AT/Rasmussen Reports has poll results from Ohio. These results show that the state that has a long history of being equally open to both parties’ candidates and of selecting winners is firmly in the Republican camp this time around. In addition, Ohioans are very unhappy with the state of America over the last four years, and they mistrust the government and the Democrat party.  

Ohio, one of the most adamant abolitionist states, was strongly Republican in the second half 19th century. That changed beginning in the 20th century. At that point, Ohioans began to go back and forth between the parties. For the most part, if you look at their 20th- and 21st-century Electoral College votes, you can see that the people of Ohio had a habit of picking winners.

In fact, the only times Ohio’s votes were out of line with the person who took the White House were in 1944, when they voted for Thomas E. Dewey, in 1960, when they went for Richard Nixon, and in 2020, when they voted for Donald Trump. Ohioans’ reputation for being a bellwether state is well-deserved.

Image by AI.

This time around, the 1,051 Ohio Likely Voters (“LVs”) polled are strongly in Trump’s camp, preferring him by seven points over Kamala (51% to 44%). In addition, they also give Trump a seven-point lead over Kamala when it comes to assessing competency (49% to 42%).

Generally speaking, Ohio’s likely voters are soured on Democrats and the state of Washington, D.C. Asked about their generic congressional preferences, the LVs favored Republicans over Democrats by a whopping eight points (51% to 43%). Even in the tightly contested Senate race, they favor Republican Bernie Moreno over Democrat Sherrod Brown (45% to 44%). When asked to rank America’s greatest enemies, whether foreign or domestic, the Democrat party led the pack (27%), with the second and third threats—the Republican party (17%) and China (17%)—following far behind.

Seventy-four percent of Ohio’s LVs want to see major changes in Washington, with only 19% satisfied with business as usual. Fifty-five percent of them want to see all votes counted on election day (something voters view as a bulwark against vote fraud), and 66% of them are worried about cheating in the election. Ohioans, however, aren’t too worried that we’re heading for a civil war, with only 39% seeing it as a possibility and 47% thinking that it’s not.

Fifty-five percent of them do not trust the federal government. Finally, a full 81% feel that Congress needs to spend more money on Americans facing disasters than on illegal aliens (8%).

Ohioans’ biggest priorities are the economy (30%), the border (21%) and abortion (15%). When they look at what they want the incoming administration to make as its priorities, they rank them as illegal immigration (32%), rising prices (28%), and protecting democracy (23%).

As has been the case with all the polls that AT/Rasmussen Reports have conducted, Ohioans are very unhappy with the state of things. Fifty-seven percent say that they are not better off now than they were four years ago, and 53% don’t think their children will be doing well in the future.

You can see all the results at Rasmussen Reports.