Ohio looks up for grabs as GOP primary nears

DAN SEWELL

Asso­ci­ated Press

CINCINNATI — In swing-state Ohio, sup­port has been swing­ing in a lot of direc­tions as the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial pri­mary approaches.

And with a lit­tle more than two weeks left, the out­come still looks up in the air. Polls have shown lead changes every month since last fall, and a new statewide poll indi­cates that about half of likely pri­mary vot­ers could still change their minds by March 6.

The Quin­nip­iac Uni­ver­sity poll released Wednes­day also found Rick San­to­rum surg­ing past Mitt Rom­ney, last month’s poll leader. Before that, it was Newt Gin­grich lead­ing, before him pizza mag­nate Her­man Cain, and before them, Rom­ney in a tight race over Texas Gov. Rick Perry

San­to­rum had an appar­ent lead over the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor, 36 per­cent to 29 per­cent, with Gin­grich third with 20 per­cent. Two months ago, the poll gave Gin­grich a 36–18 lead over Romney.

The lat­est tele­phone sur­vey inter­viewed 553 likely Repub­li­can vot­ers from Feb. 7–12 and has a mar­gin of error of 4 per­cent­age points.

The stakes are high in Ohio. The state offers 66 del­e­gates, sec­ond only to Geor­gia in the 10-state “Super Tues­day” vot­ing. That means a lot of cam­paign resources will likely be aimed at Ohio to sway vot­ers down the stretch.

“I assume we’re going to see a ton of neg­a­tive ads the next few weeks,” said Herb Weis­berg, an Ohio State Uni­ver­sity polit­i­cal sci­en­tist, adding that the can­di­dates will make more swings through the state.

“I think that’s going to be impor­tant. They’re going to tar­get the parts of the state they con­sider the best for each of them,” Weis­berg said.

“We’ll see these polls shift­ing in the next few weeks,” said Mark Weaver, a vet­eran GOP con­sul­tant in Ohio who is sup­port­ing Rom­ney. He says Romney’s steady pace will pre­vail. “It’s like the tor­toise and the hare. All the other folks have been tak­ing turns being the hare.”

San­to­rum, the for­mer Penn­syl­va­nia sen­a­tor, and Rom­ney, a native of Michi­gan, are headed to a show­down first in Michi­gan on Feb. 28. For­mer House Speaker Gin­grich, try­ing to mar­shal his resources for a Super Tues­day come­back, has sig­naled he will make a sub­stan­tial effort in Ohio. He cam­paigned from Cincin­nati to Cleve­land in an ear­lier, four-city Feb­ru­ary swing.

San­to­rum could build upon his recent momen­tum if he can con­tinue to gain sup­port from Chris­t­ian social con­ser­v­a­tives who have been a major force in some recent Ohio elec­tions. He has been step­ping up his efforts in the state, with four week­end events scheduled.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has lagged behind in the Ohio polls, get­ting some 9 per­cent in the last Quin­nip­iac poll. How­ever, his back­ers say he has good grass-roots support.

“He attracts a lot of dif­fer­ent peo­ple,” said Chris Lit­tle­ton, a Cincin­nati tea party activist who likes Paul. “He is wildly pop­u­lar with young people.”

They’re also urg­ing inde­pen­dent and Demo­c­ra­tic sup­port­ers of Paul to vote in the Repub­li­can pri­mary. Cross­ing over in Ohio’s pri­mary is rel­a­tively easy to do — just ask Mike Mor­ris. The fic­tional Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date played by George Clooney in “The Ides of March” blamed his Ohio pri­mary loss on Repub­li­can crossover voters.

The state’s cru­cial his­tory for Repub­li­cans — none has won the White House with­out car­ry­ing Ohio — make the pri­mary a key test of would-be GOP nom­i­nees’ appeal in a diverse state of big cities, small towns and large rural stretches.

“We’re a big state and in a lot of ways, Ohio is a micro­cosm of Amer­ica as a whole,” Weaver said.

Polls have indi­cated it is likely to be a close, piv­otal state in November.

One of the most con­sis­tent Ohio sur­vey find­ings has been Rom­ney far­ing best among Repub­li­cans in a head-to-head matchup with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama in the gen­eral elec­tion. In the lat­est Quin­nip­iac poll, Rom­ney (44) and Obama (46) were in a vir­tual dead heat, while the Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­dent led San­to­rum 47–41 and Gin­grich 50–38.

Sup­port­ers of Obama, who car­ried Ohio in 2008, have been active in the state for months in prepa­ra­tion for Novem­ber. Ohio spokes­woman Jes­sica Ker­shaw said sup­port­ers have held thou­sands of vol­un­teer meet­ings, house par­ties, voter reg­is­tra­tion efforts, can­vasses and phone banks already.

“Regard­less of the out­come of the Repub­li­can pri­maries, one thing is for sure — the Obama cam­paign has the strongest grass-roots orga­ni­za­tion of any can­di­date mov­ing for­ward in Ohio,” Ker­shaw said.

Posted by AP News on Feb 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.