GOP Fav/UnFavs

September 19, 2007 – 6:40 am

Favorability of Republican Candidates
Among Republicans/Republican Leaners
Sept. 14-16, 2007
 

Favorable

Unfavorable

No opinion
  % % %
Rudy Giuliani 70 22 9
John McCain 65 25 9
Fred Thompson 55 9 36
Mitt Romney 39 23 37

I thought this Gallup poll was fascinating.  There are two very different things going on here.

First, three of the GOP candidates have problems with, roughly, one quarter of the GOP base. Fred Thompson, is the only GOP candidate with low unfavorables inside the party. Let’s be clear, last month, analysts were pointing at McCain’s GOP Fav/UnFavs and they were used as prima facia evidence that he couldn’t win a GOP primary. If those arguments are correct, then neither can Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson.

It seems that based on these numbers, there are really three very distinct candidates. McCain and Giuliani have good numbers both inside the party and outside. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney are still, basically, unknown. However, Romney’s numbers inside the party suggest that there may be a ceiling. Thompson’s don’t so much.

The second point is the Fav/UnFav’s in the general electorate. Gallup says:

For most of the year, Giuliani has been the most favorably rated Republican candidate in the eyes of the American public. But in the current poll, McCain’s ratings have moved up to the point where he is essentially tied with Giuliani as the most positively evaluated of the four leading Republican candidates. More than half of Americans have a favorable opinion of McCain (53%) and Giuliani (52%). Thirty-eight percent rate Thompson favorably, and 27% favorably rate Romney. (It should be noted that the lower "favorable" ratings for Thompson and Romney are in part due to their overall lack of familiarity — 39% of Americans have no opinion of Thompson and 38% have no opinion of Romney.)

As Gallup notes in their title, Mitt Romney’s continued decline is a little striking:

While Romney’s favorable rating is the same as it was earlier this month, his unfavorable rating has increased and is now at its highest point to date (35%). Romney’s ratings had improved following his win in the Iowa straw poll in August, after which 33% rated him positively and 24% negatively. Since then, his ratings have quickly deteriorated. Romney now has a net negative image in the eyes of Americans (27% favorable, 35% unfavorable), as was the case in several polls this summer.

That said, Romney’s strategy is clear. The only numbers that matter to his campaign are in Iowa and New Hampshire. And he is doing fine there.

Again, it is clear that McCain and Giuliani are probably electable. Fred Thompson’s negatives are not a problem yet. If he is able to define himself, as opposed to his opponents in either the primary or the general, he could be in good shape.

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Republican primary voters still unaware Giuliani is pro-choice?

September 11, 2007 – 10:15 am

In what can only be described as a hit-job, the NYT ran a story about Rudy Giuliani in the presidential race… on 9-11? Part of the story was a poll.

This poll puts Rudy at 27% with Fred Thompson at 22%, John "Not Dead Yet" McCain at 18%, and Mitt Romney at 14%. So a clear majority.

But it also reports that only about 19% of Republicans know of any major issue that they disagree with the Mayor on. And 8% of that is abortion. 80% do not know of anything that they disagree with him on.

And 49% do not know that he is pro-choice.

Now, that’s not good news. Rudy’s margins in the polls have fallen sharply, and people still don’t know his positions on things like abortion.  Assuming that someone educates those voters at some point, his numbers will fall. And someone will pick those up. The question is who? And if Thompson is in second, I suspect that he picks them up.

UPDATE: Deal Hudson sees another problem.

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Evangelical, Republican Hispanics angry over immigration

September 4, 2007 – 4:01 pm

Recall that Catholic Hispanics are more likely to be Democrats while Evangelical Hispanics, especially Pentecostals, are more likely to be Republican. Of course, if they think that the Republican Party is a bunch of racists, the ball moves, or so says the head of a national Hispanic evangelical organization:

Mr. Rodriguez presides over the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which is the sister of the prominent National Association of Evangelicals. He is plugged in enough to participate in weekly White House conference calls. …

The defeat [of the comprehensive immigration reform bill] has Mr. Rodriguez wondering whether "the GOP is the party of Jeff Sessions, Tom Tancredo and James Sensenbrenner or the party of George W. Bush and John McCain?" In other words, those like Mr. Tancredo who strongly opposed immigration reform or those like Mr. Bush who strongly favored it.

Right now, Mr. Rodriguez thinks, "xenophobia has triumphed over an appreciation for diversity. They completely abandoned us."

Hint to the GOP. Moderate evangelicals are swing voters, as are evangelical Hispanics. They gave Bush 1.8m votes. Those are not margins we can throw away.



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What does state general election polling tell us?

August 23, 2007 – 11:54 am
  Virginia Kentucky Alabama
  vs. Hillary Undecided vs. Hillary Undecided vs. Hillary Undecided
Giuliani  -3  5%  -5 7%  +6 6%
Thompson  -9 7%  -7  5%  +2  4%
Romney  -14 8%  -12  6%  -2  6%

Survey USA released a bunch more general election polling, commented on by the Hedgehog Report and DaveG at Race42008.  Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney were matched up against Hillary in Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama. I have rearranged the data to show both margins and the %-undecided. SEveral things are worth noting.

First, the GOP is in bad shape in both Virginia and Kentucky due to reasons that have nothing to do with candidates. Kentucky has an election this year where a seemingly-corrupt Republican incumbent governor, Ernie Fletcher, is polling down 2-1. This election is probably framing people’s party identification strongly, and that election is in the papers on a daily basis. This poll illustrates the difficulties that Republicans have in that state. I suspect that once the catharsis of firing Fletcher happens, these numbers will adjust somewhat. Similarly, in Virginia, the state GOP has lost two governor’s races in a row with lousy candidates, and the state party has been rolled legislatively on taxes and transportation issues, the bread and butter. Virginia is now, again, a swing-state with popular Dem leaders.

In other words, Kentucky’s numbers are probably more result of the local environment, while Virginia’s actually represents something bad going on.

Second, these numbers show some important differences. Even in the South, Giuliani is performing in a tier above the other first-tier candidates, while Romney is polling a tier below the other first tier candidates. Romneybots will argue that this is due to name ID, but Gallup polling consistently indicates that Thompson’s name ID is lower than Romney’s but his performance in polling is (often substantially) higher. This is yet more evidence that Romney’s electability problem is real.

The inescapable conclusion is that people know things about Mitt Romney and don’t like him for it.

Third, these numbers are likely to move. People are going to learn things about Rudy Giuliani. (divorces, married first cousin, things about his record, etc.) that are going to move his numbers down. They are also going to learn things about Fred Thompson (thin record, blah blah) and Mitt Romney (flip-flopped on every issue in sight), but they both have the opportunity to frame that first impression.  In other words, Giuliani’s numbers will fall — they are a ceiling — while Romney and Thompson’s can still go up. Some.  The evidence suggests, however, that Thompson’s ceiling is higher than Romney’s.

On the other hand, there is probably nothing to learn about Hillary Clinton. After all, 3 books were written about her recently that were supposed to be interesting. They weren’t, and no one noticed.

In other words, these polls confirm our sense that things in some of these states are weird and that these will be tough elections. They don’t mean that much yet because so few people are paying attention. But we do know where some of the dragons aren’t.

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Romney’s electability problem

August 22, 2007 – 11:41 am
Survey of 800 Likely Voters
August 6-7 and August 8-9, 2007

Candidate

Def. FOR

Def. AGAINST

Net

Obama 29% 35% -6
Clinton 33% 43% -10
Giuliani 26% 37% -11
Thompson 20% 33% -13
Edwards 20% 38% -18
McCain 16% 35% -19
Romney 16% 44% -28

The argument for Mitt Romney being the frontrunner is building. His successes in the early states are remarkable. However, he does have a problem. Is he actually electable in a general? A Rasmussen poll suggests that the answer is a clear no.

Rasmussen has a monthly poll measuring the size of the electorate who won’t vote for someone. You can see the summarized results to the right. Hillary is clearly still a polarizing figure, but Mitt Romney is too:

The Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% of Likely Voters would definitely vote against Romney if he’s on the ballot in 2008. That’s a point higher than the 43% who would definitely vote against Clinton.

The bad news for Romney is that that is the good news. Here’s the bad news:

In terms of partisan reaction, it’s interesting to note that 25% of Republicans say they would definitely vote against Romney while 22% of Democrats would vote against Edwards.

2004 was a squeaker. Bush won by the skin of his teeth, with something like 90% of Republicans behind him. If Romney is losing 1-in-4, he is in deep, deep trouble.

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Gallup studies confidence in candidates on issues

July 31, 2007 – 10:17 am

I think that this is an interesting poll and analysis. Gallup asked people how much confidence they had in various candidates to solve various issues. I just have several quick observations.

First, McCain and Giuliani, with relatively hawkish positions still hold the trust of most of Americans. They have the confidence of over 40% of Democrats on the war, although it would be hard to find much space to the right of McCain, especially, on this issue. While over half of independents trust  them too. It is interesting that while McCain is to the right of Giuliani on this issue, GOPers trust him less. On the flip side, the reason that Obama does so well on this question is that almost 30% of Republicans trust him. Of course, no one trusts Hillary.

Trust in Candidate to Handle the War in Iraq
Results by Party

  Rep Ind Dem
 

%

%

%

Rudy Giuliani

75

52

41

John McCain

67

54

47

Fred Thompson

57

33

27

Mitt Romney

49

31

30


There are very similar dynamics on terrorism, although it is clear that Giuliani’s credibility on that issue is qualitatively different than other candidates.

I have two theories for why the other GOP candidates do not do as well on these questions. The first is that they are unknown. The second is that the overall preference for the Dems on Iraq, but not terrorism, does not adhere to Giuliani and McCain. They are in a class of themselves that is distinct in some meaningful way from the loss of faith in the GOP. It will be interesting to see if Thompson is able to break free of this.

In general, though, my conclusion from the national security numbers is that Giuliani and McCain are the only GOP candidates who will be able to maintain traditional GOP advantages on national security issues. Giuliani because of 9/11, and McCain because he is a war hero.

On domestic issues, it is not so good for the GOP . The healthcare numbers make it clear that Hillary Clinton is in a league of her own. 91% of Dems trust her. 60% of independents trust her. It turns out that she’s probably moved to the right on this issue since the debacle of 1993. I think that this is yet more evidence that talk of "Hillary Care" and "universal healthcare" is unlikely to scare off independent voters. That is something the GOP needs to keep in mind. While I have a lot of problems with Mitt Romney, (perhaps an understatement?) he is absolutely correct that the GOP is going to need a genuine response in this debate. The GOP is almost certainly losing Senate seats, and has a small chance of getting the House back. The Dems are going to be in the driving seat on this debate and will set the framework. We need something to sell.

Trust in Candidate to Handle the Healthcare System
Results by Party Affiliation
  Rep Ind Dem
 

%

%

%

Rudy Giuliani

71

46

43

John McCain

58

41

39

Fred Thompson

52

32

23

Mitt Romney

45

31

32

Barack Obama

42

61

81

John Edwards

36

50

75

Hillary Clinton

33

66

91


It doesn’t get any better on the economy for us. Clinton, Obama, and Giuliani are in the first tier of trust. The second tier is McCain, and too a lesser extent, Edwards. If the wheels come off the economy, as it seems it might, it is going to get even worse for us.

The lessons of these numbers probably are that we need to highlight national security and that McCain and Giuliani are the ones who are capable of that. In addition, it seems that we are just in trouble on almost any domestic issue. Yet another argument for Giuliani or McCain.

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What’s in the water in Missouri?

July 27, 2007 – 12:22 pm

Turns out that Missouri may be going Ohio on us. A new SurveyUSA poll has some bad, bad news about what must be the environment in Missouri:

Missouri Republican Governor Matt Blunt’s Job Approval numbers inched into positive territory in July 2007 for the first time since taking office, according to SurveyUSA’s monthly tracking poll, a dramatic improvement from the poor marks Missourians have given Blunt in his first term. Today, 48% of Missourians statewide approve of Blunt’s performance, 46% disapprove, a Net Job Approval of "Plus 2." This is the first month Blunt has ever had a "Plus" Net Job Approval. Plus 2 compares with Net Job Approvals of "Minus 30" in March 2006, and Minus 20 or more for most of the months of his administration. Exclusive SurveyUSA tracking data is here. Against this backdrop, Blunt can take no comfort in SurveyUSA’s first look-ahead to the 2008 MO governor election. In a head-to-head hypothetical matchup against Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, Nixon defeats Blunt 3:2, carrying every part of the state.

The numbers are 57%-38% overall. Missouri is a must-win state for nearly any electoral college math for the GOP. And they are looking to sack their governor? Oy.

Also, I find it ironic that Mitt Romney’s biggest governor catch may not be able to win re-election either…

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Rudy on the air in IA and NH linked to falling polls?

July 24, 2007 – 3:00 pm

So, Rudy Giuiliani is up on the air. The AP links these to Ames, but I wonder… Could these be linked to his falling poll numbers?

Stay with me for a second. I have long thought that MItt Romney’s numbers in the early states are somewhat inflated because he is on the air. Whenever you come off the air, your numbers fall again. Now, this is a theoretical statement. Perhaps Romney will simply stay on the air in the first 3-5 states through their primaries. In any case, when Romney went on the air, it was widely analyzed as being necessary to move the numbers.

So, in contrast, Rudy’s numbers may be falling, and he needs to move or stabilize his. Just a thought. Maybe not a good one. But what other theories are there for why they decided to go on the air now?

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McCain’s general election numbers … improving

July 20, 2007 – 11:18 am
  Hillary
  Zogby Fox
Giuliani Hillary +5 Hillary +5
McCain Hillary +3 Hillary +2

Now, normally, I don’t blog about day to do day polls. But …

Is John McCain going up in general election polls against Hillary, compared to Giuliani? In both of these, McCain is within the margin of error with Hillary.

This could illustrate the problem with the favorability numbers that I just used. Sounds like it is likely that McCain’s support is being maintained among moderates while he is struggling somewhat among GOPers.

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Romney vs. Thompson polling

July 20, 2007 – 10:37 am

The other day, I mentioned that Fred Thompson’s name ID was lower than Mitt Romney’s. I got some push back. Rasmussen has some numbers that confirm my assertion. This has been the case for a long, long time.

  GOP Overall
  Fav Unfav Image Unknown Fav Unfav
Giuliani 71 23 3.1 6 53 40
Thompson 61 17 3.6 23 44 31
Romney 56 31 1.8 13 37 43
McCain 54 39 1.4 7 44 46


Looking at these numbers, we see several things:

  1. Mitt Romney doesn’t have that much more room to grow. Very soon, more forward progress for him is going to depend on changing people’s minds about him, which is much, much harder than introducing him. And Romney’s continued negative press will make this hard. Now, his numbers will go up some when he advertises, so he has some hope. I want crosstabs to tell me who doesn’t like Romney.
  2. Fred Thompson is still not known by almost 1/4 GOPers. This is both an opportunity and a danger. If more stories like the abortion lobbyist story emerge, he might get introduced like Romney has been. But it seems that he can count on positive press.Romney
  3. Giuliani is cruising.
  4. McCain is struggling. Will probably take a significant change in context for him to come back.

These results, and the idea that Romney and Thompson are fighting for similar voters, suggests that Romney will continue to attack Thompson.

We also see that Thompson’s unfavorable among Democrats and/or independents offers him some hope in a general election.

The conclusions are the same that they’ve been in a while. Romney has been painted by something and someone. His general election candidacy is almost certainly not viable.  And to win the general, he probably has to go through Thompson.

It is just too early to tell for Thompson.

Now there’s another important issue: electoral votes. I am not sure that I see how either one of these guys really add electoral votes.

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