Saturday, May 27, 2006

Which poll to believe?

The big news of the week was the release of the University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll, which yielded starkly different results than the Rasmussen poll released a week earlier. The Ohio Poll showed U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland with a 6 point lead over Secretary of State "Ayahtollah" Ken Blackwell, while it showed incumbent Republican U.S. Sen Mike DeWine with a 10 point lead over his challenger, Democratic U.S. Rep Sherrod Brown. You'll recall that the Rasmussen poll showed Strickland with a 16 point lead over Blackwell, and Brown with a slight edge over DeWine.

I'm not sure about the science of polling, so I will split the difference and say Strickland has an 11 point lead, while DeWine has a slight lead over Brown. Either way, this is shaping up to be an interesting summer, as it will be the first truly competitve elections for statewide office in over a decade.