Republican J.D. Vance and Rep. Tim Ryan (D) are neck-and-neck in their race for Ohio’s open Senate seat less than 50 days before Election Day, new polling shows.
A Marist poll released Wednesday puts Vance ahead of Ryan by just 1 percentage point among registered Ohio voters, 46 to 45 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error.
Vance also leads by just 1 point among Ohio voters who definitely plan on voting in November’s election.
More of Ryan’s backers said they strongly support their candidate, at 66 percent, compared to 58 percent of Vance’s backers who said the same of the Republican.
Former President Trump has been stumping for Vance, who was once a Trump critic, and rallied in Ohio Saturday on the candidate’s behalf.
“J.D. is kissing my ass, he wants my support,” Trump said at the rally.
Trump’s support for Vance was seen as a big help in the Senate GOP primary earlier this year. Vance has backed Trump strongly in working for his announcement, hailing the former president’s policy accomplishments.
An interesting finding in the poll is that a number of those surveyed still don’t know Vance or Ryan, despite the high-profile nature of the race.
Similar shares of Ohio adults said they had never heard of or were unsure how to rate the candidates, 35 percent for Ryan and 34 percent for Vance.
Forty percent said they had a favorable view of Ryan, compared to 30 percent who said they have a favorable view of Vance.
Vance is up slightly among white voters (47 percent to 45 percent) and male voters (53 percent to 40 percent). Ryan is ahead among nonwhite voters (50 percent to 39 percent) and female voters (50 percent to 39 percent).
The Marist poll was conducted Sept. 12-15 and surveyed 1,347 Ohio adults, with an overall margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
Among those adults, 1,200 were registered voters, and 1,009 of those registered voters definitely plan to vote in November’s election. The margins of error were 3.6 percentage points and 3.9 percentage points for those subgroups, respectively.