Poll: Cordray-DeWine too close to call
Brown leads Senate race; Kasich is liked more by Dems than GOP, it finds.
The race for Ohio COLUMBUS — governor between Democrat Richard Cordray and Republican Mike DeWine is too close to call, a new independent poll released Wednesday shows.
The Quinnipiac University poll says support for Cordray stands at 42 percent, while DeWine trails him by just 2 percentage points.
“The closeness between Richard Cordray and Attorney General Mike DeWine should not be surprising, since this race for governor is a re-run of the race between the two men in 2010 for the attorney general’s job that DeWine won by one percentage point,” Quinnipiac Poll assistant director Peter Brown said in a written statement.
Generally, DeWine has strong support among men, whites and Republicans, the poll found. Cordray’s strength is with women, nonwhites and Democrats, the pollsters found. Independent voters are closely divided, with 39 percent backing Cordray and 37 percent for DeWine.
Roughly half of Ohio voters say they don’t know enough about Cordray to have an opinion about him. Twenty-seven percent of voters don’t know DeWine. Both men have been
on the statewide ballot multiple times stretching back decades.
Republicans have held the Ohio governor’s office for 24 of the last 27 years, and currently Ohio Demo- crats have just one state- wide officeholder: U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Quinnipiac pollsters said Brown holds a 51 percent to 34 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Wadsworth, in the Senate race. Brown, who is seeking his third term in office, has a 55 percent job approval rating, the poll said. Meanwhile, half of Ohio voters say they don’t know enough about Renacci to form an opinion.
Election day is still five months away, giving plenty of time for the candidates to land punches, issues to come into focus and voters to firm up their picks.
Quinnipiac also reported that Gov. John Kasich has a 52 percent job approval rating, and he’s more popular among Democrats than among his fellow Repub- licans, who are evenly div ided over the governor. Fifty-seven percent of Democrats give Kasich the thumbs up, and 52 percent of them would like to see Kasich make another run for president in 2020. Mean- while, nearly three in four Republicans say they don’t want him to run.
A Suffolk University poll conducted for the Cincinnati Enquirer and released Tues- day showed Cordray with 43 percent, DeWine with 36 percent and 16 percent of likely voters undecided. It had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
DeWine and Cordray each are coming off bruising primary battles to capture their party nominations for governor.
DeWine scored a congratulatory tweet from President Donald Trump that said in part: “He will be a great Governor with a heavy focus on HealthCare and Jobs. His Socialist opponent in November should not do well, a big failure in last job!”
Trump, who won Ohio in 2016 by 8 points, has a 54 percent job approval rating in the state. Ninety-one percent of Republicans approve, while 94 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents disapprove.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted June 7 to 12, contacted 1,082 Ohio voters and has a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.