Ohio Poll Roundup

-John Boehner's national poll numbers have already turned negative and on the home front they aren't much better. 37% of voters in Ohio think he's doing a good job as House Speaker to 38% who disapprove. He's popular with Republicans (70% approval) but Democrats aren't giving him any home state bonus (just 10% approve) and independents split against him by a 40/35 margin as well. Although his numbers certainly leave something to be desired they are at least better than Nancy Pelosi's were in California the last time we checked- in September 38% of voters there said they had a favorable opinion of her while 48% rated her negatively.

-A majority of voters are withholding any judgment on Rob Portman's performance in the US Senate so far but he's on slightly positive ground with voters who do have an opinion. 25% approve, 22% disapprove, and 53% have no opinion. It's hard to read too much positive or negative into the numbers when there's so much ambivalence but given how bad the numbers for John Kasich and all of the Republican Presidential contenders are in Ohio Portman's looking just fine- keeping a low profile might be the way to go while things are so turbulent in the state.

-One politician Ohio voters have much stronger opinions about than Portman- and not in a good way- is Dennis Kucinich. 27% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 40% with a negative one. Republicans are considerably more unified in their negative feelings toward him (63%) than Democrats are in their positive ones (44%) and independents split against him by a 40/26 margin as well. I guess we'll just have to live without that 2014 Kucinich Governor campaign.

-Jim Tressel is still overwhelmingly popular with the Ohio State fan base but it seems likely that his numbers have taken a hit in the wake of the recent scandals surrounding the program. 58% of voters describing themselves as Buckeye fans have a favorable opinion of him to 13% with a negative one. This is the first time we've ever polled on Tressel so we don't have anything to compare it to but college basketball coaches in similarly successful programs like Mike Krzyzewski (77/8 favorability) and Roy Williams (64/3 favorability) have better numbers with their fan bases. I'd imagine Tressel would have been more at those sorts of levels before this controversy. Among all voters in the state and not just OSU fans Tressel's favorability is 43/17.

Full results here