A up-to-date Marist poll suggests Ohio voters may split their seats in the November election. The poll shows former President Donald Trump has a seven-point lead over President Joe Biden in the presidential race. That’s not far from Trump’s eight-point victories in Ohio in 2016 and 2020. But in the Senate race, Trump’s favored candidate, Republican Bernie Moreno, trails Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown by five points.
Marist pollsters surveyed 1,259 Ohioans from June 3 to June 6, and the overall margin of error was plus or minus 3.4%. As we narrow the sample to registered voters (1,137) and those who definitely plan to vote (987), the margin of error increases to 3.6% and 3.8%, respectively.
One additional grain of salt: Many pollsters, including Marist, have had difficulty predicting the results in Ohio recently. In the March Republican primary for U.S. Senate, state Sen. Matt Dolan’s apparent delayed surge in popularity proved illusory as Moreno not only won the nomination, but cruised to a 17-point victory and even captured a majority in a three-way race.
The US Senate race in Ohio has begun: Republican Bernie Moreno will face US Senator Sherrod Brown
The 2022 poll correctly showed the likelihood that voters would split the seats, but still underestimated how well Republicans would do. And in 2018 – the last time Brown was on the ballot – most polls showed Brown winning, but many exceeded the final margin of 7 points.
Presidential takeaways
After powerful performances in the last two cycles, many race observers have Trump as the favorite in Ohio. Marist’s results support this point, and the pivot tables furiously underscore it.
In 2020, Biden and Trump split the number of independent voters down the middle. Now they beat Trump by six points. That’s still within the margin of error, but among voters who dislike both major party candidates – the so-called double haters – Trump leads Biden by 13 points. Voters under 35 also support Trump, with 12% supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Nearly 6 in 10 voters believe they personally did better under the Trump administration and that the country as a whole did better with Trump at the helm. Notably, 13 or 14% of respondents were Democrats. Among those who said the situation was better under Biden, 6% were Republicans.
When it comes to which candidate does better on which issue, Trump beats Biden on every issue except abortion. A 48% majority sees Biden as offering a better approach to abortion, but Trump is right behind him at 47%. Meanwhile, about 6 in 10 people think Trump would do a better job of managing the economy or managing immigration, and a majority of 55% think Trump would do a better job of representing the country internationally.
Despite the riots that occurred on January 6, a slim 51% majority believes Trump would do a better job protecting democracy.
And any good news President Biden may find is spoiled by losses elsewhere. Pollsters note that Biden has gained favor among white voters, reducing Trump’s 21-point lead there in 2020 to just 14 points in the current poll. At the same time, Biden’s 32-point lead among black voters is dramatically lower than the 83-point lead he had in the last election.
Takeaway US Senate
But perhaps most notable in the survey is the percentage of voters willing to vote for the Republican candidate for president and the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
“As we move away from the national voting patterns of 2016 and 2020, Ohio voters are now ready to split their seats between the president and the Senate,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said in a press release. “The Buckeye State’s electoral votes will most likely go to Trump, while Ohioans are poised to return Democrat Brown to the U.S. Senate.”
Marist pollsters said incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown has 50% approval, or at least that’s where he’s leaning. Republican Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland businessman, got 45%, which is within the poll’s margin of error. Of those who plan to vote for Brown, 10% support Donald Trump for president. Just 2% of Moreno supporters plan to vote for Biden.
According to the poll, Marista Brown has a clear lead among independent voters, with 53% supporting the incumbent compared to just 37% supporting Moreno.
Still, the study could point to opportunities for Moreno. In terms of favorability, about a third of voters dislike Brown and Moreno, respectively. But after three terms in the U.S. Senate, most people have an opinion about Brown — 43% of voters like him and about a quarter have no opinion. In Moreno’s case this is reversed; Just over a quarter of voters like him, but 39% have either never heard of him or have no opinion.
Brown’s campaign declined to comment on the poll. But in a written statement, Moreno campaign spokeswoman Reagan McCarthy emphasized the difference in voters’ appreciation of the candidates.
“Sherrod Brown has held public office since Richard Nixon’s presidency and, unlike Bernie, has a near-universal name identification,” she said, “but as Ohioans begin to enter the race this fall, this name identification advantage will almost certainly decline.”
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