Portman will ride on GOP resurgence in Ohio, poll says

COLUMBUS

Republican Rob Portman continues to lead Democrat Lee Fisher by double digits in the race to fill one of Ohio’s U.S. Senate seats.

And the latest Quinnipiac poll, which gives Portman a 21-point lead over Fisher, offered little hope for a Democratic resurgence among likely voters.

“Given that Lt. Gov. Fisher has been trailing Portman by roughly 20 points since the fall campaign got under way, there’s not much reason to think he can close the gap appreciably in the final two weeks of the campaign,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a released statement. “Other than self-identified Democrats, it is hard to find a demographic group that supports Fisher.”

In its latest poll, Portman topped Fisher, 55 percent-34 percent, among likely voters, statistically unchanged from surveys in September and earlier this month.

Respondents also favored Republicans taking control of the U.S. Senate (44 percent-34 percent), and they want the next Ohio Senator to oppose President Barack Obama’s policies (54 percent-40 percent).

“This is obviously shaping up to be a Republican year in Ohio, and Rob Portman is riding the wave while Lee Fisher is drowning under it,” said Brown. “In a year in which the national influence on the Senate election was not as great nor as pro-Republican, Lee Fisher might have had a better chance. But politics is not fair, the tenor of the times matters to voters, and Lee Fisher drew the short straw.”

Connecticut-based Quinnipiac regularly gauges Ohioans’ opinions of candidates and issues.

It polled 1,188 likely voters over the past week about the race for outgoing U.S. Sen. George Voinovich’s seat.

The poll has a margin of error of about 3 percent.