COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Republican Gov. John Kasich has a 15-point lead over his Democratic challenger, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, a new poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University shows.

Voters said they favored the governor 50 percent to 35 percent over FitzGerald in the poll. That compares to a five-point gap in Quinnipiac’s last Ohio poll, which was conducted in February. In that poll, Kasich held a 43-39 percent lead.

Kasich also scored support from more than 50 percent on other key questions.

Voters approved of his job performance 56 percent to 33 percent, the highest score he has received in a Quinnipiac poll since his election in 2010. And 53 percent said he deserves to be re-elected. Thirty-seven percent said no on that question.

The poll, conducted between May 7 and Monday, surveyed 1,174 registered voters by telephone. Interviewers called both land lines and cell phones. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

In the February poll, 70 percent of the Quinnipiac respondents said they did not know enough about FitzGerald to decide if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion. His campaign then viewed that, coupled with just a five-point overall gap, as a positive.

The former Lakewood mayor in his first term as county executive has never before run for statewide office.

The poll released Wednesday shows that is still an issue for FitzGerald.

Although his campaign has aired 60-second radio spots around the state that rap the governor's performance and laud FitzGerald for offering a better way, 63 percent of the respondents in the new poll still say they don't know him well enough to form an opinion.

Kasich, meanwhile, has been using some of his sizable campaign funding edge to buy television air time the last several weeks.

His first ad began airing April 15, a 60-second spot titled "Deliver" that is all about reintroducing the governor to Ohio's voters. Kasich's campaign followed that up with a second ad. More recently the Republican Governors Association has been airing an ad on his behalf.

“Democratic County Executive Ed FitzGerald remains unknown to many voters,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement. “Democratic optimists will argue that with six months until Election Day, FitzGerald has a golden opportunity to reach all those voters. He’s going to have to spend a lot of money on that introduction while the better-funded Kasich will introduce FitzGerald to those same voters in a much less flattering way.”

FitzGerald polled better among women than men, but still trailed the governor. Kasich’s lead among among men was 56 percent to 30 percent in the new poll. Among women, the governor leads 45 percent to 40 percent.

Forty-seven percent of the polls respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the governor, compared to 29 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

Ohio's jobless rate has fallen since Quinnipiac's last poll. -- from 6.5 percent in February to 6.1 percent in March. April's figures should be released shortly.

And the governor scored well on his handling of the economy.

“Voters give [Kasich] sterling grades for his job performance, especially on the economy,” Brown said. “He gets plus-50 percent approval ratings from voters on his handling of the economy and the state budget. These numbers are crucial because the economy and jobs are the most important issues in the minds of voters.”

Twenty-six percent of those polled said jobs was the most important issue to them in the gubernatorial election. The next closest was education, which 7 percent said was most important.

“Voters think Gov. Kasich deserves another term and two-thirds consider him a strong leader," Brown said. "A small majority says he cares about their needs, a measure on which Republicans, even successful ones, often don’t do that well. And perhaps most important for Kasich’s re-election, 60 percent of voters are satisfied with the way things are going in the state.”

Quinnipiac's poll follows one in April that also showed the governor with a widening lead.

A SurveyUSA poll of likely voters done for Columbus TV station WCMH Channel 4 had Kasich at 46 percent, FitzGerald at 36 percent.