Former President Donald Trump has a double-digit lead over President Joe Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head race in Ohio–which grows when third party candidates are in the mix–while he dominates his Republican primary challengers, per a poll.
The Emerson College/Fox 8 Cleveland poll, published on Thursday, shows that 50 percent of registered voters in the Buckeye State back Trump for the presidency in a two-way race with Biden. Biden, who holds an abysmal 32 percent approval rating in this poll, sits 12 points behind Trump at 38 percent, with another 12 percent undecided.
Trump supporters were asked if they would still vote for Trump if he were convicted down the line in one of his four criminal cases. More than four in five would vote for Trump even if convicted, while seven percent would not support him. Twelve percent are unsure if a conviction would change their minds.
When the ballot is expanded to include declared third-party presidential candidates independent Robert Kennedy Jr., Green Party candidate Cornel West, and progressive Jill Stein, Biden loses more support than Trump, whose lead expands.
Trump leads the pack with 45 percent in this scenario. The gap between Trump and Biden widens to 14 percent, with the current president taking 31 percent of the response. Kennedy followed with eight percent, Stein garnered two percent, and one percent would vote for West. Thirteen percent of voters are up for grabs in a five-person race.
The poll sampled 1,000 registered voters from November 10-13, and the credibility interval is plus or minus three percent.
Emerson College also took the temperature of the Republican presidential primary in Ohio following last week’s dueling Republican presidential debate and Trump rally. It finds that Trump has a more than 50-point advantage over his remaining rivals in the field. With the field essentially cut in half from the dozen or so candidates that had been in the race, the 45th president takes 62 percent of support among 468 Ohio voters who plan to vote in the GOP primary.
Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) is alone in second place with ten percent of the response, while Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), once widely thought to be the GOP candidate with the best shot of overtaking Trump, finds himself with eight percent support in third place. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is right behind DeSantis with six percent, while two percent support former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ).
Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), neither of whom qualified for the last debate stage in Miami, each have one percent.
The poll also gauged the Republican U.S. Senate primary in Ohio. Secretary of State Frank Larose has an early but modest advantage with 18 percent support. State Sen. Matt Dolan (R-OH) follows with 15 percent support, while Ohio businessman Bernie Moreno also lands in double digits with 10 percent. Joel Mutchler comes in fourth with three percent. Another 29 percent of voters prefer someone else, while 25 percent are undecided. Whoever wins the primary will likely square off with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in a general election next year.
The credibility interval for the Republican primary aspects of the poll is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.