Bliss Poll Finds High Marks For Ohio Governor and Government

Akron, Ohio, March 12, 2008 – The public's job performance ratings for Gov. Ted Strickland and other state officials increased when compared to 2005, according to the Spring 2008 Akron Buckeye Poll, sponsored by the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron.

The poll results were announced in Columbus today by Bliss Institute Director John Green. “We anticipated Ohioans would rate the governor higher than his predecessor,” says Green, “but we did not expect more positive job evaluations for all three branches of Ohio government.”

Fifty-three percent of adult Ohioans said that Governor Strickland was doing an “excellent” or “good” job. Other measures of state government included the respondents' assessment of Ohio's direction, confidence in state government, job performance ratings of elected state officials and an assessment of the quality of Ohio politics.

The poll also has baseline information for the 2008 general election campaign in Ohio, including issues, party differences and generic party and presidential election preferences.

A large majority of Ohioans favor a generic Democrat over a Republican in the presidential election, and a large majority believes that the Democrats will win Ohio in November.

As to presidential nomination contests, there is a close division between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while John McCain is favored by a large margin.

The complete report is available at http://www.uakron.edu/bliss/research.php.

Other poll results were:

● A slim majority of adult Ohioans – 52 percent – said the state was on the “wrong track” overall. A large majority – 74 percent – said the Ohio economy was on the wrong track; 55 percent said the state's moral climate was on the wrong track.

● Ohioans offered mixed assessments of their confidence in state government to solve major problems. Only minorities had high confidence that state government would successfully address job creation, public education, moral issues such as marriage and gambling, and mortgage foreclosures. However, confidence in state government also increased compared to 2005.

● The public's assessment of the quality of Ohio politics also increased, with 36 percent reporting a “high quality” political process, an increase from 2006.

More than one-half of Ohioans – 52 percent – reported “a great deal of confidence” that their presidential vote would be fairly counted, a figure largely unchanged from 2006.

Looking forward to the 2008 general election, Ohioans give top priority to economic issues such as jobs and prices – 47 percent, followed by foreign policy issues, such as the Iraq war and terrorism – 24 percent, domestic issues such as public services and taxes – 16 percent, and social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage – 10 percent.

Overall, Ohioans see differences between the major political parties on these issues. The public favors the Democrats over the Republicans on economic issues – 65 to 31 percent, and domestic issues – 58 to 38 percent, but is more evenly divided between the parties on foreign policy – 47 to 46 percent, and social issues – 48 to 44 percent.

Ohioans are divided on the Iraq war with 50 percent favoring the withdrawal of troops as soon as possible and 49 percent favoring keeping troops deployed until the situation is stabilized. Fifty-two percent favor legal abortions in most circumstances; 48 percent favor restrictions on abortion.

The report is based on a survey of a random sample of adult Ohio citizens 18 years or older interviewed by telephone between Jan. 10 and March 8, 2008 by the Center for Marketing & Opinion Research, LLC of Canton, Ohio for the Bliss Institute. This survey is part of a broader election year study of Ohio voters.

The number of respondents was 1,507, including a state-wide random sample and over-samples of respondents living outside of Northeastern Ohio. T

The survey respondents were weighted to reflect the demographic characteristics of the Ohio adult population based on the U.S. Census. The overall margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

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