Marathon Pundit: OHSen: Portman leading Fisher only half of good news for GOP

We heard ad nauseum during the last few election cycles, "As goes Ohio, so goes the nation."

If that is the case in 2010, the Republican Party could end up having much to celebrate in November.

Congressional Quarterly reports on a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that not only shows Republican Rob Portman leading Democrat Lee Fisher in the race for Ohio's open US Senate seat, it delivers more good news for the GOP:

Head-to-head ballot test:

Portman, a former White House budget director and ex-congressman, 43 percent.
Fisher, the current lieutenant governor, 36 percent.
Certain they're going to vote: 75 percent of Republicans surveyed, 52 percent of Democrats surveyed.

Sample sizes: 600 registered voters, of whom 417 who said they were likely to vote.

In the field: Aug. 6-8.

Margin of error: 4.3 percentage points for the "likely voter" sample, 4 points for the larger sample.