Strickland, Obama ratings nosedive
By Howard Wilkinson
Cincinnati Enquirer
Both President Obama and Gov. Ted Strickland have slipped considerably in the esteem of Ohioans over the past six months, according to an Ohio Poll released this morning.
The poll also showed that Ohioans are as pessimistic about national economic conditions now as they were in the April Ohio Poll.
The poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati's Institute for Policy Research, showed that the Democratic governor - who is up for re-election next year - has seen his job approval rating by Ohioans slip under 50 percent for the first time since the Ohio Poll began asking the question in May 2007.
In the new poll, 48 percent said they approve of how Strickland is handling his job, while 37 percent said they disapprove.
In April, Strickland's approval rating stood at 56 percent.
President Obama hasn't dipped under the 50 percent mark for job approval, but the number has taken a nosedive since the April Ohio Poll. In April, Obama had 63 percent of Ohioans saying they approved of how he was handling the presidency. That number is down to 52 percent in the new poll, with 45 percent saying they disapprove of his job performance - a 13 percentage point jump since April.
In the case of the president, Ohioans concerns about Obama clearly center on his handling of the economy and the war in Afghanistan. Obama was given a positive rating on the economy by 45 percent of those polls, with 53 percent saying they disapproved.
In April, 69 percent of the Ohioans polled said they approved of Obama's handling of the Afghanistan war. That number dropped precipitously to 47 percent approval in the new poll.
Ohio's still struggling economy is clearly hurting Strickland's image among Ohioans.
Only 41 percent of those polled said they approved of how Strickland is handling Ohio's economy while 49 percent said they disapprove. It was the first time since the Ohio Poll began polling on the question in April 2008 that more Ohioans disapproved of Strickland's handling of the economy than approved.
According to the poll, nothing has happened in the past six months to change Ohioans' views about the national economy.
Most Ohioans rate economic conditions as either "fair" (45 percent) or "poor" (47 percent). In April, 42 percent rated the economy as "fair" and 52 percent said they considered it to be "poor."
The Ohio Poll was conducted between Oct. 14 and Oct. 20 among a random sample of 808 Ohio adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percent.
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