The Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research Network released its latest poll of 800 registered Ohio voters last month.
According to the results, former Sen. Sherrod Brown and current Sen. Jon Husted are neck and neck in the race for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat.
And in the race for the next Ohio governor, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy narrowly leads both former Director of the Ohio Department of Health Amy Acton and former U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan. Ryan has not declared candidacy for the position.
All of the results fall within the poll’s 4.5% margin of error.
“Ohio will certainly be on many people's minds this time next year,” said Robert Alexander, professor of political science with BGSU and one of the people who conducted the poll.
Close competition
The president’s party usually suffers during midterm elections, and the poll found President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped among Ohio voters.
“That might explain a little bit of what we’re seeing here,” Alexander said.
He says Ohio voters are specifically unhappy with the economy.
“A year ago, this was the big question: Who's going to bring down the price of eggs?” he said. “And today, we see that 56% of all Ohioans are looking at the state of the country's economy and not feeling better about it than they did a year ago.
“When Republicans are in power in the state of Ohio, the presidency, Congress and so on, [those continued economic concerns] are a little bit of a warning sign.”
The election is still a year away, however, and a lot could change in that time.
Plus, BGSU polling has been wrong in the past. When they polled on last year’s redistricting issue, for example, they found 57% planned to vote yes. But that issue eventually failed 54%-46%.
“The reality is that it has been difficult to poll Donald Trump over the last few election cycles,” Alexander said. “One of the things that you will find is that a lot of Trump supporters, or folks that might lean toward Donald Trump, are reluctant to answer polls. And so we do take great care to try and account for that.”
Ohio voters’ top priorities
In addition to the economy, BGSU’s poll found a growing number of Ohio voters are concerned about threats to democracy.
“That's mostly from Democrats in our poll,” Alexander said. “They're much more concerned about threats to democracy than our Republicans and Independents.”
A significant number of Ohio voters are also concerned about polarization and political violence, Alexander said.
“This is one area where we see a lot of agreement between Democrats and Republicans, that political violence is a problem in the United States right now.”
And the poll found another area of partisan agreement too: When asked about Jeffrey Epstein, most respondents believe there’s been some kind of coverup to protect political and economic elites.
Alexander says that speaks to a bigger issue.
“There's a lot of cynicism out there among Democrats and Republicans and Independents alike,” he said. “How that shapes elections moving forward, that's, I think, the big question we'll all be looking at.”
