Battleground: Ohio
Note: The first in a series of profiles of key battleground states in the 2008 election
Ohio. It is the state that is so similar to other key swing states in the Rust Belt of the nation’s midsection. And, yet, it has been so different as of late. In 2000, when Michigan and Pennsylvania were voting for Al Gore, Ohio was voting narrowly for George W. Bush. And in 2004, when Michigan and Pennsylvania were voting for John Kerry, Ohio was again voting narrowly for George W. Bush.
For that reason, Ohio is the state many pundits feel John McCain must capture if he is to defeat Barack Obama for the presidency. Lose Ohio, and the entire race is lost. Win Ohio, and hope lives at least until the next state’s results are returned. Such a scenario for victory cannot be too comfortable for the McCain camp, since polls consistently find Obama leading in the Buckeye State. Yet, for all intent and purpose, the race in Ohio is a virtual deadlock.
The Real Clear Politics poll average finds Obama leading McCain by 4.5 percentage points in Ohio. Yet, that result is largely skewed by a Democrat-tilted poll by the Public Policy Polling group. The poll, conducted in mid-June, shows Obama enjoying an 11 point lead. However, the poll’s respondants included 55% Democrats and just 30% Republicans.
With the PPP poll thrown out, the poll average quickly dips to a 2.3% lead for Obama, within the margin of error.
A Quinnipiac poll, also conducted in mid-June, finds Obama leading McCain by 6 points in Ohio. However, a series of swing state polls released by Quinnipiac on the same day also found Obama favoring better in Florida (leading McCain by 4 points) and Pennsylvania (up 12 points) than other polls have found.
Meanwhile, the most recent SurveyUSA poll finds Obama leading McCain by 2 points in Ohio, while the most recent Rasmussen poll finds McCain leading Obama by a point. Both polls are within the margin of error.
While the polls have trended more in favor of Obama since earlier in the year, the bottom line is that the Buckeye State is still very much in play.
Although it’s not necessarily an indicator of how the general election will swing, Obama — as in Pennsylvania — lost badly to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in Ohio last spring. Clinton scored a double-digit win over Obama.
Meanwhile, McCain sees an opportunity to capitalize on Ohio’s rural Appalachian region, and will campaign there with a town hall appearance shortly after the Independence Day holiday. The Appalachian region twice threw its support to Bush, helping to tilt the state in the Republicans’ favor both times.
But Obama isn’t throwing in the hat in Ohio. He visited Ohio twice last month, and will try to capitalize on a general feeling of misease over such issues as the economy and the war in Iraq. Good news came for Obama when McCain visited a Lordstown, Ohio, General Motors plant last week and his visit was virtually boycotted by workers. However, Turnbull County, in which Lordstown is located, favored Kerry over Bush in 2004 by an overwhelming 24-point margin.
Both candidates will spend much time — and money — in Ohio over the next 4 months. To win Ohio, many pundits say, McCain must capture support from white, rural Democrats. But it could be as simple as maintaining the Buckeye voter base that George W. Bush captured in 2000 and 2004. Given the state of the economy in rural Ohio, there are unlikely to be many “Reagan Democrats” pulling the lever for McCain in November, but then again, the days of Reagan Democrats were over before Bush won there in ‘00.