SurveyUSA Ohio General Election Poll
- Barack Obama 48%
- John McCain 46%
Survey of 580 likely voters was conducted June 20-22. The margin of error is +/- 4.2 percentage points.
With the Veeps:
As was the case in the Show Me State, pro-choice New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg once again demonstrates that he outperforms the pro-life Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal against several potential Democratic tickets.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
OR Michael Bloomberg once again demonstrates that he has much higher name recognition than Bobby Jindal. I will tell you what Bloomberg on the ticket will do – he will depress the base so much that must win states like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Missouri will be Obama’s for the taking. On the “plus” side, Obama will probably only win New York and California by 15 percent instead of 20.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Wow, no wonder Strickland took himself out of consideration! Hah! He hurts his ticket in his home state!
June 27th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Just the fact that a national polling firm would poll Bloomberg with both McCain and Obama speaks volumes. Bloomberg doesn’t stand for anything. Would you consider John McCain picking Claire McCaskill as VP? Or Barack Obama picking Bobby Jindal? Of course not.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
These dual Bloomberg VP polls are just silly.
Just for laughs, I wish SurveyUSA would poll McCain/Bloomberg vs. Obama/Bloomberg… to see the difference with just McCain vs. Obama.
I wonder, would the average person even notice after being asked four or five of these pairings?
June 27th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Webb has no principles either. He used to work for Ronald Reagan. Now he is a Democrat because of Iraq. But what about all the other issues? Did he become liberal on all of them too? How do you go from working in the Reagan White House to being a liberal Democratic Senator? I realize he parted company with the GOP on Iraq, but what about the domestic issues? He has been required to give very little explanation of why he changed. Ted Strickland does hurt in his own state, and Claire McCaskill doesn’t seem to do anything for the ticket either.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I just researched Webb a little bit. He has a rather messy personal life that I won’t get into, but on the political side, he endorsed George Allen as recently as 2000. However, in his time in the Senate thus far, he has an ACU rating of only 16. That means he’s liberal on a lot more things than just the war. Does he just oppose the war and follow whatever Harry Reid tells him on everything else? How come the press doesn’t give this guy more scrutiny?
June 27th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Clarence,
This is from an interview Webb did two years ago:
1. You served in the Reagan Administration and were a Republican for many years. What are the main reasons you decided to switch to the Democratic Party?
“I’ve never run for office. That tends to clarify the mind. I identified myself most strongly with the Democratic Party until the end of the Vietnam War, then I went with the Republican Party on issues of national security. I was not affiliated in any way with either of the Bush Administrations. Events following 9/11, plus a lot of thought while I was writing Born Fighting, led me to decide that I best identify with the Democratic Party. That being said, I have friends in both parties, and if I am elected I hope we can restore a measure of civility in the Congress that is now sorely lacking.”
2. Which wing, if any, of the Democratic Party do you feel most comfortable with? Would you describe yourself as a liberal, moderate, conservative, populist, or progressive Democrat? Or something else entirely?
“I would describe myself as conservative on national defense, populist on economic issues, and a social moderate.”
June 27th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The good news is that Ohio is definitely within reach. The VP offerings are laughable, and completely meaningless..
June 27th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Here’s the link to that interview:
http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2677
June 27th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I followed the VA senate campaign and Webb is just not a natural. But he comes across as authentic, knowledgeable, and frankly, a tough SOB.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
SUSA is a joke. It’s interesting that they went from it being 52-28 D/R last month to only 47-35 D/R this month. From a 24 pt Dem advantage to a 12 point dem advantage.
Now, since there’s really no logical reason to assume that the party IDs have flipped tha much in a month, one of their two polls was totally off base. probably the 1st one. Even with a 12 pt party ID lead Obama barely leads by himself and loses when his VP is factored in.
it will be interesting to compare how SUSA plays with party ID #s in their future polls. I think you can assume that all their prior state polls have at least a 5 pt bias towards Obama.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
When Ohioans find out what kind of a nut Mr. Bloomberg is, he will make damage.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Also, the male vote went from Obama +3 to McCain +23, a 26 pt swing in a motnh. The female vote went from Obama +13 to Obama +24, an 11 pt swing. And the white vote went from Obama +4 to McCain +7, an 11 pt swing.
With numbers that volatile, I wouldn’t put too much stock in these polls.
That said, if the male vote and the white vote continues to shift in McCain’s direction, and if it’s done so in the face of Obama locking up the nomination, getting his bounce, getting fawning press coverage, and all the other things that are in his favor, McCain is in decent shape going forward.
While I’ve said that these early polls are volatile, there are a few trends that have appeared in virtually all of the state polls and national polls.
One, Obama has a large lead among women voters that is the basis for his leads in the polls. It’s not suprising that a vigorous, young 47 yr old handsome guy does better among women than a 72 year old with hair as white as snow and the ravages of age, torture and sickness visible every time you look at him.
McCain’s #s among Republicans. Conservatives, and evangelicals/social conservatives are pretty good for him, but not as good as they could be and will need to be for him to win. He’ll need to get in the 90s among Republicans and conservatives, like Reagan, Bush in 88, and W have done, not the 80s, like Dole and his father in 92 did.
His #s among white and men are pretty good, but he needs to build on them, and he probably will as the campaign goes forward. It’s hard to imagine Obama doing much better among thsoe groups than Kerry, Gore, Clinton or Dukakis did.
A VP probably won’t matter all that much, but he needs to pick a VP who will help in trend one(improving his #s among white women) while also helping in trend 2(improving his standing with Republicans and Conservatives). He can’t afford a VP who may help in the first or with independents/democrats but who hurts him among Republicans and Conservatives.
When you look at the exit polls on Wednesday, if McCain gets less than than high 80s among Republicans, he’ll have lost. Mid to high 80s will make it close. I think if can cross the 90s, he’ll have won.
So, he needs to consolidate his base to Bush like levels(while not alienating independents and dems)and improve his standing among white women and hispanic women. Also, he needs to press the areas where the public supports him over Obama. Those are national security, terrorism, foreign policy, defense, energy(drilling and increasing supply), taxes, judges, gun rights, social issues. He can’t win on white men alone. If national security, moral values and increased enerfgy supplies dominate he wins. If the economy, jobs and health care dominate, he loses. It’s up to him to make the election about the former(as Bush was able to do in 2004), and not the latter(as Clinton was able to do in 1992).
He should consider that when picking a VP.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
McCain/Bloomberg ’08 please!
June 27th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
It’s called ‘name-recognition’. Not many people have heard of Bobby Jindal…
June 27th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Jim, #13, I think you’ve endorsed Sarah Palin for VP. She’ll hold and energize conservatives (she’s very popular with the conservative blogs) and she’s popular with independents, even liberals (e.g. wonkette). You are right about the SUSA polls, the cross-tab differences between the polls make no sense.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Yea Jim i was getting ready to say the same thing and i agree with you that McCain needs to look at those things when he select’s his VP, and i can only think of a couple of names that come to mind so without going on and on like the famous Ted, i’ll say Sarah Palin fits that profile good and also Fiorina would also be a good choice.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
My question is what does McCain do if he chooses Sarah Palin with regards to ANWR? Does he change his position and risk a Obama and media onslaught or does he keep his position against ANWR? B/c everytime i hear sarah palin speak she is very passionate about ANWR, and so i’m thinking that could be trouble? But i do think she would make a good pick b/c she’s very pro-life and she has a great life story.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Palin said recently that McCain is open to changing his mind about ANWAR. Even if he didn’t I don’t think it would be a big deal.
Thinking about the rust belt states I wonder why McCain is going to Colombia and Mexico next week. I don’t understand the strategy of emphasizing free trade.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
BTW, I haven’t endorsed Palin for VP. Npt that my endorsement matters. I can see it now, FOX NEWS ALERT: Jim endorses Palin(R-AK) for VP.
She is one of those I think would be a good choice, along with a few others such as Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty, Powell, Petraeus, Jeb Bush, Cheney, etc…
As for liberals like Obama saying it will take 5-10 years for oil from ANWR and offshore, aren’t they the same one pushing global warming standards for like 2025 and 2050 and telling us how the arctic shelf and greenland will all melt in 100 years if we don’t do anything? 5 years should be a drop in the bucket for them.
I think McCain could win with ANWR and offshore if he also proposed expanding wildlife protection and enviromental protection elsewhere as part of a compromise. For example, in exchange for lifting the moratorium and opening up the 3 square miles out of 30,000 in ANWR for drilling, he could agree to add say 100 square miles to the refuge in another part of the state, and to create additional nat’l parks or protected areas in other states.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Again with these recent Veep polls, it is interesting how McCain wins more of the VP options them Obama does. This shows that at the end of the day a majority of the undecided are with McCain.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I totally agree. Obama’s #s stay the same or fall when he adds a VP who isn’t some known nat’l figure like Edwards or Clinton.
Guys like Webb, Richardson, Kaine, etc… help in their respective states but don’t really help elsewhere.
Hopefully Obama and Clinton’s antipathies prevent them from running together. It would be very tough to beat that ticket. But Obama/Richardson or Obama/Biden or Obama/Kaine or Obama/Sebelius…quite possible
June 27th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I must admit I find it curious that VP’s would lower Obama’s numbers, especially when many of them are not well known. On the flip side, how is it possible that Fiorina would help when she is even less known than most politicians, unless its solely because she is female.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:10 am
VPs don’t affect McCain as much because he’s a known quanity. It’s like how Quayle didn’t hurt Bush in 1988 because people knew Bush and weren’t worried about his VP.
No one knows Obama so they want a VP who reassures them. They may not fully trust Obama or think he’s experienced enough but Obama and Edwards or Obama and Clinton helps them because he’ll have someone at his side.
Obama and Sebelius or Obama and Kaine, by contrast, just means 2 guys who no one knows and who have no experience.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Cheney … is this is a joke?
June 28th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Kaine and Sebelius are two very competent red-state governors. BTW, Sebelius is a woman.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Aron, that interview helps me understand Webb a little better. He really was only a Republican because of national security. There are all kinds out there. I know people from very conservative families who became Democrats only because of Vietnam. There are some people from this site who would probably become moderate Democrats if the war on terror were over. Webb also said during the campaign that there was a lack of civility. Obama said that in the Audacity of Hope also. Whichever party that is out of power either complains there is not enough civility or things are too polarized. I have no sympathy.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I would of liked to see how an Obama/Clinton sized up in this state. The good news is, according to this small sample of possible Veeps, a Vice President is going to help McCain in Ohio.