Poll shows Ohio voters are mad at Trump as Dems maintain small leads

President Donald Trump is trying to salvage the Midterm elections by making them about himself with campaign swings in Ohio and elsewhere, but in Ohio at least, new polling shows 57% of Ohioans disapprove of Trump’s performance as president.

Consumer prices have been persistently high with Trump’s Iran war choking energy flows out of the Middle East, and because of sweeping tariffs. 

Trump has embraced several other highly unpopular measures such as cutting rich people’s taxes, slashing Medicaid and federal food assistance, and saying Big Tech should have a free hand to build data centers and develop artificial intelligence.

Independent election forecaster Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats a 76% chance of winning the U.S. House and a 56% chance of winning the U.S. Senate despite having an unfavorable map this year for the latter body. 

Online prediction platform Polymarket gives Democrats an 89% chance of winning the House and a 60% chance of winning the Senate. It also gives the party a 70% chance of controlling most governorships.

To help Republicans’ chances, Trump is going on a campaign blitz. Trump held a midterm convention in Dallas in September that was promoted as “Trump-a-Palooza.” He also has recently held two separate rallies in Ohio.

Controversially, Trump also used $20 million in taxpayer money to air commercials about himself — including one his campaign already paid to air in 2024. 

But Republican candidates in Ohio’s closely contested elections for governor and U.S. Senate may not be happy that Trump is so insistently making himself the face of the party.

In Ohio’s two nationally-watched contests, for governor and U.S. Senate, both races are close.

The Silver Bulletin, public opinion expert Nate Silver’s poll aggregator, has former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, up 3.8 percentage points over incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican.

The aggregation has had Brown narrowly in the lead since late May, with it beginning to widen in mid-August.

Importantly, however, Brown only briefly hit 50% in June and now stands at 48% approval compared to Husted’s 44.2%. Historically, political professionals want to see their candidates at 50% or better in the polls.

Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democratic candidate for governor, is four percentage points ahead over her Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy — 48.5% to 44.5%. The candidates were essentially tied from mid-August to mid-September, when Acton began to open up her lead. 

With early voting underway and some Ohioans still undecided, Husted and Ramaswamy are still in the fight.

A YouGov poll published last week indicates they’re being dragged down by the man in the White House.

It had Brown up on Husted 49% to 45% and Acton up on Ramaswamy 48% to 44%.

Both results were outside the 2.5% margin of error in the survey of 3,780 likely voters. Most respondents described themselves as moderate or conservative, and 41% identified as Republicans, 33% as Democrats and 22% as independent.

Most didn’t think very highly of either party. Fifty seven percent had a very or somewhat unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, while 55% held the same view of the Republican Party.

Asked about the job Trump is doing as president, 43% of Ohio likely voters said they strongly or somewhat approve — 27% and 16%, respectively. That compares to 57% who said they disapprove. 

Hidden in that number is the intensity with which most Ohioan voters dislike Trump. A full 51% said they strongly disapprove of the president while another 6% said they somewhat disapprove.

Election Day is Nov. 3. Military and overseas absentee voting and early in-person and mail voting have started. 

The deadline to register has passed. The Ohio Secretary of State’s election calendar can be found here.