Ohio poll could portend trouble for Republicans
Head-to-head matchups and favorability ratings are all trending in the wrong direction for the GOP.
One doesn’t need to have worked in mineral extraction to take note of a dead canary on the floor of a coal mine. While certainly the bird could have died of old age or some avian disease, there is a distinct possibility that it died from the presence of carbon monoxide or some other dangerous gas. In politics, a reputable poll showing multiple danger signs in a state that should be more favorable to one party can be a canary in a coal mine.
A Fox News poll of 1,015 registered voters in Ohio, released on Thursday, could well be the canary in the midterm coal mine, suggesting far greater danger for Republicans in November than was previously evident. The analysis by Dana Blanton, who heads the Fox polling unit, as well as the poll’s topline results and crosstabs, are all worth reading. When reading the numbers that follow, you should know that unreleased, private, high-quality polls conducted for both sides show similar results; this poll is not an outlier. And while Fox News has its fans and detractors, its polling is first-rate.
Interestingly, no other state has a better track record of voting for the winning presidential candidate than Ohio: it’s done so 18 times out of 20 since the end of World War II. The only exceptions were 1960, when Richard Nixon carried the state but John Kennedy narrowly won both the popular vote and the Electoral College; and 2020, when Donald Trump won Ohio but Joe Biden prevailed nationwide.
Once seen as a quintessential swing state, the Buckeye State has trended strongly Republican in recent years—Trump carried it by 8 points in both 2016 and 2020, and by 11 points in 2024. Republicans have won eight of the 11 U.S. Senate races in the state since 1994, faring even better in gubernatorial races (eight of nine since 1990). The Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index shows Ohio votes 5 percentage points more Republican than the country as a whole. In the last three presidential elections, Trump averaged 54.7 percent of the major-party vote (excluding votes for independents and third-party candidates); Democratic nominees averaged 45.3 percent.
In the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial race matchups, the Fox News survey showed Democrats more unified behind their nominees, but importantly, running much stronger among independents. Democratic voters also placed greater emphasis on their party winning a Senate majority than Republicans did, usually a sign of a likely turnout disparity. Favorability ratings, not just for the Republican Senate and gubernatorial nominees, but for term-limited GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, Trump, and native son Vice President J.D. Vance, were lower than one might have expected, more evidence of problems for Republicans. Underwhelming numbers for Republicans in Ohio suggest that other GOP-leaning states could face similar problems.
The poll showed former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown leading Sen. Jon Husted by 8 points, 53 to 45 percent. Brown was first elected to the Senate in 2006, President George W. Bush’s second-term midterm election, a tough year for the GOP. He was reelected in 2012 and 2018 before losing his bid for a third term in 2024 to Bernie Moreno, a wealthy automobile dealer.
While not exactly a household name in Ohio, Husted was certainly better known and more established in the state than within the Capitol Beltway. Husted served for eight years in the Ohio state House, the last four as speaker, then two years in the state Senate before his election as secretary of state in 2010 (Barack Obama’s first-term midterm, a bad year for Democrats) and was reelected in 2014. After he made a brief bid for the GOP’s 2018 gubernatorial nomination, the victor, DeWine, picked Husted as his running mate; the ticket went on to win. Later, Gov. DeWine appointed Husted to fill the Senate vacancy after Vance’s elevation to the vice presidency.
In the Fox poll, Brown led Husted among fellow Democrats, 98 percent to 2 percent. Husted led among Republicans, 86 to 13 percent, with independents giving Brown an 18-point lead, 53 to 35 percent.
The gubernatorial race is effectively tied. Amy Acton, who ran the state Department of Health during the COVID pandemic and is now the Democratic nominee, ran ahead of technology entrepreneur and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy by 1 point, 50 to 49 percent. Acton prevails among Democrats, 93 to 7 percent, while Ramaswamy wins among Republicans, 89 to 10 percent. Independents give Acton an 8-point edge, 51 to 43 percent.
The favorability ratings are instructive. In the Fox News 2024 Election Voter Analysis poll (what we used to call exit polls) in Ohio, Trump was at 52 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable for a net + 6; in this new survey, he is at 42 percent favorable and 57 percent unfavorable, a net -15. In 2024, Vance was at 48 percent favorable and 43 percent unfavorable, for a net +5; now it’s 45 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable, for a net -7. DeWine won reelection in 2022 with 62 percent of the vote and in 2024 was at 53 percent favorable and 41 percent unfavorable, for a net +12; now it’s dead even at 48-48. Husted is at 41 percent favorable and 50 percent unfavorable, for a net -9.
Democrats are faring better. When Brown lost, his ratings were 46 percent favorable and 48 percent unfavorable (-2 net); now they are 53 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable (net +9). Acton is at 46 percent favorable and 37 percent unfavorable (net +9).
Why put so much emphasis on this poll? Unfortunately, there have been very few quality polls in states with critical senatorial and gubernatorial races. Virtually no state or local newspapers or television stations are willing to spend the money to hire top-notch pollsters, and most college and university polling these days is mediocre at best. Presumably, as the midterms draw nearer, more national news organizations will step up and commission polls in states with key races. Some of the polls released by campaigns are more of the “Polls R Us” variety, not the quality research that strategists rely on, but cheap polls commissioned for the sole purpose of generating a press release and distributed to donors.
While Trump’s national numbers have been bad for some time, until now there haven’t been many indications that his political problems had metastasized and spread to infect Republican candidates on the November ballot in swing states and districts. The recipe for midterm disaster has long been diminished enthusiasm among those in a president’s party, a hyper-energized opposition-party base, and true independents moving disproportionately against candidates of the incumbent’s party. This Fox poll is the first to make clear that, with his many controversial moves, Trump may have politically “jumped the shark.”
While Trump’s problems will simply knock a few points off of the victory margins for most Republicans in ruby-red, solidly Republican states and districts, they threaten to put those GOP candidates with constituencies closer to the edge into untenable positions.