With approximately a year left before Ohio voters pick their next governor, a new Quinnipiac Poll is giving Gov. Ted Strickland reason to start buying heartburn medicine by the case:

Economic woes in the Buckeye State put Gov. Ted Strickland in a vulnerable position for 2010, a new Quinnipiac Poll (1,123 RVs, 11/5-9, +/- 2.9%) finds.

General Election Matchup
Strickland (D) 40 (-6 vs. last poll, 9/15)
Kasich (R) 40 (+4)
Don’t Know 18 (+3)

The good news for Democrats is that there’s time for Ohio’s economy to recover. The awful news for Democrats is that there’s alot of time for Kasich to open up a wide lead, something that I think is likely based on this information:

Former Rep. John Kasich still is an unknown quantity to nearly 70 percent of voters, the poll finds, but has pulled into a tie with the incumbent after trailing by 30 points in Quinnipiac’s initial matchup in February.

“This race is about Ted Strickland,” Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown says in the poll release. “Because so few voters have a firm fix on Kasich, the campaign is likely to be a race to define him in the eyes of most voters. That will mean the Strickland campaign will be trying to convince those seven in 10 voters who don’t know enough about Kasich that he isn’t their kind of guy.”

Good luck defining John Kasich as not Ohio’s kind of guy. He’s typical blue collar Ohio. He’s the son of a mailman. He’s THE GUY who crafted 5 straight balanced FEDERAL BUDGETS!!! He teamed with Bill Clinton to put together an economy that created 22,000,000 jobs in 8 years.

Considering Ohio’s unemployment rate, the ineffective, if not failed, Strickland economic record, coupled with the irresponsible federal spending, I’m betting the proverbial ranch that this is exactly the type of setting that John Kasich will shine in.

There’s other bad news from Quinnipiac’s polling, namely that it’s a poll of registered voters. Midterm elections are won by who turns out their party’s activists. GOP activists certainly know and identify with John Kasich. The party’s activists will run through walls for John Kasich.

The same can’t be said for Gov. Strickland. While he’s a decent candidate, he isn’t the type of candidate that inspires fierce loyalty. It isn’t that the Democrats’ machine won’t work hard on GOTV. It’s that Ohioans won’t be inspired to vote for Gov. Strickland.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. The Democrats had better hope that it isn’t a replay of last Tuesday.

Technorati: Polling, Economy, Ted Strickland, Unemployment, Democrats, John Kasich, Job Growth, Republicans, Budget Surpluses, Bill Clinton, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative