Poll: 59 percent unhappy with president's performance

COLUMBUS

Ohio voters aren’t too keen on President Barack Obama, though they have a higher opinion of potential 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton.

In a survey of 1,366 registered voters late last month by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, only 36 percent of respondents said they approved of the president’s work in office, versus 59 percent who said the opposite.

But 52 percent of voters said they had a favorable opinion of Clinton, versus 43 percent who did not.

Clinton also is outpacing Gov. John Kasich and other possible Republican presidential contenders.

“The bad news for Democrats is that President Barack Obama’s approval rating in Ohio is close to his all-time, all-state low,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the polling institute, said in a released statement. “The good news for the party is that the president doesn’t appear to be hurting the Democrats’ consensus front-runner for 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

He added that Clinton “is almost everyone’s favorite candidate. ... Obviously there is a long way to go until 2016, but at this point the political problems the president is encountering are not rubbing off on her.”

Connecticut-based Quinnipiac regularly gauges Ohioans’ views of candidates and issues. Its most recent poll has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

Among potential presidential matchups, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky fared best against Clinton, with the latter topping the former, 46 percent-42 percent.

Clinton also outpaced Kasich (47 percent-40 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (48 percent-37 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (46 percent-37 percent).