Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and former Ohio governor Ted Strickland. (AP)

P.G. Sittenfeld has delivered sweeping policy speeches, poked his opponents, and ignited a battle inside the Ohio Democratic Party. But he hasn’t made a dent in public opinion.

A new poll released Tuesday shows the Cincinnati city councilman remains widely unknown outside Queen City, more than seven months after he first announced he would run for the U.S. Senate.

Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld (Al Behrman, AP)

As far as Buckeye State voters are concerned, that is a contest between Republican Sen. Rob Portman and former Democratic governor Ted Strickland.

And if the election were held today with those two names on the ballot, the race would be too close to call, according to the poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. Forty-four percent of Ohio voters said they would support Strickland, while 41% said they would vote for Portman.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, called that progress for Portman because he had trailed in polls earlier this year.

If Portman faced Sittenfeld as the Democratic nominee, the Republican would win 46% to 25%. The poll found that 88% of Ohio voters don’t know enough about Sittenfeld to form an opinion of him

That is essentially unchanged from the last Quinnipiac poll taken in June, which found that 85% of Ohioans said they didn’t know enough about Sittenfeld and that Portman would beat the city councilman 49% to 24%.

The pollsters talked to 1,096 Ohio voters from Aug. 7 to Aug. 18, and the results have a margin of error of 3 percentage points.