Brown ahead 6 points in poll

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Unless two-term Republican Sen. Mike DeWine can pull a stunning turnaround this weekend and persuade a lot more people to vote for him, he is likely to lose on Tuesday to Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown, a pre-election Plain Dealer poll shows.

But whether Democrats would then rule the Senate is uncertain. Polls in the nation's most competitive Senate races show Republicans have gained strength in several close contests. With control of Congress the key prize in Tuesday's elections, the new polls show that neither party at this late point is assured of Senate victory.

"It's very much up for grabs, because you've got at least four races that could go either way," said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. Mason-Dixon conducted the poll of Ohio for The Plain Dealer and polls of other states for several other news organizations, including MSNBC and McClatchy Newspapers.

In Ohio, Brown has a lead of 6 percentage points, at 50 percent to 44 percent, among likely voters. Five percent of voters were undecided, which is not enough by itself to shift the race to DeWine.

"There's clearly a passion for change out here," Brown said Saturday after he, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland and several other political candidates addressed a packed and cheering crowd of get-out-the-vote volunteers at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Dayton. "You can see it here. I see it in Brown County, which George Bush won almost 2 to 1. I've seen it all over the state.

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11/05/2006 / Permalink / (all tags)