Ohio, with its 20 electoral votes, has always been in the top tier of bellwether-states-to-watch in presidential elections given that you have to go back to 1960 -- when Richard Nixon carried it in his losing race against John F. Kennedy -- for the last time it failed to support the winner.And most of those races have been close if you subtract the blow-out elections when Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon swamped George McGovern, Ronald Reagan trumped Jimmy Carter and then Walter Mondale, and George H.W. Bush dispatched Michael Dukakis.
So, although 2012 is still a ways off, it is for good reason that the latest Quinnipiac University survey of the state contains this admonition from pollster Peter Brown: "Given Ohio's key position in the Electoral College, the White House needs to keep a sharp eye on the president's numbers in the Buckeye State. They aren't awful, but they aren't good either."
Obama won the state in 2008 with 51.4 percent of the vote to John McCain's 46.8 percent, but right now, 49 percent of Ohio voters disapprove of the job Obama is doing while 45 percent approve, with 6 percent undecided. Obama was also in negative territory in Quinnipiac's three previous polls this year. Independents currently disapprove by 53 percent to 40 percent, with 7 percent undecided. In 2008, independents supported Obama by 52 percent to 44 percent with 4 percent not revealing for whom they voted, according to exit polls.
Ohioans are split on whether they want their next senator -- the person elected to fill the seat of the GOP's George Voinovich -- to support or oppose Obama's policies. Forty-eight percent want the next Senator to oppose Obama's agenda, 46 percent want him to support Obama, with 6 percent undecided. (That same divide is reflected in the current race where Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leads former Republican Rep. Rob Portman by 42 percent to 40 percent, with 17 percent undecided). The poll's margin of error is 3 points.
Fifty-four percent disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy while 41 percent approve, with 5 percent undecided.