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Hillary Clinton will win Ohio easily: Rep. Tim Ryan

By Nicole Goodkind and Rick Newman

If Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016--as every sentient being expects--she’ll win Ohio easily, an up-and-coming Democratic Congressman from the Buckeye State tells Yahoo Finance. And the winner in Ohio has won the White House in 27 of the 29 presidential elections since 1900, making the Buckeye state the No. 1 presidential bellwether.

Rep. Tim Ryan, who has represented Ohio’s 13th district since 2003, told Yahoo Finance recently that “Ohio is Hillary Clinton country. There's no question about it. They love Bill Clinton. They are nostalgic for his kind of thoughtful leadership.”

Ryan points out that Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in the Ohio primary by a convincing margin when both were vying for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Clinton won 53.5% of the vote; Obama, 44.8%. And Obama went on to win Ohio by slim margins in the 2008 and 2012 general elections, which suggests Hillary could have an easier time in the hard-fought swing state.  “She has a lot of those supporters [still] there,” Ryan says.

Clinton hasn't formally declared her candidacy yet, but a March 5th Quinnipiac University Poll shows her to be the top choice of 56% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters nationwide. The same poll showed Hillary beating all potential Republican candidates by 3 to 10 percentage points. And she had the highest favorability rating of any potential candidate, of either party, among all voters.

In Ohio, a February 3rd Quinnipiac Poll found that Hillary Clinton had a double-digit lead over top-tier Republican candidates. That could change, of course, once a single Republican candidate emerges and (presumably) unifies the party.

Republican National Committee Press Secretay Allison Moore thinks it will change. "Clearly Hillary Clinton’s allies think she’s entitled to Ohio’s 18 electoral votes," she wrote to Yahoo Finance in an email, "but voters there are overwhelmingly opposed to the third term she is offering for the Obama Administration’s failed policies.

Clinton still faces hurdles, needless to say. For the past week she’s been mired in controversy over her use of a private email address—powered by a server the Clintons owned personally--during her time as secretary of state. At a press conference this week, Clinton expressed a modicum of regret over the unusual, and possibly unique, arrangement. “Looking back, it would've been better if I'd simply used a second email account,” she said.

The email brouhaha feeds concerns among some voters that the Clintons are sneaky and ethically tone-deaf. “Ohioans know Hillary as someone who can’t be trusted,” Ohio GOP communications director Chris Schrimpf wrote to Yahoo Finance in an email. “Someone who deletes emails she doesn’t want the public to see.” Still, the Quinnipiac poll that put Hillary in the national lead was taken after the email scandal broke, suggesting voters aren’t that concerned about it. Plus, the election is still 22 months away.

[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]

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