One person who should be feeling particularly good about last night's election results in Ohio is Barack Obama. On our weekend poll, which got the final result of Issue 2 correct to within a point, Obama led all of his Republican opponents in the state by margins ranging from 9-17 points. After a very tough year for Democrats in Ohio in 2010, things are looking up.
Obama led Mitt Romney 50-41 on our poll. He was up 11 points on Herman Cain at 50-39, 13 on Newt Gingrich at 51-38, 14 on Ron Paul at 50-36, 14 on Michele Bachmann at 51-37 and a whooping 17 points on Rick Perry at 53-36. It used to be Sarah Palin's numbers that we compared to Barry Goldwater, but Perry's deficit would represent the largest Republican defeat in Ohio since 1964.
The biggest thing Obama has going for him right now is an extremely unified Democratic base. Obama gets 88-92% of his party's vote against the six Republican candidates. What makes that particularly notable is that his approval rating with Democratic voters is actually only 73%. But these numbers suggest that when election time comes around the party base will get around Obama whether they're totally thrilled with him or not, and that's a very good sign for his reelection prospects.
Obama continues to suffer from poor approval ratings in Ohio with only 41% of voters approving of him to 49% who disapprove. But voters don't seem to consider any of his opponents to be viable alternatives. Cain has the best favorability of the bunch at a still poor 33/43 and it just gets worse from there- 28/48 for Romney, 31/51 for Gingrich, 24/47 for Bachmann, 20/50 for Paul, and a truly woeful 17/58 for Perry. This field of GOP contenders just doesn't seem to have much appeal to swing state voters.
Democrats were a lot more engaged to go vote in Ohio yesterday than Republicans were, and the 2012 electorate probably won't be as friendly to them as the one last night was. But the results sent a very clear message that voters there regret how they voted in 2010- our poll found that if voters could do it over they would have reelected Ted Strickland by a 55-37 margin over John Kasich. And if voters feel like voting for the GOP in 2010 was a mistake, that can only help Obama's prospects for reelection next year. It's pretty much impossible for Republicans to defeat Obama next year without taking Ohio- and for now the President's in a real good position there.
Full results here
This poll combined with all of the excellent election results = very good news. November 2012 is still forever away - but this is the most confident I've felt about Obama's reelection in a long while.
Posted by: Obama 2012 | November 09, 2011 at 09:31 AM
PPP should be feeling particularly good. You nailed the Iowa special election and the ME referendum on same-day voter registration. Add those feathers to your cap along with NY-9 and every single one of the WI recall races.
In both IA and ME, your margins were a bit narrower than the actual result, but that is a function of the off-off year voter turnout variable. I wonder if PPP has some algorithm that it could use to adjust the raw results of polling in an off-year or an off-off-year to reflect predictions about voter turnout based on early voting or absentee ballot requests. For example, in IA SD 18, Mathis was running 2-1 ahead of Golding in early voting, so that might have warranted an adjustment to the raw results of the PPP poll to reflect a healthier margin.
Posted by: Gerald | November 09, 2011 at 10:04 AM
what a bias!
Posted by: heatherglam | November 09, 2011 at 10:13 AM
Your "do over polls" intrigue me. I don't see how it really represents anything unless you actually have a "do over" election. In other words, you need a complete campaign again before doing the polling to indicate what might actually happen. A "do over" of Obama and McCain might also have showed quite a change a year after the election but in my mind would have been meaningless.I also note that in Ohio yesterday, the Obama healthcare plan went down to a very ignominious defeat with the same people voting on the labor legislation. What do you make of that?
Posted by: Jay | November 09, 2011 at 11:45 AM
If Obama can solidify his position in Ohio, then it's game over for Romney/Cain/Perry/Gingrich in 2012. It looks like John Kasich just gave the President a great early Christmas present.
Posted by: atdleft | November 09, 2011 at 01:35 PM
The Democratic base was unified over the weekend because of Issue 2.
Will they be as unified in a year when they'll be voting for an unpopular Obama instead of for their own collective bargaining rights? My money is on "no."
Posted by: The Interesting Times | November 09, 2011 at 04:06 PM
If these poll numbers are correct, then I suppose Ohio voters--or at least those polled--are satisfied with economic prospects for their State. Do voters there actually believe that they are better off now than they were in 2008? If voters rejected Pres. Bush for his flawed economic program, how can Ohio voters even consider re-electing Pres. Obama, since his fiscal policy has been an unmitigated disaster in general? Ohio is surely no economic Garden of Eden because of Obama policies.
I pray that Ohioans recover from their amnesia soon.
Posted by: D. Y. Crawford | November 09, 2011 at 05:23 PM
The repeated idea of affective "dissatisfaction" determining how one votes on the leadership in foreign policy, security, and the domestic common good. The vote has far more to do with how tax, health, environmental, and budget plans, along with the safety nets. The polls reflect an affirmation, not a disconnect.
The website, Democrats for Progress, looked at this issue today: http://bit.ly/ddmre Digging Deeper:The Mirror of Expectations.
Posted by: Walter Rhett | November 09, 2011 at 07:28 PM
It is fully possible that one third of the bafoons who voted against the Kasich plan will turn out and vote for Herman Cain.
Posted by: George | November 10, 2011 at 12:09 PM
DY Crawford - stop it with that Reagan "better off 4 years ago" nonsense! 4 years ago was before the Bush recession started! You guys would be blaming FDR for the Great Depression too!
Obama is doing everything he can to get the US out of the Bush Recession - the problem is that the Grand Obstructionist Party is purposefully sabotaging the economy in order to defeat Obama. They are putting their short term political gain ahead of the well being of millions of Americans. It is absolutely disgusting and one of the most anti-American moves in American political history.
Today's Republican Party is a disease.
Posted by: Obama 2012 | November 10, 2011 at 12:14 PM
As someone else noted, Obamacare was crushed in Ohio's vote on Tuesday.
If Obama can make the election about collective bargaining, he can win Ohio.
If his Republican opponent can make the election about health care, Obama could lose Ohio.
Posted by: The Interesting Times | November 10, 2011 at 03:27 PM
Fortunately for him, President Obama will be up against an actual named Republican, not facing a generic approve/disapprove measure. And every named Republican is downright hated in Ohio. They've seen what Republicans want to do, and Ohio Democrats get to spend all of the next year gleefully tying every Republican in the state to the union-busting attempt.
Posted by: realnrh | November 11, 2011 at 02:12 AM
It's interesting how Ohio voted for unions and therefore Obama, yet opposed Obamacare by a huge margin. Don't the people there realize that all the spending is not sustainable and their children and grandchildren will pay for it?
Posted by: CaresAbout US | November 14, 2011 at 08:10 PM