Ohio Senate: Brown, up in polls, releases ad featuring astronaut John Glenn

by Alexandra Jaffe - 10/31/12 6:13 PM ET

{mosads}In the ad, Glenn wonders what “Sherrod” means, and goes on to say that it means “our senator, who fought for the auto-industry rescue,” as well as “preserving Medicare and Social Security” and advocating “education and research to provide even greater opportunities for our children.”

The ad comes as a Rasmussen survey, University of Cincinnati Ohio poll and a CBS News/New York Times/Quinnipiac poll all put Brown ahead of Mandel.

The Rasmussen poll, conducted among 750 likely voters on Oct. 28, gives Brown 50 percent support to Mandel’s 48. It marks the first time in Rasmussen’s polling of the race that Brown has hit the 50 percent support mark, generally considered to be a comfortable threshold for a candidate seeking reelection.

That poll has a plus or minus 4 percentage point margin of error.

Another poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati, put Brown up by 5 percentage points, with 49 percent support to 44 for Mandel. That’s a slight decrease in support for both from the last poll, conducted in mid-October.

The Quinnipiac poll gives Brown a larger lead, with 51 percent support to Mandel’s 42 — larger than most polls of the race, but unchanged since the last CBS/Quinnipiac poll, conducted in mid-October, which gave them the same level of support.

The University of Cincinnati Ohio Poll was conducted among 1,182 likely voters from Oct. 25-30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.