New poll shows Mike DeWine leading Richard Cordray

PUBLIC OPINION STRATEGIES MEMORANDUM
 

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

As you know, Public Opinion Strategies recently completed a 600-person sample of likely 2010 Ohio voters. The poll was conducted January 30-31, 2010 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.0% in 95 out of 100 cases.

While the focus of the poll was on other topics, it did include a ballot question regarding voter preferences in the 2010 general election for Ohio Attorney General between former U.S. Senator Mike DeWine and Attorney General Richard Cordray. This brief memo reviews the findings of that question.

Key Points:

• DeWine leads Cordray by a wide 50%-32% margin.
  This is not a pushed ballot or an informed ballot. Just a straight-up ballot asked on this race, with nothing of consequence asked previous to it that could bias these results. It’s important to understand that these ballot findings were NOT the result of a sample that was too Republican-oriented – we found partisan affiliation dead-even in the state, with Democrats holding a narrow 33%-32% lead statewide.
   

• DeWine leads Independents by 48%-22%.
  Similar to what we found in our polling for Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Mike DeWine has better than a two-to-one lead among Independents – 48%-22%, and he leads Republicans by a crushing 88%-3% score, while Cordray wins Democrats by a narrower 71%-15% margin. It’s also interesting to note that among self-identified “Strong Republicans” (typically the most conservative part of the GOP electorate) DeWine is winning with 90% of the vote.
   
• DeWine leads by an average of fourteen points in the “three C’s.”
  Mike leads in each of the three largest media markets in the state by an average of fourteen points.

Bottom Line

The political environment, both in Ohio and nationally is much different now than it was in 2006 when Mike lost his re-election bid for the U.S. Senate. The strong pro-Democratic tilt that we saw in our polling in 2006 and 2008 has turned, providing Republicans with the wind at their backs.

Obviously, this helps Mike DeWine a great deal in his campaign against Attorney General Cordray and puts the incumbent at a significant disadvantage.

Given the current relative standing of the two candidates and fighting uphill against the current GOP momentum, one would have to assume that Cordray will be compelled to run a more negative campaign against DeWine than he probably initially intended. Trailing in recent campaign fund-raising and being forced to run a more negative campaign puts Cordray in a very difficult position in this race.

While November is still a long ways off, this data clearly indicates that Mike DeWine is the odds-on favorite in the race for Attorney General and is in the driver’s seat in this election.

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