Obama leads 50-45 in Ohio

A new Public Policy Polling survey in Ohio, conducted on behalf of Health Care for America Now, finds Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 50-45.

Key findings from the survey include:

-Obama’s approval rating is at the key 50% mark, with 47% of voters disapproving of him. Romney’s under water on his favorability, with 46% of voters rating him positively while 48% have a negative opinion.

-Obama’s already amassed a large lead in the state. 33% of voters say they’ve already cast their ballots and he leads 62-35 with them. Romney has a 50-45 advantage with those yet to vote.

-Obama leads with both women (53/44) and men (48/47). He is holding Romney to just a 50/46 advantage with white voters, not nearly enough to win the state. Obama also leads within every age group except for seniors.

-Obama has a strong advantage over Romney on several key issues, such as who voters trust more to stand up for the middle class (53/44) and who they trust more to protect Medicare (51/45). Independents have more faith in Obama by 53/40 and 47/41 margins respectively on those issues, and that’s helped him to tie Romney with independents overall after trailing with them on most of our recent polls.

Full results here

Comments

[David Axelrod]

What's your skew +15% democrat? I know you are another hack machine which is TRYING to con americans into thinking Obama is going to win. It's so when Axelrod and his henchmen try to rig the ballot boxes, they won't get caught.

[Tofu]

Uh, the Ohio Secretary of State says 15% of registered voters have actually voted. For your number--33%--to be correct, you'd need to assume turnout statewide will be down an absurd 38% from 2008. So unless you think that (and if so, please, please be willing to wager on it), I'd say this is a bad sample that's skewed towards early voters.

[Michael]

Garbage:

The D/R/I on this poll is a ridiculous 45/36/19 that assumes Democrats will add six points to their 2008 turnout while independents largely stay home. In 2008, recall, the exit polls showed the electorate at 39/31/30, and the 2010 midterm put it at 36/37/28. Has anyone produced any evidence of such a wave of Democratic enthusiasm? Even the CBS/NYT/Q-poll today showed GOP enthusiasm leading by 14 in Ohio, 57/43.

[Sean]

PPP will turn out to be the biggest joke come election night.

[Walt French]

Nice to see other commenters complain about accuracy, and then sign their posts falsely.

A new take on “voter fraud,” where people who don't like a report trash it but don't want their identity known.

Here's a pro tip: Don't like the news? Go out and make some of your own, rather than belittling people who actually work for a living.

[Thadeo]

Tofu: When someone mails in a ballot it can take a week or two for the precinct to count it and it is certified and sent to the Secretary of State. Same goes for early voting in person.

Michael: Seeing as the percentage of Independents is way down in this poll it may just be the independent Obama supporters are identifying themselves as Democrats and vice versa with Romney supporters. It's very likely the registered independents are identifying themselves as partisans on the phone.

[George]

Thadeo:
Thanks for your explanation to Tofu, but I'd still like to see PPP address the issue. I think you are correct, but it would be nice for PPP to chime in too.