush. Would also be interesting to see what Ohio voters think of the success or failure of the stimulus.

  • Kyle-MI

    What is Voinovich’s favorable rating in OH? How much are people connecting Portman with Voinovich?

  • ffc99

    (n/t)

  • ffc99

    the best I can.

    While there hasn’t been a lot of polling done on Voinovich recently (not surprising, given he’s retiring) a Quinnipiac poll from late June shows that his job approval rating is the highest among well known statewide office holders (also higher than President Obama’s). His job approval is at 48%, Gov. Strickland’s is 44%, Lt. Gov Fisher’s is 41%, Senator Brown’s is 46% and President Obama’s is 45%. The fact of the matter is that while Voinovich is not necessarily a favorite among conservatives nationwide, he’s fairly popular in Ohio. Since 1990 he has held statewide office (Gov and Senator) and won 4 straight elections, never garnering less than 56% of the vote.

    As for the 2010 Ohio Senate campaign, Portman and Voinovich are from opposite corners of the state, and I don’t believe are seen as close political allies. I don’t suspect Voinovich will be terribly involved in the campaign (at best you might see him at a campaign event or two). Portman is certainly viewed as a more conservative candidate than Sen. Voinovich. In short, I think most observers would agree with my conclusion that Voinovich will be a non-factor in this race.

  • Finrod

    .

  • redtillimdead

    Seems Portman’s early financial edge is starting to pay off as he is now able to spend some money for people to get to know him.