Alarm bells are sounding for Ohio Governor John Kasich as an October Quinnipiac poll shows him falling to third place in the state that elected him governor:
If Ohio’s Republican primary were held today, 23 percent of GOP voters would vote for real estate mogul Donald Trump, 18 percent for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, according to polling results released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University.
This is a major drop for Kasich, who as recently as August held a six point advantage over his nearest competitors for the nomination. What’s still unclear is whether the new data undermines Kasich’s argument that he’s the best person to win Ohio for Republicans in 2016. Kasich hasn’t been polled in a matchup with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton since June:
A poll from that month found that if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were to go head to head with Kasich, Kasich would win 47 to 40.
“With Ohio being such a critically important state — no Republican has ever won the White House without carrying it — that gives Gov. Kasich a key talking point about why he should be the nominee,” Brown said in June.
Nick Arnold is a researcher for American Principles In Action.
