Democrat Ted Strickland defeats Republican Ken Blackwell, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for WCPO-TV Cincinnati, WKYC-TV Cleveland, and WYTV-TV Youngstown.
Strickland, currently representing Ohio's 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, gets 60%, up 4 points from an identical SurveyUSA poll on 9/21/06.
Blackwell, currently Ohio Secretary of State, gets 32%, down 3 points.
In the last three weeks, Strickland's lead has grown from 21 to 28 points.
Twenty Eight percent of Republicans cross-over to vote for the Democrat Strickland; only five percent of Democrats cross-over and vote for the Republican Blackwell.
Independents prefer Strickland by 30 points.
Conservatives vote for Blackwell by 47 points, but Strickland leads among moderates by 66 points.
Three weeks ago, moderates favored Strickland by 37 points, a 29-point improvement.
Strickland leads by 21 points among men, by 36 points among women.
Incumbent Republican Governor Bob Taft is term-limited.
The seat is open.
The election is in 26 days, on 11/7/2006.
If the election for Governor of Ohio were today, and you were standing in the voting booth right now, who would you vote for? Republican Ken Blackwell? Democrat Ted Strickland? Green Party candidate Bob Fitrakis? Libertarian Bill Peirce? Or some other candidate?
32% Blackwell (R)
60% Strickland (D)
1% Fitrakis (G)
2% Peirce (L)
5% Other/Undecided
Asked of 515 Likely Voters
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = plus / minus 4.3%
Filtering: 900 Ohio adults were surveyed 10/9/2006 - 10/11/2006. Of them, 779 were registered to vote. Of them, 515 were judged to be "likely" voters. Crosstabs reflect Likely Voters.
WKYC-TV