By Spencer Hunt
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - A statewide poll released Wednesday gave Republican state Treasurer Joe Deters something he's never had in his re-election campaign: a lead.

The Ohio Poll shows Mr. Deters, who lagged behind Democrat Mary Boyle in previous polls, ahead by seven percentage points, 49 percent to 42 percent. Nine percent were undecided.

With the exception of one close Supreme Court race, the Ohio Poll shows other GOP candidates beating Democrats by wide margins.

Gov. Bob Taft, for example, held a 16-point lead over Democrat Tim Hagan (54 percent to 38 percent) going into Wednesday night's debate. Three percent preferred independent John Eastman, while 5 percent were undecided.

The poll of up to 471 likely voters surveyed by telephone between Oct. 10 and Oct. 20 has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 to 5 percentage points.

Democrats immediately branded the poll inaccurate and misleading, pointing to the long time, 10 days, it took to get responses from a relatively small number of likely voters.

"I'm not even sure where to start pointing out the problems in this poll," said Dennis White, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

Jerry Austin, Mr. Hagan's campaign manager, said a SurveyUSA poll conducted for Cincinnati's WCPO-TV (Channel 9) was a better indicator of the governor's race.

That automated telephone survey of 1,312 likely Ohio voters between Oct. 15 and Oct. 20 showed Mr. Taft ahead by only 7 percentage points, 51 percent to 44 percent, with 5 percent undecided. The poll had a 2.8 percentage-point margin of error.

Eric Rademacher, Ohio Poll director, defended his poll and its methods as accurate and fair. He said the poll has correctly picked the winning candidate, and the outcome of every ballot issue it has projected, since 1994.

In the Ohio Poll, sponsored by the University of Cincinnati, the number of likely voters responding to poll questions shrinks from 471 people in the governor's race to 389 people in the Supreme Court race between GOP Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Democratic Common Pleas Judge Janet Burnside.

The margin of error climbs from 4.5 percentage points in the governor's race to nearly 5 percentage points in the Stratton-Burnside contest.

Mr. Rademacher called the drop-off of voters normal and said they do not cloud the results. He also said results taken each day over the 10 days of the survey showed no dramatic changes in support or opposition for any of the candidates, which would raise questions about accuracy.

In automated polls, such as SurveyUSA's, a computer dials a number from a sample survey. The questions are prerecorded. Respondents use the touch pad on their telephone. Mr. Rademacher said it can be difficult to know if a registered voter is actually the person punching numbers.

"The bottom line is any time you're in the political realm you're going to make someone happy and someone else unhappy with the results of your poll," he said.

Deters campaign officials were predictably happy.

"It's still a very close race," said spokeswoman Lisa Peterson. "We think that our positive message has started to break through."

Previous statewide polls, including the Ohio Poll, showed Mr. Deters trailing Ms. Boyle by seven, three and two percentage points.

He has been under fire for bankrolling his campaign with donations from bankers and others who do business with the treasurer's office.

Most of these polls were conducted before Mr. Deters' $1.6 million television ad blitz hit the airwaves in Ohio's major media markets. Ms. Boyle expects to be on television sometime during the last week of the campaign.

Brian Rothenberg, a consultant working for Ms. Boyle, echoed his fellow Democrats.

"If a poll is supposed to be a snapshot of the race, this one was ruined by overexposure," he said.

Mr. Taft's campaign spokesman, Orest Holubec, said he thinks the SurveyUSA poll was misleading, but he said the governor has always campaigned as if the race were close.

In the races for Ohio's other statewide offices, the Ohio Poll shows Republican Jim Petro leads Democrat Jim Herington 61 percent to 30 percent for attorney general. For state auditor, Republican Betty Montgomery leads Democrat Helen Smith 66 percent to 26 percent.

In the Secretary of State race, incumbent J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, is ahead of Democratic state Rep. Bryan Flannery 57 percent to 35 percent.

Republican Lt. Governor Maureen O'Connor also leads Democratic Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Tim Black 58 percent to 23 percent in a race for an open Ohio Supreme Court seat.

Poll results continue to show a tight contest between Justice Stratton and Judge Burnside of Cuyahoga County. Ms. Stratton leads 38 percent to 31 percent, with nearly a third of likely voters undecided.

That makes it the biggest question mark of the Ohio 2002 campaign season. Their race has been targeted by competing business and labor groups looking to tip the balance of power among the court's seven justices.

"That's the unknown factor right now," Mr. Rademacher said of the third-party ads. "We'll have to step back and see what effect they have."

E-mail shunt@enquirer.com