Interesting, but not unexpected results.
As I've been saying since February, I think that the great question of the 2008 campaign will be whether Barack Obama can unite Democrats to a great enough degree to win. (Corollary to that is the question of whether John McCain can unite Republicans enough to take advantage of any Clinton-Obama fallout, and to overcome the massive partisan advantages of Democrats this year.)
Real Clear Politics takes a stab at answering the question of how many Clinton supporters will support McCain, using current (very early!) polling:
Luckily, we have some data from Quinnipiac's recent swing state survey that gives us some indication of how Clinton primary voters in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are feeling. As you can see, Florida closely mirrors the national numbers but the trend is more pronounced in Pennsylvania and especially Ohio, where the net change (drop in support for Obama/increase in support for McCain) reaches 22 and 29 points respectively:
Again, it should be noted that Obama increased his lead over McCain in every Quinnipiac state poll, indicating that despite whatever lingering fallout exists with Clinton supporters, Obama is more than making up the difference with gains among other groups.
Still, it should give the Obama campaign a bit of a pause to see that, at least for the moment, one in four Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries in both Ohio and Pennsylvania indicate they will crossover to vote for McCain in the fall.
I really need to sit down and do my own analysis on this. I keep waffling on whether Obama is doing a great job winning Clinton supporters and I just haven't had a chance to compile and drill down into any real data yet. But I wanted to share this anyway.
Study: News media bias can net mistakes at the ballot box
A recently released news article from the UIUC shows that our news media bias does have an impact at the ballot box. Some interesting quotes are below.
"...even though voters typically take the spin into account rather than following blindly and that the media only slant news rather than falsifying it, selective reporting can still factor into mistakes at the polls...
"One of the authors is quoted as saying "Biased media suppresses information that is unfavorable to ‘their’ candidate, and even smart voters cannot completely recover the truth from their reports"
"Media bias could play an even bigger role in this year’s presidential race because Obama is still a relative unknown whose positions and past will be selectively reported as they surface during the campaign"
"The problem is to avoid making mistakes you’re asking voters to work harder, and it’s not necessarily in their self-interest to do that,” Bernhardt said. “So there’s this paradox. Becoming better informed could potentially help everybody else because we would vote better and wouldn’t make mistakes. But people don’t internalize the consequences for everybody else, they only internalize their own. So they under invest in information. Most do.”
Since Hillary Clinton's withdrawal from the race, Barack Obama has gotten about a five-point bounce in state-by-state polling.
I've said before that if John McCain continues to campaign as if he's not interested in winning, that he's going to get clobbered, if for no other reason than the political climate, despite Obama's glaring weaknesses as a general election candidate. That now appears to be coming to fruition.
And I was talking to an Illinois GOP County Chairman yesterday who said to me, "I've never heard so many Republicans who are disappointed with the nominee." I'm noticing the same thing.
UPDATE: More, from Real Clear Politics. This is starting to feel like Bob Dole redux.
Two more primaries, and two more relatively static results in the Democratic race for President. The media meme about yesterday's results is that Obama beat expectations, so Hillary should drop out, but the racial breakdowns in IN and NC remained almost unchanged from earlier Primaries.
Obama won black voters overwhelmingly, getting 91 percent in NC and 90 percent in Indiana. Clinton won white voters convincingly, getting 60 percent in NC and 61 percent in IN.
As race seems to have the most consistent correlation with vote preference in this primary, the actual results from state to state aren't varying that much from what can be predicted by the demographics and turnout projections. FiveThirtyEight.com had some long predictions yesterday, using polling and some complicated statistical analysis, but they came very close to being right simply by using racial breakdowns and turnout predictions.
I'll also note the strange meme wondering whether Obama can collect enough votes from whites motivated by race, even while nobody is mentioning that black voters are consistently and overwhelmingly supporting the candidate who shares their skin color.
As I've said since Super Tuesday, the Dem race seems pretty static to me, despite the roller coaster of coverage. The 2008 general election will likely hinge on whether the eventual Democratic nominee (still almost certainly Obama) can win over enough of Clinton's supporters, given the unprecedented length and vigor of the Democratic race. Yesterday's exit polls indicated yet again that Democratic voters are becoming more attached to their candiate and more averse to the other candidate:
Nearly six in ten Obama supporters in Indiana say they would be dissatisfied if Clinton were the nominee -- that's (I believe) the high percentage of Obama supporters who have ever said that.
In both IN and NC, two thirds of Clinton supporters say they'd be dissatisfied if Obama were the nominee -- I believe that's the highest number recorded for that question, too.
The percentage of Clinton voters who say they'd choose McCain over Obama in a general election is approaching 40% in Indiana. Put it another way: in North Carolina, less than HALF of folks who voted today for Hillary Clinton are ready to say today that they'd definitely vote for Obama in a general election.
The general election will be decided based on this. Obama supporters are convinced that Democrats will come home, because they're motivated by issues and Obama is right on their issues. I understand the importance of issues, as you've seen from criticisms of the GOP over the years, yet I still think many voters are motivated by personalities and biographies, and while I don't doubt that many Clinton supporters will eventually support Obama, I think a significant percentage (10 percent? 20 percent) will not, due to the animosities and attachments created during this Primary.
And those are the key questions for November: How many Clinton supporters will not support Obama, and how well can Obama do with white voters, given his inability to win them in the recent Democratic Primaries?
This is quite a fix for a polling junkie like me: pollster rankings:
The essential lesson here is not to give deference to 'name-brand' pollsters, or those that are associated with large news organizations. Of our six strongest pollsters, the first two are Internet-friendly operations that use the IVR ('robocall') method, while the next four are boutique or academic shops that limit their polling to a given region. The strongest pollster associated with a large news organization is Mason-Dixon, which conducts polls for The McClatchy Company and MSNBC. However, other major media polling shops, such as FOX / Opinion Dynamics and CBS/New York Times, have considerably underperformed over time. Likewise, some 'brand name' pollsters, like Zogby and Gallup, have had quite poor results.
Good stuff.
For several weeks, though the Rev. Wright and "bitter" stories, that I doubted they would have much impact among Democratic Primary voters (who I think mostly have made their decisions weeks or months ago), and that I wanted to see exit polling from Pennsylvania to see if those stories had any impact among Democratic Primary voters:
They didn't, as most of these figures are close echoes of the exit polling for other recent Democratic Primaries in midwestern states, and are eerily similar to Ohio's exit polling:
Clinton has now won white men in 12 states and Obama has done the same in 10 states.
Obama did win more than nine in 10 black voters, continuing his unbroken support of African-Americans. And Clinton continued her trend of winning white women in all but a couple of contests.
There are other breakdowns, among education level and income, which were also roughly as expected and as we've seen before.
To me, the great determining (and unanswered) question of the 2008 general election is who wins white voters, especially white male voters. If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee (which I still think is a near certainty), can he convince white voters who haven't supported him in Democratic primaries in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to support him in a general election? Or, to put it another way, which factor will have a stronger correlation to candidate support in November - demographic factors like race, gender, income, etc. or partisan/issue factors?
UPDATE: Here's another more explicit and detailed comparision between OH and PA exit polls.
And both Clinton and Obama can now make the case to superdelegates that they lead in the much-ballyhooed popular vote.
I saw this yesterday, and while it's only one poll, (and it's Gallup), I thought it was worth discussing.
Interesting tidbits:
McCain came roaring back, winning the New Hampshire primary and then clinching the Republican nomination. His current favorable rating represents a gain of 26 points since last summer, including an 11-point increase since he won enough delegates to ensure his nomination on March 4.
And:
Both Obama and Clinton have slightly higher favorable ratings among Democrats now than they had in February, suggesting that the negative infighting that has characterized the Democratic campaign in recent weeks is not damaging either candidate's image in the eyes of the party faithful.
And:
McCain gets an extraordinarily high 52% favorable from Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, while Obama gets a 39% favorable rating from Republicans and Republican leaners. Clinton, on the other hand, receives only a 20% favorable rating from Republicans and Republican leaners.
McCain is also helped by the fact that he receives an 87% favorable rating from Republicans, higher than the 80% and 79% that Clinton and Obama, respectively, currently receive from Democrats.
So I'm one of 13 percent of Republicans who do not have a favorable impression of McCain. Figures.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1444
Obama is picking up endorsements (Garrison Keillor, Rory Kennedy and Maria Shriver) left and right.
Tuesday is starting to look more and more interesting!
(Thanks to Capitol Fax for the poll link!)
CapFax is teasing a poll that has Gov. Blagojevich's positive/negative at 20/63. Rich has also been saying for a few weeks that he's been told that Blagojevich is certainly running for re-election in 2010.
Go here for more, with more promised for tomorrow.
Over the weekend, the Chicago Tribune released a poll of Presidential preferences for Illinois Republicans and Democrats.
Favorite son Barack Obama holds a 2-1 advantage over native daughter Hillary Clinton among Democrats looking to cast ballots in Illinois' Feb. 5 presidential primary, but voters are split between the two when asked who has the best chance of winning the White House, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows.
Among Republican voters in the state, the poll shows that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's surge of support in Iowa also has reached Illinois. He and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani are in a virtual dead heat atop the list of GOP contenders, though few of those polled said they believe Huckabee would win the general election.
Discuss.
I was surprised to read on Real Clear Politics this morning that John McCain has passed Fred Thompson to move into second place in the Real Clear Politics polling averages.
Discuss.
This one was conducted by ISU IWU, and the approval/disapproval question had slightly different wording than yesterday's Rasmussen poll:
2. Would you say that you generally approve or generally disapprove of the way that Rod Blagojevich is handling his job as governor of Illinois?
23% approve
60% disapprove
18% Other/undecided/NR...
4. Would you say that you generally approve or generally disapprove of the way George Bush is handling his job as President?
21% approve
69% disapprove
If you remember yesterday's post, I cited a November 2002 article that had George Ryan's disapproval at 69 percent, which means Gov. Blagojevich is slightly better than that, and President Bush is right around it.
Once again, this was brought to us by CapFaxBlog. Discuss.
From the good people at Capital Fax Blog, we bring you this Rasmussen Reports poll of Illinois:
BUSH TOTALS: 31% good or excellent… 68% fair or poor… (32 and 67 in Rasmussen’s August poll)
BLAGOJEVICH TOTALS: 16% good or excellent… 83% fair or poor… (22 and 78 in Rasmussen’s August poll)
Those are terrible numbers for both the President and Governor, but much, much worse for the Governor. I don't know if it's possible to recover from numbers like that.
For some context, this is from November 2002, just as Blagojevich was winning election for the first time, and Ryan was just getting ready to leave office:
Arguably, there have been other defining moments in Ryan’s tumultuous four years as governor. But after that statement at the mansion, after Bauer was convicted, Ryan’s job approval ratings plummeted to historic lows, never to rebound. A proud man, Ryan chose not to run for re-election. In August, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his disapproval rating was 69 percent.
The results aren't exactly analagous, as the questions aren't worded the same way, but it's probably safe to say that Blagojevich's approval is in George Ryan territory.
One thing that I do know that if I were a Democratic candidate on the ballot in 2008, I'd be nervous about my opponent tying me to the Governor. I think we'll see lots of "Democrat X is close to Blago" and "Republican Y is close to Bush" attacks next year regardless.
There are also Presidential head-to-head matchups in Illinois (although there are no interparty results):
And:
Of course, Sen. Obama clobbers everyone in Illinois. There are some other issue-related questions in the poll, too, so read the whole thing.
Don't look now, but after a few weeks of a tightening race, Rudy Giuliani has bounced back to roughly a ten point lead over Fred Thompson in the Real Clear Politics Republican Presidential Primary polling averages.
Rudy also has regained the lead in the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking poll, which Thompson led briefly, and to which some of his supporters were pointing as evidence of his strength among more regular GOP Primary voters. In fact, Rasmussen is the only poll I've seen that has ever shown Thompson in the lead nationally, and now they no longer do.
Standard disclaimers: Rudy's my preferred candidate at the moment, but it's early, polling is only polling, the elections are state-by-state, yada, yada. Discuss if you like.
Capitol Fax has another poll of Illinois voters' Presidential preferences: (Previous results in parenthesis)
Democrats
Obama 51.1 (52.6)
Clinton 26.8 (24.6)
Edwards 6.1 (9.5)
Biden 1.8 (2.3)
Kucinich 0.6 (1.25)
Richardson 0.4 (2.4)
Dodd 0.4 (0.53)
Gravel 0.0 (N/A)
Undecided 12.8 (6.9)Republicans
Giuliani 33.5 (25.7)
McCain 18.9 (26.1)
F. Thompson 12.4 (17.4)
Romney 11.3 (10.2)
Huckabee 5.8 (N/A)
Paul 2.2 (N/A)
Brownback 1.5 (N/A)
Hunter 0.7 (N/A)
Tancredo 0.4 (N/A)
T. Thompson OUT (3.3)
Undecided 13.5 (17.2)
And:
Giuliani has a lead of 34% to 19% over Arizona Senator John McCain among respondents who said they would take a Republican ballot in the primary. Following in a close race for third are former Tennessee Senator and actor Fred Thompson (12%) and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (11%). Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee garners nearly 6%. About 14% have no opinion. (It should be noted that the survey was completed prior to Fred Thompson’s formal entry into the race and prior to former Illinois Governor James Thompson’s endorsement of Giuliani.)
Giuliani’s margin over McCain drops a bit when the voting pool is expanded to include all those who were asked the Republican preference questions (30%-19%). [This includes Republicans and independents leaning Republican who did not say what party ballot they would choose.]
The same decrease in his margin occurs when the pool is narrowed to those who indicated they are “very likely” to vote in the primary (31%-18%). These drops are a result of a small decline in Giuliani’s support rather than an increase in McCain’s. Among “very likely” voters, Fred Thompson’s support increases to 15% while Romney is at 12% and Huckabee at 4%. About 17% have no opinion.
The Republican race differs when the strength of Republican identification is taken into account.
For “strong” Republicans, Giuliani holds a lead of 35% to 18% over Fred Thompson. Romney is at 11%, McCain at 10% and Huckabee at 9%. About 12% have no opinion.
For possible Republican voters who are not “strong” Republicans, Giuliani holds a narrow 27% to 24% lead over McCain. Following are Romney (11%) and Fred Thompson (nearly 10%). Texas Congressman Ron Paul (nearly 4%) and Huckabee (3%) are next. One in five (20%) have no opinion.
Discuss.
I found this interesting:
Republicans
Giuliani 34 (+2 vs. August 13-16)
Thompson 22 (+3)
McCain 15 (+4)
Romney 10 (-4)
Huckabee 5 (+1)
Undecided 8 (-3)Republicans appear to be more comfortable with their choices now, as 70% say they are "generally pleased with the selection of candidates," a nine point increase from August.
Gallup also asked for Republican preferences in a two person race between Giuliani and Thompson, and Giuliani and Romney. Rudy currently beats Fred by 13 points (53-40) while Rudy crushes Romney by 45 points (68-23).
(Emphasis added.)
First, it's just one national poll, so even though it was taken after Fred Thompson's announcement, it's only one point of discussion. Rudy Giuliani still leads the polling aggregators by about 10 percent, but there's a long, long way to go.
Second, in a two-person, head-to-head race among GOP voters, Rudy Giuliani gets over 50 percent against Fred Thompson? If true, that would be incredible, and contrary to all the conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, I don't know of any other polls that have asked that question that way, so it's hard to judge. Instead, it's just another point for discussion.
Third, Mitt Romney is still at roughly 10 percent in national polls, but leads in both NH and IA by large margins. But he's the only candidate advertising in those states, and has been for awhile. I think his lead will evaporate when Fred, Rudy and John McCain start advertising, but his lead has lasted long enough that peeling it back may be tougher than I thought.
Fourth, I still think McCain's campaign is toast.
Discuss.
We had some polling on here from July showing Gov. Blagojevich's approval rating plummeting. Rasumussen has another poll that confirms it:
1. How do you rate the way that George W. Bush is performing his roll as President? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?
- 15% Excellent
- 17% Good
- 14% Fair
- 53% Poor
- 1% Not Sure
2. How do you rate the way that Rod Blagojevich is performing his roll as Governor? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?
- 5% Excellent
- 17% Good
- 25% Fair
- 53% Poor
- 1% Not Sure
I'm amused that somebody doesn't know the difference between "roll" and "role."
And I note that Gov. Blagojevich is more unpopular in Illinois than President Bush. And yet Senate President Emil Jones still stands staunchly with him, and the Senate Democrats still stand staunchly with Jones.
But does anyone think that any Illinois Republicans have demostrated the willingness and ability to take advantage of everything the Democrats have done to themselves this year?
(Hat tip: Capitol Fax Blog)
While some people think that I usually only post about GOP Presidential polling when I see something favorable to my current preferred candidate, Rudy Giuliani, I actually post when I find something that interests me. Often they're the same thing, as is the case with this latest CBS poll:
In all, 38 percent of Republican primary voters favor the former New York City mayor, a slight increase from last month. Senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson is next; he's favored by 18 percent of Republican primary voters, a seven-point drop from last month. Thompson has yet to officially announce his candidacy.
The third choice, at 13 percent, is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who improved five points from one month ago. He was followed by Arizona Sen. John McCain, who came in at 12 percent.
Republican primary voters appear to be growing more content with the Republican candidates for president: 46 percent say they are satisfied with their choices, up from 36 percent a month ago and 30 percent in June. But 49 percent say they are not satisfied.
Giuliani, defying conventional wisdom, continues to show strength among groups not expected to be favorable towards his candidacy. He leads the field among conservatives, those who live in the South and West, evangelical Christians, and voters who think that a candidate's personal life should be a factor in deciding whom to support.
First, this poll is probably an outlier - this is the largest margin for Rudy and his highest percentage since this Spring. One of the reasons I try to discuss polls in aggregate, using a site like Real Clear Politics, is that aggregation reduces the influence of outliers.
That said, this poll will have Rudy's lead back into the double-digits, which is also a first since this Spring, and I do think that's interesting enough to discuss a little more. As one can also see from the RCP chart, the trend appears to be (and I must stress the word "appears") that Rudy's support is increasing, while Fred Thompson's, after a boomlet in the late Spring, seems to have stalled. It's a small change, but after six or eight weeks of Rudy's average lead creeping from 18 to 13 to 8, watching it creep back up into the 10-12 range is noteworthy.
Second, there's still five months to go before first votes are cast, and things will change multiple times between now and then. Polls are a snapshot of today, and can be useful in anticipating outcomes - but the polls are not outcomes themselves.
We've had some energetic discussions around here about the polling for the 2008 Republican Presidential Primaries, and their reflection of Rudy Giuliani's strengths and weaknesses.
Here's two articles that are a good point/counterpoint:
Point - Will Giuliani be the next McCain?:
But what about the Republican "front runner", Rudy Giuliani? While he has consistently remained ahead in polls of Republican voters, and his campaign is in infinitely better financial shape than McCain's, Giuliani's trend in support is eerily similar to McCain's downward trajectory.
Since early March, Giuliani's support has fallen by an estimated 8 percentage points. McCain's fell by 10 points since January. And the rate of decline has been a bit steeper for Giuliani than for McCain. The saving grace for Giuliani has been that he started his decline from a higher point, around 33%, while McCain's slump started down from 25%.
Counterpoint - Giuliani Campaign's Analysis of Recent Trends:
- As the race developed early in the spring, the race quickly but briefly, developed in to a two-way race, and our initial bounce extended into the beginning of this two-way race. The two-way race divided most of the Republican primary vote between 2 major candidates -- the nature of a two-way race generally forces undecided or leaning voters to make a choice between the leading candidates and many broke our way.
- As McCain's trend line declined Mitt Romney's slowly rose and Fred Thompson entered the race. Senator McCain is still a candidate for President and continues to receive a substantial vote share.
- Fred Thompson now seems to be the beneficiary of an announcement (or pre-announcement) bounce. And Fred Thompson's entry to the campaign has effectively made this now a four-way race.
I should note that the Counterpoint is written by someone working for Rudy's campaign. Still, it provides for more interesting discussion, but please read both before commenting - the quotes I've selected aren't comprehensive, and there's lot's more in there. And while I'm supporting Rudy right now, I'm not sharing this information to "spin" for him. I actually enjoy discussing this stuff, even with people who support other candidates.
I should also spend more time discussing polling in the Democratic Primaries, but those polls have been so stable - Hillary Clinton with a consistent 10 to 15 point lead over Barack Obama - that there's little new for me to say.
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