Ohio polls all over the map

With less than 24 hours to go before polls open in Ohio, polling of Ohio Democrats is all over the map, but the consensus is that Hillary Clinton will pull out a win over Barack Obama in the Buckeye State tomorrow.

UPDATE, 11:30 a.m. New Quinnipiac Poll out.

From Quinnipiac:

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's margin over Sen. Barack Obama among Ohio likely Democratic primary voters has shrunk to 49 - 45 percent on the eve of the state's March 4 balloting, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 55 - 34 percent Sen. Clinton lead in a February 14 poll by the independent Quinnipiac University and a 51 - 40 percent lead February 25.

Sen. Obama has made gains in the last week especially among men and black voters.

The gender gap is a key factor in this latest survey, as women support Sen. Clinton 55 - 39 percent, while men back Sen. Obama by a mirror image 55 - 39 percent margin. Clinton's strength among lower income voters, 50 - 44 percent, and among older voters, 55 - 39 percent, also gives her an edge over Obama.

The Illinois Senator leads 58 - 37 percent among voters under 45. He also gets 90 percent of the black vote, while Clinton leads 60 - 34 percent among whites.

"The profiles of the Clinton voter and the Obama voter in Ohio are almost mirror images," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Men are for him; women for her. Those higher on the socio-economic scale are for him; those lower for her. Older people are for her; younger voters for him.
"The big unknown is turnout. It's not just whether it is higher than normal, which everyone expects it to be. The key question is whether turnout is disproportionately higher among some demographic groups than others."

Read more on that poll here


Monday morning, the University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research released a new Ohio Poll showing Clinton with a lead of 51.3 percent to Obama’s 42.3 percent. Six percent said they would vote for John Edwards, whose name will be on the ballot.

The Ohio Poll also had John McCain leading Mike Huckabee among Ohio Republicans by 30 percentage points.

The Ohio Poll interviewed 624 likely Democratic voters and 330 likely Republican voters between Sunday and Thursday. The margin of error in the Democratic poll is plus or minus 3.9 percent and 5.4 percent in the Republican poll.

A poll completed Sunday by Suffolk University had Clinton ahead in Ohio by an even larger margin – it showed Clinton with 52 percent to 40 percent for Obama.

But a Reuters/Cspan/Zogby poll released Sunday night showed the race a virtual dead heat, with Obama taking 47 percent to Clinton’s 42 percent.