Q Poll: Brown Leads Mandel by 15 Points in Ohio

By Steven Shepard  //  January 19, 2012 | 6:00 a.m.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, leads Republican Josh Mandel in a new poll released early Thursday that shows Mandel, the young state treasurer and prolific fundraiser, remains little-known among the state's voters.

Brown leads Mandel, 47 percent to 32 percent, in the poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University. One percent of registered voters volunteered that they would vote for another candidate, two percent wouldn't vote, and 18 percent are undecided.

That is equal to Brown's 15-point lead in the previous poll, conducted in mid-October. In fact, in all five Quinnipiac surveys testing a head-to-head Brown-Mandel matchup since last May, Brown's lead has been between 13 and 15 points. In each survey Brown has flirted with the crucial 50-percent threshold but has yet to reach it.

Brown runs the table among Democrats, according to the poll, leading Mandel, 86 percent to 2 percent. Among Republicans, Mandel leads Brown by a wide margin, 76 percent to 10 percent. Brown leads among independents, 44 percent to 27 percent.

Brown retains a positive image in the state. Forty-seven percent of voters approve of the job he is doing as Senator, while only 34 percent disapprove. And 42 percent say they have a favorable opinion of Brown, compared to 26 percent who have an unfavorable opinion. Still, 30 percent of voters -- and 35 percent of independent voters -- say they haven't heard enough about Brown, who was first elected in 2006.

Mandel, on the other hand, remains totally undefined in the state. A whopping 69 percent of voters say they haven't heard enough about him to have an opinion. The young treasurer remains mostly anonymous in the state despite an aggressive attempt by state Democrats to define him as opportunistic and less-than-transparent about his personal finances via press releases sent frequently to reporters in the Buckeye State and in Washington. Mandel will likely rely on his prodigious fundraising to help define his image among the state's voters. He has not yet filed his fourth quarter report, but at the end of the third quarter of 2011, he had over $3.2 million in the bank, an impressive sum for a Senate challenger. The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted Jan. 9-16, surveying 1,610 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 2.4 percentage points.

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