A University of Akron Bliss Institute poll released Thursday shows Donald Trump ahead of Kamala Harris in Ohio by seven points, and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has a narrow lead over his Republican challenger Bernie Moreno.
The results are part of the Buckeye Ann 2024 school survey conducted September 12-October 24. The poll included 1,241 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points.
Digging deeper, pollsters noted that the enormous gender gap that many people expect to see in presidential elections at the national level wasn’t really evident at the state level. They even note that Trump has a nominal 1-point lead among women, although that is within the margin of error, with 3% remaining undecided.
The poll found that independent Ohioans are leaning toward Trump in the presidential race, but nearly a quarter of that group is still undecided. In the Senate race, a third of independents still haven’t made up their minds.
The study also sheds lightweight on clear divisions in voters’ perception of the country. Partisans on both sides differ significantly on issues such as economic policy, immigration, abortion and transgender rights.
Presidential race
The Buckeye poll shows that 51% of respondents support Donald Trump compared to 44% for Kamala Harris. These results include respondents leaning toward a particular candidate – 4% for Trump and 6% for Harris, while another 5% of voters favored a third party or remained undecided. Trump’s seven-point lead exceeds the poll’s margin of error and is roughly in line with his actual performance in Ohio in 2016 and 2020, which he won by eight points each time.
“We are not at all surprised by the numbers in the presidential race showing that Donald Trump has a clear lead over Harris by seven points,” said Bliss Institute director and political scientist Cherie Stachan.
The poll also divided respondents’ partisanship on a spectrum from “strong” to “inclined” for both parties, with independents in the middle. Among voters who identified as independent, 39% supported Trump compared with 24% supporting Harris. Another 23% said they did not support either.
US Senate race
Strachan described the competition between Brown and Moreno as “a race with a margin for error.” In the best Buckeye Poll result, Brown led Moreno 46% to 44%, based on the poll’s margin of error.
“The one thing that’s interesting about the Senate race,” she said, “is that there are still, at least in this poll, enough people who are willing to split their seats and support the incumbent senator for whatever reason to make it marginal error in the race.”
Based on the overlap they saw in the poll, Brown earned about three points from respondents who support Trump but plan to vote for the Democratic senator anyway.
What’s notable, Strachan said, is that “Trump’s support didn’t push this challenger to the extreme — Moreno didn’t empower all Republicans despite Trump’s support.”
This can be seen somewhat in the quality of their responses in the Senate race. Voter preferences were slightly more stringent, with many more “thin” voters than in the presidential race. Brown received powerful support from 37% of respondents, with another 9% siding with him. However, 30% of respondents said they were a powerful supporter of Moreno, while 14% said they were only leaning towards him.
“I think it’s just another sign that he may have done some things that may not have been as effective in convincing people that he was a good candidate,” Strachan said, “or that he was a candidate that people felt comfortable supporting.”
She cited television commercials as an anecdotal example. While Moreno and outside groups supporting him have spent a lot of time attacking Brown, they have spent much less promoting Moreno, a relative political newcomer. According to FEC data, independent groups contributed more than $114 million to attack Brown but less than $66 million to support Moreno.
Polarization
The Buckeye Poll found that Republicans and Democrats are sharply divided on several major policy issues. On abortion, immigration and transgender rights, the parties mirror each other in terms of support or opposition.
Strachan noted that these divisions have become so stark and widespread in recent years that political scientists describe the phenomenon as negative partisanship: “I don’t like the other side any more than I like maybe my own side,” Strachan described. “Hostility towards the other side causes us to stay in our partisan silos rather than like our own.”
That’s part of what makes Brown’s continued appeal across party lines significant, even if that appeal puts him in a statistical tie.
“In American politics, it is increasingly difficult to do what Brown is doing and get voters to split their tickets.”
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