Why do people continue to test libertarian candidates in these polls?
I find it very hard to believe that Earl is getting 6% of the vote. Seems like Kasich is up 4, nothing to see here.
The interesting to note about this poll though is Kasich is going downhill again. This seems like the most reliable PPP poll so far and if we were to ignore the 41-41 tie or the 38-35 FitzGerald lead, then there's a noticeable trend that Kasich is losing his favorable appeal and high polling numbers again. If this continues, he'll face a huge bombshell with these voter restriction laws come January.
A few important things to point out here: FitzGerald only trails Kasich by 4 in conservative SE Ohio. One of the main reasons for that is that's where Ormet is located and Kasich is primarily responsible for allowing the closure of it and destroying over 1,000 jobs. And while it is highly annoying, the only reason Kasich still even has an advantage is because of that huge gap of voters 65 and older who are going for him because otherwise, he'd get slammed on almost every other age group.
A lot of weird results in that poll to such as Kasich +24 on Hispanic voters, FitzGerald trailing Kasich by 3 on those who know an LGBT person, or Kasich's substantial lead among religious voters despite FitzGerald being Catholic. Those could be easy gets for FitzGerald if he plays his campaign well especially with that huge undecided women gap.
Since it's a reliable PPP poll with a Kasich lead, I'll move this from a tossup to tilt R, but that's definitely subject to change very soon I think. I'll take this poll with a grain of salt though and will wait until we get into 2014 to start examining these a lot more closely.
