DaytonDailyNews.com

COLUMBUS — The Ohio battlefield for Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain in this year's presidential election is scarred with unemployed workers, vacated homes and shuttered businesses.

Oh, and one other thing: Voters here are in a pretty foul mood.

A new Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday, June 4, found a gloomy, pessimistic and generally unhappy electorate in Ohio. The statewide poll results come with the state still reeling from a double-whammy of more bad news — GM's plan to close its Moraine plant with more than 2,000 jobs and the loss of thousands of jobs at ABX Air in Wilmington.

In the poll, 81 percent of the voters said the economy is either "not so good" or "poor" and 42 percent expected the economy to get worse in the next 12 months.

"Ohio voters are very pessimistic about the future, perhaps as much or more so than voters in any state in the country," Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said.

Most political analysts agree that the candidate who wants to win the state's critical 20 electoral votes must convince voters he has the best answers to reverse an alarming trend that has seen the Ohio lose nearly 200,000 jobs since President Bush took office in 2001.

McCain and Obama face separate challenges in convincing voters they can fix the economy. Neither can afford to write off the state. No Republican has been elected president without carrying Ohio and only two Democrats in the 20th century lost Ohio and won the White House — Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.

McCain's reputation as a free trader may raise eyebrows among voters who blame trade for job losses.

"One thing John McCain is going to have to do is persuade the people of Ohio that he can be a free trader and... that is going to be a benefit for working class folks in Ohio," said Christopher Duncan, chairman of the political science department at the University of Dayton.

It's also not clear that McCain's message to autoworkers in Michigan, where he lost the GOP primary to Mitt Romney, will play any better in Ohio. McCain's straight talk in Michigan — that the jobs lost there are not coming back — was not well received, said Jennifer Duffy, a political analyst with the Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C.

Obama, who lost the Ohio primary to Hillary Clinton by more than 200,000 votes, stumbled in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states relating to the working and middle-class voters hurt most by the bad economy.

"It's funny. I think they'd do better if they let them take a picture of him (Obama) smoking once in a while," Duncan said. "At least people could identify with that."

Obama must also figure out how to bring Clinton supporters — some still bitter about her loss — home to the Democratic Party in November.

Quinnipiac University Poll highlights

1,738 Ohio voters were surveyed from Thursday, May 29, to Monday, June 2

81 percent said state's economy "not so good" or "poor."

58 percent of those who say the economy is worse blame President Bush and Congress; 8 percent blame the state legislature; 4 percent blame Gov. Ted Strickland.

10 percent said the state is a better place to live than in 2006.

28 percent said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" they or a family member will leave Ohio in the next year for better opportunities.

Among voters 18-29, 54 percent expect to leave Ohio in the next year.

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