Poll: Ohio union members give Obama and Sherrod Brown huge leads

The AFL-CIO conducted a poll of Ohio union members on Monday that offers a lot to like. Both President Barack Obama and Sen. Sherrod Brown lead by identical 41-point margins, 70 percent to 29 percent. Among early voting union members, Obama has 79 percent to Romney's 21 percent. Perhaps most impressively,

Obama's support among Ohio union members has increased by five percentage points since 2008. Our Election Night and post-election polling in 2008 showed Obama winning 65% of the Ohio union vote, so even accounting for each poll's margin of error, Obama currently is performing at least as well among Ohio members, if not better, than he did in 2008.

Ohio union members are 83 percent white, 40 percent evangelical, and 53 percent gun owners; Obama is winning 65 percent of the white union vote, 50 percent of the evangelical union vote, and 59 percent of the union gun owner vote. And these votes are coming from where people stand on the issues: overwhelming majorities of Ohio union members oppose raising the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security and lowering Social Security benefits. They support federal unemployment insurance and funding to prevent layoffs of teachers, fire fighters, and police officers. And when it comes to Mitt Romney specifically, 62 percent of Ohio union members said that his support for the anti-union Senate Bill 5 (Issue 2 in 2011) made them less likely to vote for him.