Poll: Sherrod Brown 15 points ahead in Ohio Senate race

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has widened his lead over Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican challenging Brown's reelection, a poll released Thursday showed.

Likely voters in Ohio now prefer Brown to Mandel by a 15-point margin, according to the poll from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. One month ago, Brown had only an 8-point margin over Mandel.

Democrats' biggest concern about Brown's reelection has been that having President Obama on the ballot at a time when his approval ratings are so low would be a drag on Brown. But the poll also showed that Obama has increased his lead over the Republican presidential candidates in Ohio.

Most notable about the poll was that it surveyed likely voters in Tuesday's election, in which Ohioans overturned a GOP-backed bill restricting union negotiating rights but also passed a symbolic measure rejecting the individual mandate component of Obama's healthcare reform law.

"The Republicans who turned out, we found in the presidential poll as well as this poll, that they were more open to voting Democratic right now than generally we find Republicans in Ohio," said Dustin Ingalls of Public Policy Polling.

Brown's approval rating is still lower than Democrats would like, standing at 42 percent, with 33 percent disapproving. But it's a minor improvement over October, when 40 percent said they approved and 35 percent said they disapproved.

The survey of 1,022 likely Ohio voters was conducted through automated telephone interviews between Nov. 4-6 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.