Ohio voters voice their opinions on President Trump's first year in office. Enquirer photo staff
A new poll suggests Ohio voters have started to tire of President Donald Trump, who won the state by eight percentage points.
The first Ohio poll of 2018 showed 52 percent of Ohio voters now disapprove of the president's performance.
But Republicans still love him, with 75 percent approving of Trump, according to the survey of 801 Ohio voters called Jan. 16-19 by Fallon Research of Columbus.
Most of the discontent with Trump is from women who aren't Republican.
Among Democrats, 84 percent disapproved of Trump. Independents don't like Trump at a 53 percent clip.
In the survey, 36 percent of the woman polled approved of him, compared to 51 percent of the men. If you're a Republican man, chances are you think Trump has done a great job, with 81 percent saying they approved of him. Republican women approved a little less at 68 percent.
Ohio reflects a national trend where Trump has lost ground in all but the most Republican of states, said University of Cincinnati politics professor David Niven.
"Trump's approval ratings are historically low," Niven said. "As the loser of the popular vote, he started out in a hole and he's just kept digging himself deeper."
For Dems, a muddled governor race
The poll also looked at the gubernatorial race this year. The numbers show Attorney General Mike DeWine is in good shape. DeWine, and his lieutenant governor running mate Jon Husted, would win 49 percent to 28 percent over Democratic front-runner Richard Cordray.
DeWine is leading his Republican rival for the GOP nomination, Mary Taylor, by 54 percent to 14 percent.
Midterms tend to favor the party out of power, which would be the Democrats this time. Having an easy primary will help him conserve resources, Niven said.
All five Democratic candidates first need to tell the public who they are; on the Democratic side, the poll found the top choice would be "unsure."
Cordray is the favorite but would draw only 23 percent of the vote, with Dennis Kucinich second at 16 percent.
Cordray's stint as the head of the federal Consumer Protection Bureau didn't give him the name recognition it should have, Niven said. Cordray resigned last year, triggering a dispute with Trump over the successor to lead the bureau.
"These soft numbers in the primary and general election questions suggest a good number of Ohio voters weren't paying attention to what he was doing there," Niven said.
The poll showed 52 percent of the Democrats polled were unsure who they'd vote for.
The other three candidates, former Judge Bill O'Neill, state Sen. Joe Schiavoni and former state Rep. Connie Pillich, of Montgomery, all hovered between two to four percent.
Kasich vs. Trump
Current Gov. John Kasich might also not be the political liability some in the GOP fear, the poll indicated.
DeWine and his Republican challenger, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, have distanced themselves from Kasich and run away from his endorsement.
Hamilton County GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou said he wasn't surprised Kasich has become a political liability.
"Republicans are ready to turn the page," he told The Enquirer. "The state was won by Donald Trump. I think the voters decided."
But Kasich still has some cachet left in the state.
The poll showed Kasich has a 57 percent approval rating, including 63 percent among Republicans.
Proximity to Trump, however, could help DeWine or Taylor in the gubernatorial race. A majority of the Republicans polled, 53 percent, said they'd be more likely to vote for the candidate who agrees the most with Trump.
The survey has a margin of error of 3.46 percentage points. Fallon did the poll for the 1984 Society, a Columbus-based Republican issue and candidate advocacy group.