Ohio Really Dislikes The New Governor And Republican Legislature
A new PPP poll has Ohio Governor John Kasich tying Florida Governor Rick Scott at a race to the bottom of approval ratings. Do you approve or disapprove of Governor John Kasich’s job performance? Approve 33% Disapprove 56% Not sure 11% PPP also asked about a hypothetical do-over of last year’s election and found that […]
A new PPP poll has Ohio Governor John Kasich tying Florida Governor Rick Scott at a race to the bottom of approval ratings.
| Do you approve or disapprove of Governor John Kasich’s job performance? | |
| Approve | 33% |
| Disapprove | 56% |
| Not sure | 11% |
PPP also asked about a hypothetical do-over of last year’s election and found that if done over, Ted Strickland would have won hands-down.
| If you could do last fall’s election for Governor over again, would you vote for Democrat Ted Strickland or Republican John Kasich? | |
| Ted Strickland | 59% |
| John Kasich | 34% |
| Not sure | 7% |
So what is driving Kasich so low in the polls? Well it turns out the Republican agenda is not very popular in Ohio. SB5 is one issue that has Ohio voters experiencing buyer remorse:
| Ohio may have a referendum on repealing Senate Bill 5, which was passed earlier this year and limits collective bargaining rights for public employees. Would you vote to repeal Senate Bill 5, or would you vote to let the law stand? | |
| Would vote to repeal SB5 | 55% |
| Would vote to let the law stand | 35% |
| Not sure | 10% |
The generic congressional ballot also looks very good for Democrats in the Buckeye State:
| If there was an election for Congress today do you think you would vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate from your district, or are you not sure? | |
| Democratic Candidate | 43% |
| Republican Candidate | 34% |
| Not sure | 22% |
But what I find really interesting is the ideology breakdown in this poll:
| Would you describe yourself as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, or very conservative? | ||
| Very liberal | 13% | 29% |
| Somewhat liberal | 16% | |
| Moderate | 33% | |
| Somewhat conservative | 25% | 38% |
| Very conservative | 13% | |
So the poll had a rather conservative leaning, but look at the party breakdown:
| If you are a Democrat, press 1. If a Republican, press 2. If you are an independent or identify with another party, press 3. | |
| Democratic | 45% |
| Republican | 35% |
| Independent/Other | 20% |
There were quite a few more Democrats in the poll than Republicans, but if you look further down at the cross tabs you will see the voting from the 2008 general election found that Obama beat out McCain by only 1% in 2008. The numbers also show that Independents are more so leaning towards the Democratic party than the Republican party. This is always the crucial demographic in elections. The party the gets the independent vote generally ends up winning.
It really looks like the push of a far-right radical agenda is seeing the same result in Ohio that it has been seeing in Florida and Wisconsin. People don’t like it and they don’t want it. It also shows that the Republicans totally missed the message of last year’s election – jobs. Republicans around the country and in Congress has done nothing to address trying to create jobs and the voters are not happy about this. On election night last year we heard John Boehner and other Republican leaders talk about the “clear message” they heard and that they will “listen to the people”. Well they haven’t – at all! The Republican lead House has been in session for over 5 months now and not one single job creating bill has been brought up. The Republican lead legislature has also been in office the same amount of time and the same result has been seen. Instead, in Ohio, bills have been stripping workers of bargaining rights, allowing people to carry guns in bars and now opening the public parks for oil drilling.
But what does this mean for Ohio and the country as a whole?
Well we will see a lot of state legislatures and possibly even Congress flip again next year. States that went from blue to red last year will probably become blue again next year. The House is also looking more and more like it will go back to the Democrats next year, especially given the results of Tuesday night’s NY-26 special election. If the Democrats don’t learn a lesson from the GOP’s fatal mistakes this time around, then we could see a far-left agenda pushed, mostly by repealing the far-right that just went through, and voters once again getting turned off. Nothing will be done to address jobs or health care and the country could see another flip in 2014. It’s a vicious cycle we are going to be entering and one that could lead to years of turmoil and a lack of progress by our elected leaders.
