The latest Quinnipiac University poll of likely Ohio voters shows incumbent Republican Governor John Kasich leads Democratic challenger Ed FitzGerald by a wide margin. Some political experts are questioning whether it shows the race is effectively over. That question is being answered by two experts in Ohio elections history. Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler reports.
The Quinnipiac poll of likely voters showed Democrat Ed FitzGerald trailing Republican incumbent John Kasich by 22 points. FitzGerald admits its been a tough campaign, and says the main reason for the chasm in that poll is Kasich has raised five times the money that he has.
Thats the advantage. Thats the difference. And theyre running a very well-funded campaign in part because theyve taken state policy and theyve put it up for sale to the highest bidder and that has helped them raise campaign funds. So, I think its tough. But I can tell you that Im constantly in touch with volunteers around the state. Theyre very motivated as theyre going door-to-door and talking to voters, theyre getting very good response. And so we remain hopeful and committed.
In 2010, Kasich beat incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland by 2 percent. Its easy to remember that most recent race and think governors races are close contests. But historical data shows five of the last eight governors races have been decided by almost 20 points or more. Mike Dawson has put numbers from hundreds of Ohio elections onto a website, ohioelectionresults.com.
We have a history in recent times of big margins in the governors race.
Dawsons website is not political, though he is he was a top aide to former Republican Gov. and US Senator George Voinovich, who was the winner in the most lopsided governors race in Ohio history, the 1994 contest with Democratic State Sen. Rob Burch, who lost to Voinovich by 46 points. But another expert in Ohio elections history offers this cautionary comment:
Well, the state motto is With God, All Things Are Possible.
Tom Suddes is a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and a journalism professor at Ohio University in Athens. He wont say the race is over since early voting hasnt yet begun and theres still a month to go before election day, and suggests a major scandal could rock the Republican vote. But he and Dawson both think its unlikely this years results will be in the Voinovich-Burch range. And both also say theyll be watching for results from the four downticket races for attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer in three of those races, the Democratic candidates are keeping pace with the Republican incumbents, though the Republicans have more money overall. Dawson offers this note:
Republicans have swept all the statewide offices in four of the last five elections. So if they were to sweep them again, it would be five out of six. So thats not an anomaly in recent Ohio history.
Republicans won all five of the top offices in 2010, in 2002, 1998, and 1994. Democrats won all but the auditors office in 2006, and had the winning candidates in all but the governors race in 1990. There are more registered Democrats in Ohio than registered Republicans, but Dawson and Suddes both note that the numbers show Democratic voters simply dont turn out in non-presidential years in the same kind of numbers that Republican voters do. But Suddes says looking back even further in time, there is hope for Democrats who might be despairing at this latest poll. He notes that in 1982, there was only one Republican in elected statewide office a Supreme Court justice.
And so we saw in the space of about 10 or 15 years a total transformation of competitiveness in the statewide offices and in on the Court. That could happen the other way. I mean, people do, there are tides to these things and its hard to say why they happen the way they do.
There is one other team on the ballot in the governors race the Green Party candidates Anita Rios and Bob Fitrakis. The Libertarian Party of Ohios team for governor and lieutenant governor was knocked off the ballot earlier this year because of problems with petitions. But the most an independent or third party candidate has received in the governors race in recent history is around 2.4 percent - enough to possibly make a difference in a close race but not in a runaway one.