Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, had a surprisingly strong showing in a recent Quinnipiac University poll on the 2016 Senate race released April 6, leading incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman by nine percentage points among a random sample of 1,000 registered Ohio voters.
Portman is running for his second term in the Senate. He’s raised $2.5 million in the last three months for his reelection and is sitting on an $8 million campaign fund. He has the backing of much of the GOP and is unbothered thus far with a primary challenger.
Despite these advantages, Strickland leads Portman 47 percent to 38 percent among likely Ohio voters. That margin includes an 18-point advantage with independent voters for Strickland. Strickland’s campaign has not released fundraising figures ahead of an April 15 quarterly fundraising report deadline.
“This poll shows one thing and one thing only, Ohio is doing so much better since Ted Strickland left office that people forgot what an awful governor he was,” Portman’s campaign manager Corry Bliss told The Washington Post recently.
Republicans have been pinging Strickland since he announced his campaign, referring to him as “retread Ted” in campaign materials and on social media. Strickland won a term as governor of Ohio in 2007 and was in office during the worst years of the great recession. He lost a bid for reelection to current Republican Governor John Kasich in 2010.
Strickland, 73, is a political veteran firmly planted in the Democratic establishment. He has received an endorsement from former President Bill Clinton, a key nod in a coming election year that may see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton running for president.
Strickland announced his campaign last month and is facing Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld in the Democratic primary. Sittenfeld has raised about $750,000 since January, an amount his campaign touts as a sign he’s a serious contender. The 30-year-old Sittenfeld is campaigning on the claim that he will offer fresh ideas and new energy in the Senate.
However, Sittenfeld struggles with low name recognition outside Cincinnati at this point in the race, and the Quinnipiac poll shows Portman trouncing him 47 percent to 24 percent in a potential matchup at the ballot box.
Portman has a solidly conservative voting record. The only major issue that could keep conservatives away is his embrace of marriage equality, which he announced after his son came out as gay.
Though it’s early in the race, the poll is a good sign for Democrats, who are looking to take back control of the Senate after losing nine seats and their majority in 2014. To do so, they may well be turning to a candidate who lost a major statewide race in 2010.
