California Conservative

According to the most recent polling, John Kasich’s lead over Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has stabilized outside the margin of error:

The players are the same, and the numbers haven’t changed. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the governor’s race in Ohio finds Republican John Kasich with a 47% to 40% lead over incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland - for the second month in a row. Three percent (3%) of Likely Voters in the state prefer some other candidate, and 10% are undecided.

But both major party candidates show a continuing inability to move their vote totals out of the range they’ve been in for months. Kasich earned 47% support to Strickland’s 42% last month.

In April and May, the candidates were basically tied. Prior to that time, Kasich had held modest leads over Strickland. Since December, Kasich’s support has remained in the narrow range of 46% to 49%, while Strickland’s in that same period have fallen in the 38% to 45% range.

Strickland was elected governor in 2006 with 60% of the vote.

I don’t think it’s that big a deal that John Kasich hasn’t reached the 50 percent mark. i’d be worried if he was at 42-43 percent but 47 percent is pretty solid, especially considering the fact that his name recognition still has room to grow.

Another thing that would concern me if I was Gov. Strickland’s campaign manager are the fact that he’s dropped almost 20 points since getting elected in 2006 with 60 perecent of the vote. That’s a pretty precipitous drop. That drop is mainly attributable to Strickland’s mishandling of the economy. More important to the Strickland campaign is the fact that he can’t rise above the low 40’s in support.

The rule of thumb in gubernatorial and congressional races is that late deciders usually break towards the challenger by a 2:1 margin.

Once the fall campaign starts, rest assured that Kasich will up with ads touting the fact that he balanced the federal budget and that he deserves a huge amount of credit for creating 22,000,000 jobs during the Clinton administration.

This is looking alot like a GOP gain this November. If Strickland’s message of raising taxes doesn’t gain traction sometime soon, and I don’t think it will, then Strickland is pretty much history.

Technorati Tags: Polling, John Kasich, Balanced Budgets, Job Creation, Economy, Conservatism, Republicans, Ted Strickland, Tax Increases, Unemployments, Democrats, Election 2010

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog