Obama's Approval Tumbles, D's Still Lead Portman For Senate Race

Quinnipiac University's latest poll results on the state of the political landscape here in Ohio were released this morning, and it wasn't pretty for President Obama.

Given a 62-31 approval rating just two months ago, President Obama now gets a 49-44 approval rating. What's remarkable about this to me is that both the drop in approval and rise in disapproval are exactly 13%, meaning there is no net increase or decrease in the number of Ohioans feeling ambivalent about their new President, a President who has not yet spent 6 months in the White House. My feeling is that Ohioans frustrations with the slow progress on the economic recovery are coming out in these numbers.

On the 2010 Senate front, Quinnipiac finds both Fisher and Brunner slightly leading the likely GOP candidate former Rep. Rob Portman. Fisher has a slight 3 point lead on Brunner in the Democratic primary, within the polls margin of error.

Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Approval Rating in Ohio at 57 Percent

In a poll released this morning, Quinnipiac University finds that President Barack Obama has a 57 percent approval rating in Ohio with 33 percent disapproving roughly two months into his term in office.

These numbers are down from last month, where Quinnipiac found a 67-16 approval rating. A lot of the movement has come from self-described Republicans, who last month disapproved 31-42 but this month disapprove 22-68. IMO, this is to be expected as the honeymoon period wears off and President Obama begins rolling out an agenda not exactly calculated to please GOPers.

One of the items on that agenda is President Obama's $75 billion mortgage rescue plan. In a development I consider stunning, 63 percent of Ohioans say the plan is unfair to those who make their payments on time, but 55 percent of Ohioans support the plan anyway because they think its necessary to stablize the housing market. 

In the red-hot race for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by George Voinovich in 2010, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leads former Bush Administration official Rob Portman 41-33, and Auditor of State Mary Taylor 41-31 in hypothetical matchups. In a Democratic Primary, Fisher takes 18 percent to 14 percent for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, 12 percent for Rep. Tim Ryan, 10 percent to all other candidates and 46 percent undecided. 

More Quinnpiac analysis later. For now, read the full poll results yourself here.

 

Quinnipiac Poll Coming Tomorrow

Just received a press release from Quinnipiac University saying that they are releasing a new poll on the Ohio Governor's race tomorrow morning at 10 AM. Stay tuned for results.