Saturday, September 23, 2000
Ted Celeste falling further behind
UC poll shows DeWine gaining in race for Senate
By Liz Sidoti
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — The Democratic challenger trying to unseat Sen. Mike DeWine says he's not concerned about a poll released Friday that shows him falling further behind in the race.
“The important time frame when people are paying attention is the last few weeks before the election,” said Ted Celeste, adding that he plans to step up his campaigning beginning this weekend.
And, Mr. Celeste said, President Clinton's attendance at the Ohio Democratic Party convention Oct. 7 in Columbus should give him a boost.
Mr. DeWine, a Republican running for a second term, leads Mr. Celeste 63 percent to 31 percent, according to a new Ohio Poll. His lead widened to 32 percentage points from 27 points in a similar Ohio Poll in July.
At 59 percent, fewer Democrats expressed support for Mr. Celeste than is typical at this point in Ohio statewide elections, said Eric Rademacher, director of the Ohio Poll at the University of Cincinnati's Institute for Policy Research.
“He's losing a lot of Democratic support we expect to come back,” Mr. Rademacher said, noting that polls in other elections have shown Democrats usually end up voting for their party's nominee.
Mr. Celeste needs to win more than 100,000 votes in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County to offset GOP strongholds in central and Southwest Ohio.
But the poll says he's behind Mr. DeWine in Cleveland by 37 percentage points.
Mr. Celeste said his strategy is simple: “Be there more. I plan on spending 50 percent of my time in Cleveland.”
Campaigning, however, is expensive; and while Mr. Celeste won't say how much money his campaign has left, he admitted Mr. DeWine is much better off.
Mr. Celeste said he will continue to hold fund-raisers and that the U.S. Senate Campaign Committee has told him it will give money for his race, but hasn't said how much.
Also, Mr. Celeste still is counting on union support, despite labor having said it will mainly be giving money to Al Gore's presidential campaign and Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick's campaign against challenger Terrence O'Donnell, an appeals court judge.
Mr. Celeste, the brother of former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste, had 83 percent name recognition among likely voters in the poll, compared with 98 percent for Mr. DeWine.
The University of Cincinnati conducted the poll of 628 likely voters by phone Sept. 5-16. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Candidates John Eastman of the Natural Law Party and John McAlister of the Libertarian Party had 2 percent support each.
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