Race for Ohio governor still tied, poll finds

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

With less than three weeks to go before Election Day, the race for governor isn’t budging: Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Richard Cordray are still in a dead heat, a new poll found.

The Center for Marketing & Opinion Research poll for the University of Akron found 37 percent of Ohio voters favor DeWine while 36 percent favor Cordray and 27 percent are undecided.

The margin of error in the survey is plus or minus three percentage points. It did not include third party candidates — Libertarian Travis Irvine and Green Party candidate Constance Gadell-Newton.

Related: Poll finds races are close for Ohio’s statewide offices

The poll also found Democrat incumbent Sherrod Brown leads Republican challenger Jim Renacci 43-31 in the U.S. Senate race. Twenty-six percent of voters report being undecided about who they back in the race.

“One way to look at these data is that absent a major, unforeseen event, the gubernatorial election will be very close,” said David B. Cohen, assistant director of the Bliss Institute and political science professor at the University of Akron. “Both sides are enthusiastic, engaged, and polarized. Midterms are always tough for the president’s party and 2018 could well be a Democratic wave year; however, Republicans are buoyed by the fact that Ohio voters think Ohio is on the right track. We will just have to wait and see how everything shakes out on Nov. 6.”

Seven in 10 Ohio voters say they’re very interested in voting in the midterm elections. Two-thirds of those surveyed said that President Trump’s job performance is important to their vote. The president’s job approval rating in Ohio is 40 percent while his disapproval rating is 41 percent, the poll found.

Early voting started Oct. 10 for Ohio’s 8 million registered voters. As of Friday, 910,982 voters had requested absentee ballots by mail, of which 42,470 have been cast, according to the Ohio Secretary of State. Another 34,252 Ohioans have voted early in person.

Here is a look at who is running for down ticket statewide races:

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