A new poll shows Ohio voters slightly favor Democrat U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown over Republican Bernie Moreno in the senate race – but that Democratic lead isn’t carrying over to the presidential race.
Former President Donald Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris by seven percentage points, while Brown leads Moreno by two points, according to the 2024 University of Akron Bliss Institute Buckeye Poll.
“Some voters are clearly splitting their ticket and they're still supporting Sen. Brown,” said Bliss Institute Executive Director Cherie Strachan.
Trump leads Harris 51 to 44 percent, while Brown leads Moreno 46 to 44 percent. Brown's lead of is within the survey's margin of error, she said.
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The poll surveyed a random sample of more than 1,200 registered voters whose names and contact information were obtained from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.
Trump was more popular among male, older and less-educated voters, while Harris was preferred by younger and more-educated Ohioans, according to the poll results.
Women, however, are split – with 49% supporting Trump and 48% supporting Harris.
Not all women who support Trump are throwing their support toward Moreno, Strachan added.
“The interesting thing, though, is that we are seeing them, those same women withhold their support from Bernie Moreno,” Strachan said.
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The poll found 48% of women supported Brown compared to 40% for Moreno. Twelve percent of women selected neither candidate, she added.
“If Moreno or Brown could make a pitch in the last ... few days leading up to the election that changes some of those voters’ minds, maybe they'll get them to come to the polls and that would make the difference,” Strachan said.
Nationally, Harris is drawing significant support from female voters, but this doesn’t seem to be the case in Ohio, Strachan said.
This was a surprising takeaway, she said, given the previous support of reproductive rights in the state, she said.
While nearly 57% of Ohio voters supported the ballot initiative enshrining abortion access in Ohio last year, that hasn’t completely translated into support for Harris – who is expressly supportive of reproductive rights, Strachan said.
Trump’s lead over Harris among Ohio women appears to show that his previous comments on abortion – such as his taking credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade due to his appointment of conservative justices – do not seem to be mobilizing Ohio women to vote against him as much as some political researchers thought they would, Strachan said.
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“We clearly know that independent and Republican women had to vote 'yes' on those ballot initiatives to protect reproductive rights and embed them in the constitution, but they're clearly not carrying that over to the presidential race and holding Donald Trump accountable for that here,” Strachan said.
This might also be explained by the campaigns not spending as much on advertisements in Ohio as they might be in other states, she said.
“We're not a battleground state anymore,” Strachan said. “We're not getting hit with the full onslaught of criticism of Donald Trump that would come out of the Harris campaign or Harris supporters, and so that might have insulated Trump, you know, and helped people forget a little bit.”
Conversely, the Senate race is one of the most expensive, and the Brown campaign’s recent ads target Moreno's comments about abortion, she said.
The poll also shows Ohio voters have strong party affiliation across issues and candidates, she said.
“If you are a Harris supporter, you're, you're also going to be a Brown supporter, but you're going to line up on the Democratic Party platform issues pretty consistently, you know, and vice versa for a Trump voter supporting Moreno and on down the line,” Strachan said.
For example, 74% of Trump supporters favor strong support for Israel, while 68% of Harris backers favor a more balanced approach in the Middle East, according to the poll. Seventy percent of Trump voters support restrictions on the border while 86% of Harris supporters favor fewer border restrictions.
Harris backers were strongly pro-abortion – with 90% saying abortion should be legal in most cases - while 67% of Trump supporters said abortion should not be legal in most cases.
Much of the responses show that voters feel more strongly against the other side, rather than focusing on support of their own party, she added.
“We are so polarized to a point in the United States and in Ohio, that we have what is called negative partisanship,” Strachan said. “They dislike the other side more than they even prefer their own. They are just polar opposites.”
To Strachan, this shows that this election, as well as future elections, will be decided by how well parties can mobilize, she said.
“If we are going to be this polarized and this closely divided, the ground game and being able to mobilize your base, is going to be increasingly important going forward,” Strachan added.
The poll was conducted by the Center for Marketing and Opinion Research and commissioned by the Bliss Institute. The poll was conducted between Sept. 12 and Oct. 24, 2024.
