Ohio voters dismiss false claims about Haitians, but Trump has slight lead, Post poll finds

Most Ohio voters don’t believe former president Donald Trump’s debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are “eating people’s pets,” and agree with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s defense of Haitians as hard workers who are in the United States legally, a Washington Post poll finds.

But Trump holds an edge of six percentage points over Vice President Kamala Harris among likely voters in the Buckeye State — 51 percent to 45 percent — similar to his eight-point winning margin four years ago. And a must-win Senate election for Democrats to keep control of the chamber is essentially tied, with 48 percent supporting Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and 47 percent supporting Republican Bernie Moreno, well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

For the past several weeks, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, have pushed false and dehumanizing claims about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, in the state’s southwest — doubling and tripling down even as local police and officials have said there is no evidence for such claims.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said at the ABC News debate with Harris on Sept. 10.

The furor over Springfield has reverberated in the state, with nearly half of Ohio voters saying they have read or heard “a lot” about the city’s Haitian immigrants, about one month after Vance and Trump began spreading the falsehoods and blaming the group for the city’s struggles.

The Post poll found that 24 percent think Trump’s comment that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets is “probably” or “definitely” true, while 57 percent say it is probably or definitely false. Sixteen percent say they aren’t sure.

The results are almost a mirror image of reactions to DeWine, who has said that Trump’s claims are not true and that the Haitian immigrants are in the United States legally and are hard workers. A 55 percent majority of Ohio voters say DeWine’s comments are true, while 26 percent say they are false and 18 percent are not sure.

Almost all Democrats say what Trump is saying is false, along with over half of independents, but Republicans are not as united. Among Ohio Republicans, 42 percent say Trump was telling the truth when he said Haitian immigrants are eating people’s cats and dogs, 29 percent say he was saying something false and 26 percent say they are not sure. Asked about DeWine’s defense of Haitians, 28 percent of Republicans say his comments were true, 42 percent say they were false and 27 percent are not sure.

DeWine, who was born in Springfield, wrote in a New York Times op-ed last month that the city has “a rich history of providing refuge for the oppressed and being a place of opportunity,” including notably being a stop on the Underground Railroad, before declining economically in the 1980s and 1990s. The influx of Haitian immigrants to Springfield has helped revitalize the city, he said.

“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield,” DeWine wrote. “This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.”

Since Trump and Vance began pushing their false claims, Springfield has received numerous bomb threats, prompting lockdowns at the city’s schools and other facilities. Last month, DeWine authorized the deployment of state troopers to the Springfield City School District “for the foreseeable future.”

Still, Trump vowed last month that, if elected again, he would conduct “large deportations” of migrants, starting in Springfield, regardless of the Haitians’ legal status. In an interview with NewsNation last week, Trump elaborated on that plan, vowing to revoke temporary protected status for thousands of Haitian immigrants who are living and working in the United States legally, and to return them to Haiti.

At least some Ohio voters appear to agree with Trump and Vance that Haitian immigrants are having a negative impact on the state. About 4 in 10 Ohio voters (42 percent) say Haitian immigrants in Ohio make the communities they live in worse, while 32 percent say they make them better, with 16 percent saying they make no difference.

Immigration is Moreno’s strongest issue in the Senate race, with 43 percent of registered voters saying the Republican would do a better job of handling it, while 37 percent prefer Brown. Some 46 percent of voters say immigration will be “extremely important” in their vote, trailing only the economy at 55 percent. Moreno also has a five-point edge on handling taxes and a four-point edge on crime and safety, issues that Ohio voters see as about as important as immigration.

By contrast, voters prefer Brown over Moreno by double digits to handle abortion (13 points) and health care (10 points), while the Democrat holds a five-point edge on helping the middle class. Voters split down the middle on which candidate they trust more to handle the economy, 41 percent apiece.

On abortion, 61 percent of Ohio voters say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 33 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Last November, an Ohio referendum measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution passed with 56.6 percent support.

Moreno possesses two other advantages in the Senate race: 51 percent of Ohio likely voters want Republicans to control the U.S. Senate, compared with 42 percent who want Democrats to control the chamber. In addition, a 39 percent minority of voters in the state approve of President Joe Biden’s job performance, and a 59 percent majority disapproves. At 48 percent support, Brown outperforms both support for a Democratic Senate and Biden’s approval rating, which might be dragging down his candidacy.

But Brown is more popular than his opponent, with 45 percent rating the Democratic senator favorably and 42 percent unfavorably. Moreno’s image is underwater, with 37 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable.

The poll found that Black voters in Ohio favor Brown by 72 percent to 24 percent for Moreno, similar to Harris’s margin over Trump (70 percent to 24 percent). While that’s a wide Democratic margin, the poll finds significantly higher Republican support among Black voters than in 2020, when exit polls found 8 percent supported Trump.

White Ohio voters favor Trump by 10 points over Harris but are divided in the Senate election, with 49 percent backing Moreno and 47 percent Brown. Among White voters without a bachelor’s degree, Brown trails Moreno by 17 points, compared with Harris’s 27-point deficit against Trump. White voters with college degrees support Democrats in both races by double digits.

This Washington Post poll of Ohio voters, conducted Oct. 3-7, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for both the overall sample and the sample of likely voters; all registered voters were assigned a probability of voting to produce likely voter results. The survey was conducted among 1,002 registered voters randomly sampled from a statewide database of Ohio registered voters. Sixty percent of interviewees were reached by live callers to cellphones; 18 percent were reached on landlines; and 22 percent completed the survey online after receiving a text invitation.