OH-PPP: Gov. Kasich (R) slightly ahead of FitzGerald (D)

[LeBron]

According to the latest Public Policy Poll conducted by the Ohio Democratic Party between May 9-11, the two nominees for Governor are neck and neck as Kasich is under 50 and has a small 4 point, 47-43 lead over Democratic challenger, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald. Kasich leads with women 45-44, men 49-42, whites 51-39, Asians 53-15, independents 49-30, various age groups and regions, and his base of evangelical, conservative Republicans. FitzGerald does best in the North (obviously), and well among urban voters, liberals/Democrats, blacks, Hispanics and non-religious voters. 740 likely voters were polled with no reported MOE. This is up from the last PPP poll that had the two tied at 44 a piece.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/224399859/Kasich-Fitz-Polling-May-9-11

Looking through the other polls, I saw that the ODP also polled the SOS and one of the Ohio SC races back in April, in which Democratic State Sen. Nina Turner leads incumbent Secy. of State Jon Husted (R) 45-44 and Democratic Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell leads Kasich-appointee Assoc. Justice Judith French (R) 29-22 with 49% undecided. They didn't poll the Kennedy/Letson race, but French is more vulnerable plus O'Donnell is Irish which always bodes well for Ohio Supreme Court candidates.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/218702105/PPP-Ohio-SOS-Poll-Results-April-2014
http://www.scribd.com/doc/218811616/PPP-Ohio-Supreme-Court-Poll-April-2014


So this backs up my (and Rothenberg's) claim that it's still a tossup/tilt R. FitzGerald is holding up well now that Christie is out in helping Kasich release his 4th statewide ad in a row and the help from President Obama's economic recovery in decreasing our state's unemployment to below 6% (first time in 7 years). However, we lost thousands of healthcare and social service jobs and saw a repeated huge decline in the labor force, so there are some economic downturns and loss of faith remaining under Kasich hurting him.

With the summer coming around again, there's going to be more campaigning and action to among teacher's unions and public health officials protesting their cuts, small wages and lay-offs, civil rights organizations, seniors protesting their tax hike, and young pro-SSM, pro-marijuana voters. Kasich is bound to make some terrible race-altering decision within the next 24 weeks. For example, the political suicidal fetal heartbeat bill being revived again. Plus FitzGerald has a lot of ground that can be made up in some key areas around the state. He just has to avoid suffering the same fate Strickland did of getting bulldozed early on by non-stop Kasich ads and save those undecided/indie voters to the Democratic side before its too late.

[LeBron]

With the summer coming around again, there's going to be more campaigning and action to among teacher's unions and public health officials protesting their cuts, small wages and lay-offs, civil rights organizations, seniors protesting their tax hike, and young pro-SSM, pro-marijuana voters. Kasich is bound to make some terrible race-altering decision within the next 24 weeks. For example, the political suicidal fetal heartbeat bill being revived again.

That does absolutely nothing to explain why Fitzgerald is supposedly going to climb up from his dreary polling numbers. Public health officials, civil rights activists and unions have already been complaining for quite a while now but it evidently hasn't had any impact, and if anything Fitzgerald's position has gotten worse.

Also, Kasich's pro life budget and pro life bills come with bipartisan support from legislators in deep blue districts such as Bill Patmon and John Barnes from Cuyahoga county. And they won their primaries 2 weeks ago despite all those civil rights activists and gay activists rallying vociferously against them. #KeepingClevelandStong!

There's even more good news for social conservatives in the Ohio legislature as the staunchly socially conservative, anti-SSM Cecil Thomas won the Democratic primary in the heavily Democratic Senate District 9 covering Cincinatti. He wants to ban abortion from the point of fertilisation and Democrats and Republicans are going to be working together to support pro life leadership and traditional family values for Ohio. Partly thanks to great Democrats like Cecil Thomas, from this November the Ohio Senate is going to be more socially conservative than ever before in Ohio's history.

The only reason FitzGerald is performing worse in the polls is because of these 4 reasons:

Kasich's "Deliver" ad
Kasich's "Lift" ad
RGA's "Kasich Works" ad
RGA's "Kasich Turning Things Around" ad

A little bit also has to do with FitzGerald unable to get enough wealthy donors to donate to him and start airing ads himself, but what can I say? A few ads can make Ohioans easily persuaded and I've had the misfortune as a Democrat of having to hear every single of those Kasich ads on TV for over a month now as Kasich lies about his life growing up and his time as Governor which independent voters are eating up.

FitzGerald will recuperate though. Borges, Kasich and the ORP think they can get somewhere now by attacking FitzGerald on transparency issues for refusing to handover records on when and where FitzGerald is at in county offices. If you remember last year hifly, the state budget obtained a heck of a lot national controversy (and now most Ohioans still don't trust Kasich on the abortion issue) and it's thanks to the rallying of protestors who had more time on their hands away from school/work that managed to connect Kasich's actions to Rick Perry's in Texas. Kasich gained criticism and terrible approvals in the 40s that fall and I bet Kasich and the legislature have something else up their sleeve this year. Voting rights seems like the most likely thing that could hurt Kasich given petitioners are going around getting signatures for the Voting Rights Amendment for the Nov. ballot and the legislature still isn't done on attacking voting rights. Then from an economic perspective, Ohio is in the top 20 of states that get the most federal money, yet Kasich has cut people's pensions, is cutting aid to schools to fund school vouchers and charter schools, and he still ends up needing to put burdens on local governments by cutting their money and raising the sales tax rate just to please his wealthy donors with thousands in tax cuts.

And FTR hifly, Patmon and Barnes aren't even recognized by the ODP as part of their caucus anymore and no longer fund their campaigns. In fact, the ODP endorsed their primary challengers this year, Eugene Miller and Jill Miller Zimon, respectively who were well-funded and came close to knocking both them out. In fact, the main reason they even survived was because of the majority African American population in their districts. Let's not forget either that Patmon and Barnes originally sponsored Ohio's Religious Freedom bill earlier this year and they both firmly support Kasich's JobsOhio plan (including also voting against the audit), so it's not "bipartisan" because these two aren't actual Democrats and the ODP opposed the women restricting budget.

As for Thomas, that win was a total fluke. Not even 2% of the district's population voted in the Dem primary and Mallory had the money, endorsements, and family dynasty/name ID in Cincinnati to pull it off and Thomas simply got the luck of the draw. A shame to because this is a safe Democratic seat and he'll be replacing the Senate Minority Leader, Eric Kearney, in the Ohio Senate whose has a history of bipartisan, but pro-Democrat ideals.

[LeBron]

Adam, random ads do not have the impact you think they do. Kasich is leading and will be re-elected because he is decently popular and has maintained a comfortable approval rating, and Fitzgerald is a nobody. I'm sorry, but it's not that complicated.

Dude, people watch television. The average Ohioan doesn't follow state politics much, either, and all you have to do is tune into any kind of news station to see all of these ads airing everywhere which give these undecided Ohioans who aren't interested in politics at all an edge towards Kasich because of how brightly envisioned he is as this comeback leader. PPP had his approvals in the 40s so it's not because Kasich is popular because he really isn't. His approvals are relatively considered high, but his favorable's are below average and he's still polling only in single digits of a Democrat who 7 in 10 Ohioans don't know enough about even though Ohio historically has Governor elections that end in a wide margin disparity. FitzGerald still has time on his hands though to define himself before Matt Borges, John Kasich or Chris Christie can define him themselves and he at least has some money to do it with.

[LeBron]

Patmon, unlike Barnes, managed to outraise his opponent though and he had a 4 to 1 cash advantage on Miller even despite Miller's powerful endorsements and strong showing. It is worth noting to that African Americans in Cleveland will almost always re-elect their black leaders no matter how toxic they might be (i.e. Frank "charter" Jackson) and Patmon's district is close to if not 50% registered blacks. Regarding Miller's city council seat, Miller would have survived had it not been for Councilman Johnson deciding to flip-flop and challenge Miller solely out of spite of Sweeney having redistricted Johnson to face Councilman Conwell for that one seat. So it was more of Johnson and Conwell working together than anything else and Johnson only beat Miller in the first place because of his accusations against Miller for changing his voter location and having to go as far as to attack his personal life. Plus Miller formerly held that same House seat before Patmon ever won it and the ODP was trying to recruit somebody to primary Patmon, so it made perfect sense for Miller to run here.   

And the only reason nobody cared about the Freedom to Discriminate bill was because Patmon quickly withdrew it along with his GOP cosponsor after it's killer unpopularity and Brewer's veto of a similar bill in AZ. It never gained any traction and got little statewide attention and Patmon was quick to defend himself for it anyways. Considering there's no legislative or executive elections next year, I wouldn't be shocked if Patmon and the Ohio GOP reintroduced this again in 2015. It's a shame to because in the same House Democratic caucus is Rep. Nickie Antonio (who's my Rep) and is gay and who also has introduced an LGBT hate crimes bill before, so it's a joke if anybody really says Patmon and his "religious freedom" really represents the ideals of the Ohio Democratic Party.

Let's just say that if Sharon Cole never opted out of a run, Patmon would have had a much tougher race on his hands. Cole has strong credentials and has made a name for herself in the Fudge and FitzGerald administrations and would have been a lot more well-funded against Patmon with nowhere near as much controversy as Miller had. At the very least, we have another opportunity in 2016 when there will be higher turnout and even then if we lose, he'll be term-limited in 2018.