A new poll of Ohio is a “canary in the coal mine” for Republicans, legendary political analyst Charlie Cook wrote in his Substack on Thursday.
The poll of 1,015 registered voters, commissioned by Fox News, suggests “far greater danger for Republicans in November than was previously evident,” wrote Cook, the founder of the eponymous Cook Political Report. “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.”
President Donald Trump carried Ohio three times in a row, noted Cook. It’s a Republican-favoring state that, at least in the past, has been winnable for Democrats in favorable years. And this poll suggests it could be in play for them again.
“The poll showed former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown leading Sen. Jon Husted by 8 points, 53 to 45 percent,” wrote Cook — a real threat given that Brown has won Senate elections in Ohio three times before. Meanwhile, “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.”
At the same time, Trump is underwater 15 points in favorable ratings, a massive drop from his six-point lead in the poll just two years ago, Cook wrote. Similarly, both Democrats have gained a favorability lead.
The bottom line, he concluded, is that “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” — and Ohio is getting to the point where that might be such a constituency.
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