Poll: Hillary and Kasich tied in Ohio

By MARC KOVAC

news@vindy.com

COLUMBUS

Democrat Hillary Clinton tops Republican presidential hopefuls in three swing states, though Republican Gov. John Kasich is holding his own among Ohio voters.

That’s according to survey released Tuesday by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, which recently questioned voters in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.

In Ohio, Kasich and Clinton were essentially tied, with 43 percent of those polled siding with the former and 44 percent with the latter.

Also, 43 percent of Ohio voters gave Kasich favorable ratings, versus 29 percent who said their opinion of him was unfavorable and 27 percent who said they hadn’t heard enough about him.

Fifty-one percent of Ohio voters gave Clinton favorable ratings, versus 40 percent who gave her unfavorable ratings and 6 percent who said they hadn’t heard enough about her.

“Ohio Gov. John Kasich is in a statistical dead heat with Mrs. Clinton among the home folks, who re-elected him by roughly 2-1 last November,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the poll, said in a released statement. “But the 2014 election in Ohio was the aberration in a state that has been the one to watch. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying the Buckeye State. Kasich scored his big victory by cutting into the traditional Democratic edge in a number of areas — women, blue-collar workers and taking a big share of the independent vote.”

There was a similar result in Florida, with Clinton tying former Gov. Jeb Bush, 44 percent-43 percent. Otherwise, Clinton was well ahead of potential GOP contenders in the three states, topping New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 50 percent-39 percent, in Pennsylvania.

“Clinton has the closest thing to rock star ratings a politician can get in America today,” Brown said.

Connecticut-based Quinnipiac regularly gauges the opinions of voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, noting that, “since 1960, no candidate has won the presidential race without taking at least two of these three states.”

It’s latest poll included 943 voters in Ohio, 936 voters in Florida and 881 voters in Pennsylvania. The results have a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.