Quinnipiac's Swing State Ohio Poll is Huge Outlier

You know, when I first saw this Quinnipiac survey my thought was, "Shoot, perhaps Baracky might be able to eek out a victory in November after all." And I'm not talking aboutt the poll's findings on Florida and Pennsylvania, which are basically head-to-head, especially Florida. But Quinnipiac has Obama up 9 points in the Buckeye State, and that sounds a bit much.

Anyway, I checked around. Daily Kos pollster Public Policy Polling is out today with new poll showing Obama up by just 3 points in Ohio: "Obama lead in Ohio down to 3":

Barack Obama continues to lead Mitt Romney in Ohio, 47-44.  But that's Obama's weakest showing in the state in PPP's polling since last October. He had led by 50-43 and 49-42 spreads in our two previous 2012 polls.

The big decline for Obama over the last couple months has been with white voters. He and Romney were basically tied with them earlier this year, but now Romney has opened up a 49-42 advantage with them. It's actually white Democrats with whom Obama's seen the biggest decline recently. In early May he had an 89-6 lead with them, but that's now declined to 78-16.

Obama's approval rating in Ohio has dipped to 44/51, a net 7 point drop from the polls earlier this year when voters split evenly on him at 48/48. That Obama has a small advantage in the state anyway is a testament to Romney's weakness as a candidate. Only 35% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 54% with a negative one. With Obama's approval numbers where they are he would almost definitely be trailing if the GOP had a top notch candidate against him- but it really just doesn't.

The key will be how O's lead holds up with Ohio's independents. I'd code this state a toss up.

See RCP's aggregation of polls for Ohio's general election as well: "Ohio: Romney vs. Obama." Especially important there is Rasmussen's findings: "Election 2012: Ohio President: Romney 46%, Obama 44%." Note that Rasmussen's findings are a month old, and it's likely we'd see Obama's numbers deteriorating even further in Ohio for Rasmussen, whose findings tend to favor Republicans.

More at Memeorandum. At this point, for all my bluster about how Obama's gonna get crushed in November, the fact is you have go around the country assess the swing state races to see who it's shaping up. I'll be doing more of that as we go forward.

Ed Morrissey offers a similar take: "Dueling polls: Obama lead narrowing or expanding in Ohio?" (Via Memeorandum.)