Clinton and Giuliani Lead Poll of Ohioans on Presidential Prospects

Hat tip to Jerid at Buckeye State Blog for first posting the results released today by Quinnipiac University on 2008 presidential preferences among Ohioans (download). Not sure why they took the poll, since Ohio's March primary is unlikely to have much bearing on the nomination races. Nevertheless, here is the result for Democratic contenders:

38% Clinton
13% Obama
11% Edwards
6% Gore
2% Biden
2% Kucinich
1% Richardson
1% Clark
-% Dodd
-% Vilsack

On the GOP side:

30% Giuliani
22% McCain
11% Gingrich
4% Romney
1% Brownback
1% Thompson
1% Huckabee
1% Hagel
1% Pataki
1% Tancredo
-% Hunter
-% Gilmore

At this point it's all about name recognition, and levels of support are likely to change dramatically as the candidates become better known. However, Democratic leader Clinton may have the least ability to move up because she has the lowest favorability ratio among major candidates (49% up/38% down), compared to to 35%/12% for the relatively underexposed Obama and 46%/24% for Edwards. Gingrich has the worst favorability ratio among Republicans at 24%/50%. Kucinich is at 18%/37%.

An odious but unmistakable racial contrast emerges in the head-to-head matchups, where white Democrats Clinton and Edwards edge out white potential GOP rival McCain but African-American Democrat Obama does not:

46% Clinton
42% McCain

44% Edwards
41% McCain

38% Obama
41% McCain

I sincerely hope that this differential merely reflects lower name recognition for Obama, but put together with the fact that all of the African-American statewide candidates failed in Ohio in 2006 (Blackwell, Sykes, Espy, and Bradley) it seems a very disturbing result to me.

Clinton also edges out Giuliani (46% to 43%) and wallops Romney (52% to 31%).

Looking at relative numbers for male and female voters, Clinton does better among women (43%-31%) while Edwards and Obama do better among men (14%-10% and 17%-11%, respectively). I actually would have guessed that Clinton's disparity would be greater than that. (Looking at the numbers another way, Clinton outperforms both Edwards and Obama among male voters by a big margin.) Among Republicans, Giuliani does significantly better among men (35%-27%) and so does Gingrich (15%-7%), while McCain is relatively even (23%-21%).

Women were much more likely than men to fall in the "Don't Know" category, among both Democrats (21%-12%) and Republicans (28%-9%). They are the more sensible gender, without a doubt.

The continuing prominence of Gore and Gingrich in various presidential candidate polls is interesting, isn't it?