The Issues Changed: Ohio

PPP's newest report looks at how the issues changed over the course of 2008 in the key swing states of Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio and how that contributed to Barack Obama's landslide victory. This is the section on Ohio. You can read the full report here.
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Ohio did not see quite as dramatic a swing in Barack Obama’s direction between January polling and the final results as Florida and North Carolina did, mostly because he was running pretty close to John McCain in the state even from the get go. When PPP first polled the race, McCain had a 45-42 advantage.

In January 39% of Ohioans listed the economy as their top issue, with 28% saying it was the War in Iraq, and 9% picking immigration.

In late October the portion of voters in the state calling the economy their top concern had gone up to 60%, with the war down to 12%, and immigration, like in Florida and North Carolina, down to only 2%.

McCain was getting a big boost in the state earlier in the year from those immigration voters:

Month	% listing immigration as top issue	McCain lead with those voters	Overall McCain lead based on immigration voters
January	9	74-14	5.4%
October	2	81-11	1.4%

With McCain holding just a slight early lead over Obama at the start of the year those voters most concerned about immigration were pretty vital to his ability to take the state, but by the end of the election that constituency, like in Florida and North Carolina, had gravitated toward greater worry over the economy and that again was to Obama’s advantage:

Month	% listing economy as top issue	Obama lead with those voters	Overall Obama lead based on economy voters
January	39	47-36	4.3%
October	60	63-33	18%

Obama benefited from the increase in concern over the economy, but he also did a much better job of convincing voters over the course of the year that he was the better candidate on that issue.