The first thing that jumps out at me about the latest Ohio Poll sponsored by the University of Cincinnati is this bit:
The latest Ohio Poll also finds John McCain leads Mike Huckabee 55 to 20 percent among likely
Republican primary voters. At this time, an additional nine percent of likely Republican primary voters intend to vote for Mitt Romney, who suspended his campaign earlier this month, and five percent intend to vote for Ron Paul. Eight percent of likely Republican primary voters intend to vote for another candidate, including Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson (both of whom dropped out of the race in January), and three percent are undecided as to how they will cast their vote March 4.
A variety of issues are influencing Republican primary voter decisions about the 2008 presidential race, including: the economy/jobs (30%), homeland security/national defense (16%), the war in Iraq/Iraq policy (9%), health care/health insurance (8%), abortion (7%) and taxes (6%).
It is no surprise that McCain thrashes Mike Huckabee...and I do believe that trend will hold...but what is interesting is that nearly 25% of Ohio Republicans intend to vote for somebody who has dropped out already. I will be one of those...and I suspect that number will actually hold too. Is that enough of a message? We shall see...I'd have preferred that the protest voters united behind Fred Thompson, but I'm okay with this result too...
