Ohioans generally like all of their prominent cities—all of them, that is, except Youngstown. Only 22% of Ohio voters see that city positively, with 34% registering a negative opinion.
The capital, Columbus, is the most popular of eight cities we asked the state’s voters about. 57% see it favorably and only 15% unfavorably. That edges out Cincinnati (51-17).
Between the top two and Youngstown are Dayton (41-20), Canton (37-16), Akron (39-20), Toledo (34-22), and Cleveland (38-33).
For whatever reason, women view Cleveland (41-27) and Youngstown (24-27) much more highly than do men (36-40 and 20-41, respectively). There are much smaller gender gaps for the other cities.
Part of the gender difference is tied up in partisanship; women are more likely to be Democrats than are men, and men more likely to be Republicans. Cleveland and Youngstown are the most polarizing Ohio cities on political lines. Democrats see Cleveland positively by a 27-point margin, while Republicans see it negatively by 12 points and independents by seven. Democrats like Youngstown by five points, but Republicans dislike it by 21 and independents by 26. Toledo is also divisive on this front—Democrats with a +30 and Republicans only a +1 and independents a -2 favorability spread for it.
There are much less stark divisions for the other cities, though Democrats like all the rest better than Republicans do. Democrats are more likely to live in cities than Republicans are, and partially because of that, we found nationally and in other states where we've asked about cities that Democrats generally see them more positively than do Republicans.
Unlike when PPP polled all Americans on cities nationwide, the partisan gaps are not explained much by race; there is very little difference between white and black voters on Ohio’s cities.
Full results here