Polls show Rob Portman leaving gun rights turncoat Ted Strickland in the dust

The voting still needs to be done (and early/absentee voting begins Wednesday, Oct. 12!), but the latest opinion polls show U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) with an increasingly wide lead over his challenger, former Governor Ted Strickland (D).

The polls, which once showed Strickland with as much as a ten point lead and a huge advantage in name recognition across the state, now show Portman with what the Columbus Dispatch calls "a nearly insurmountable lead."

Quinnipiac shows Portman leading Strickland by 17 points, 55-to-38, while Monmouth has Portman leading by a similar margin of 54-to-39 percent.

Indeed, Portman is doing so well in the contest that the Wall Street Journal recently suggested that he may provide "reverse coattails" for Donald Trump in Ohio (the same polls showing Portman with a 17 point lead show a close race for Ohio and the presidency.)

In typical presidential years, the White House nominee drives party turnout for down-ticket candidates. Here, the Portman campaign, which began recruiting volunteers in high school government classes across the state in March 2015, is the primary point of contact for GOP voters.

“In Ohio, everyone is riding Rob Portman’s coattails,” said Donald Larson, a Republican who is challenging Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur.

So what is the driving force behind the Strickland campaign's total implosion?

I've been saying it for months, and I'll say it again. I believe Ted Strickland's stunning and sudden loss in support can be laid squarely at the feet of his decision to abandon gun owners.

I also predicted last month (when he was ten points behind) that his decision to run a pro-gun control tv ad (showing in limited markets because of his fundraising woes) would only hasten his campaign's demise. Since that ad ran, he has dropped another seven points, and instead of revcersing course, Strickland is now campaigning in Ohio with NRA F-rated U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), calling for new gun restrictions, including a gun registration scheme he calls "universal" background checks on firearm purchases, and prohibiting gun sales to people on the federal terrorism watch list without due process of law.

Ted Strickland began his campaign with as much as a ten point lead over Senator Portman. But it is commonly known that most voters don't pay attention until closer to an election. And so, when Quinnipiac first began polling, voters were clearly unaware that:

• In 2010, after his narrow defeat to John Kasich, 2010, Strickland turned his back on the gun rights community that had kept his re-election race competitive, naming an anti-gun appointment to the Ohio Supreme Court.
• In 2012, Strickland insulted gun owners' intelligence by trying to get them to ignore Barack Obama's already-abysmal record of support for gun control, endorsing the president's reelection bid and claiming that Obama "supports and respects the Second Amendment."
• In 2014, Strickland went to Washington D.C. to take what he calls his "dream job" as president of the Center for American Progress - a liberal, anti-gun think tank that supports national regulation of concealed carry licenses, monthly background checks for permit-holders and reckless lawsuits that would put American gun manufacturers out of business. He has bragged the anti-Second Amendment group "paid me more money than I've ever made in my life."

As voters began paying attention, however, as the 2016 primary got underway, they have watched a man they believed was a supporter of their rights attack them at every turn. As their country fell under attack from radical Islamic terrorists, they have seen Strickland join the gun control chorus that blames Americans and the Second Amendment. They have heard him call for a so-called "universal" background check gun registration scheme. They have noted that Strickland now favors a so-called "assault weapons" ban. In a campaign email following the terror attack in Orlando, Strickland even announced that he was joining Senate Democrats who staged a filibuster on the floor of the U.S. Senate to demand action on gun control.

Voters have finally become aware that former Governor Ted Strickland completely and totally lost his way in Washington D.C. This truth is now even hitting home in his own local area of Southeast Ohio. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

The war at home: Strickland's native home of Southeast Ohio has long served as his base of political support. But as I write, Strickland is at risk of losing parts of the region – partly because of a relentless wave of attack ads by Portman and his allies, partly because Southeast Ohio has already been turning Republican, and partly because of discontent with Strickland over local issues.

The discerning news media consumer will read "discontent with Strickland over local issues" as code for "he sold his strongly pro-gun supporters down the river."

It's gotten so bad, in fact, that Strickland had to apologize after audio surfaced revealing that he believes the death of United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - author of the Heller decision affirming the individual Constitutional right to bear arms - "came at a good time," all to the applause and laughter of his audience.

The audio can be heard here:

Meanwhile, in the wake of the San Bernadino and Orlando terror attacks and despite media misrepresentation, voters have watched as Senator Portman stood firm, insisting on due process rights be maintained for those wishing to make gun purchases who are named on the terror watchlist. They've seen Portman join other senators in refusing to hold hearings on President Obama's latest anti-gun rights Supreme Court nominee. They've learned than Portman's vote was a key to the defeat of the anti-gun Manchin-Toomey legislation that was proposed in the wake of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. They've seen him join 50 colleagues in the U.S. Senate in sending a letter to President Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating that a U.N. treaty infringing on the constitutional rights of American gun owners is unacceptable, and promising to continue to oppose the ratification of The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty and any treaty that restricts the rights of law-abiding Americans to manufacture, assemble, possess, transfer, or purchase firearms, ammunition and related items.

In short, the voters are learning that Rob Portman went to Washington D.C. and did exactly as he promised. Ted Strickland went to Washington and sold his political soul to the gun-ban extremists for a quarter of a million dollars.

And as they view the actions of these two men when it comes to their Second Amendment rights, the polls have shown voters shifting farther and farther away from Strickland and toward Senator Portman.

Last month, Buckeye Firearms Association's political action committee (BFA PAC) announced our endorsement of U.S. Senator Rob Portman for re-election.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.

Related Articles:

TV ads show Strickland doubling down on sharp left turn to gun control

Portman stands firm on gun purchases and the terror watchlist despite media misrepresentation

Ted Strickland says Heller author's death "came at a good time"

Pro-gun Ted Strickland: Remember when?

Headline: "Despite pledge, Obama endorses pro-gun Strickland for Senate"

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