Ohio poll bad news for John Kasich, Hillary Clinton

John Kasich has slipped in his home state, a new poll shows — a shot to one of the Ohio governor's strongest selling points in his presidential bid.

For the first time, billionaire Donald Trump leads the GOP field in Ohio, with 23 percent of Republicans telling Quinnipiac University pollsters they'd vote for him. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson netted 18 percent among Republicans, while Kasich received 13 percent.

On the campaign trail, Kasich has touted his swing-state credentials, sometimes eliciting impressed murmurs from crowds when he mentions his landslide re-election victory over a weak Democratic candidate. No Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio. In previous polls in the Buckeye State, Kasich has led the GOP field, and polls as recently as June had shown he'd beat Hillary Clinton in a matchup in the purple state.

But Kasich's polling has suffered since his quiet performance in last month's GOP debate on CNN. After a remarkable first six weeks as a candidate, Kasich had polled as high as second in early-primary New Hampshire. But he's since drifted to a second tier with experienced politicians Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, while the frontrunners continue to feed off a wave of anti-establishment sentiment. The most recent recent poll in the Granite State cut Kasich's support in half, from 12 percent to 6 percent, risking another slide into territory behind Bush and Rubio.

"John Kasich's big card was his enormous popularity in Ohio, generally considered the most important swing state in the November election," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "The Ohio governor's campaign is going in the wrong direction."

Despite Kasich's slide in Ohioans' views toward 2016, he remains popular among his constituents, with 52 percent of Ohio voters saying they have a favorable opinion of him.

Beyond the swing-state bona fides, Kasich's team has targeted Ohio's March 15 primary as a major part of his strategy for winning the GOP nomination. The primary falls after the initial flurry of nominating contests. But it's early enough that a win could boost Kasich's candidacy if he's still in the running for the GOP nomination. And a win in Ohio would provide concrete evidence of the governor's strength in the bellwether state, whose electoral votes are so important to Republicans.

The Ohio poll also held bad news for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who has generally led most GOP candidates in poll matchups in Ohio. In the poll released Wednesday, she trails Carson 40 percent to 49 percent, and Sen. Rubio, of Florida, 41 percent to 45 percent. She narrowly loses to former Florida Gov. Bush and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, 41 percent to 43 percent in both matchups. She edges out Trump, 43 percent to 42 percent.

Pollsters did not test a Kasich-Clinton matchup.

The poll puts Clinton well ahead of other Democrats in Ohio, 40 percent to Vice President Joe Biden's 21 percent and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' 19 percent.

But Biden, who reportedly is close to deciding whether to run for president, fares better in Ohio than Clinton against GOP candidates. He trails Carson 42 percent to 46 percent. He edges out Fiorina 44 percent to 42 percent, and Rubio 46 percent to 41 percent. He soundly beats Bush 46 percent to 37 percent, and Trump 49 percent to 38 percent.

Sanders trails all GOP candidates besides Trump, whom he leads 44 percent to 41 percent.

Quinnipiac University pollsters called 1,180 Ohio voters from Sept. 25 through Oct. 5. The poll's general election matchups have a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points, while its primary matchups have a margin of error of just under 5 percentage points.