Senator Brown Leads GOP Challengers in New WS Election Poll

APRIL 15, 2011 - Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown finds himself in very dangerous political waters when it comes to the opinions that likely voters hold toward him, but he still leads three potential Republican rivals in prospective election match-ups, a new Wenzel Strategies survey shows.

The poll shows that just 41% of likely voters statewide in Ohio have a favorable opinion of Brown, and just 40% give him positive marks for the job he is doing for the state in Washington. Further, just 35% said that Brown definitely deserves to be re-elected, while 31% said they would definitely be voting for someone else.  A swing group of 18% of likely voters said that they are at least considering voting for someone other than Brown for U.S. Senate next year.

Brown, a longtime Congressman, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, when he defeated incumbent Republican Mike DeWine.  Brown won that race in what was considered a significant year for Democratic Party gains both statewide and nationally, but – if the election were held today – he would hold his seat against any of these three GOP challengers. 

* Former state Treasurer, Ohio Secretary of State, and 2006 candidate for governor Ken Blackwell, Brown would win by a 49% to 36% margin. 

* Against sitting Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor, he would win by a 50% to 36% margin.

* Against sitting Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, Brown would win 48% support, compared to 33% support for Mandel.

This is good news for Brown, in large part because of his disastrous re-election numbers otherwise. He benefits from the fact that the field of opponents has not yet taken shape.  That, of course, will change, and quickly, as 2012 U.S. Senate races across the country are shaping up with a speed that is unusual, even for national politics.

The Wenzel Strategies survey shows things get interesting in a prospective GOP primary.  In a Republican Primary election three-way match-up between these three GOP candidates, Blackwell leads with 33%, Taylor finishes second with 19%, while Mandel plays third-fiddle with 15% support – including only those voters who said they were most likely to participate in the Ohio GOP primary election.

Because Mary Taylor has been rumored to be interested in the race, but has not taken any obvious steps toward building a campaign, Wenzel Strategies also conducted a prospective test of the other two candidates without Taylor in the mix.  This test found that in a test between Blackwell, a one-time state treasurer – and Mandel, the current Ohio treasurer, Blackwell holds a slim 35% to 33% edge over Mandel, which means that Mandel picks up almost all of the Taylor support.

A very telling data point from the survey shows what most Republican Primary election voters think about who is the best of the three Republicans in the survey to defeat Senator Brown: 26% said they believed Blackwell would best most likely to prevail against Brown, while 15% predicted Mandel was the most likely of the three to defeat Brown, and 14% said Taylor would be the likeliest victor over Brown.

Wenzel Strategies conducted a telephone survey of likely voters statewide in Ohio on April 6-7, 2011.  The survey included 1,264 respondents and carries a 95% confidence interval and a margin of error of +/- 2.72 percentage points.