Romney up in Iowa, but questions remain

May 23, 2007 – 11:51 am

Another poll indicates that Mitt Romney is leading in Iowa. I think that this is probably right, and the RCP average suggests that this is sustained. I have suggested that Romney is running a fantastic campaign in Iowa and in general.

It strikes me that this is soft though. Check out two other questions:

3. How important is it for the Republican presidential candidate to be a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan, very important, somewhat important, not very important, not important, undecided? (Republicans Only)
Very Important 42%
Somewhat Important 19%
Not Very Important 11%
Not Important 12%
Undecided 16%

4. Are you satisfied with the current field of announced Republican presidential candidates for 2008? (Republicans only)
Yes 29%
No 51%
Undecided 20%

Are they going to find that Romney is a Reagan conservative? Are the voters happy? Is this soft?

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Romney’s new Iowa numbers

May 20, 2007 – 7:24 pm

Hotline discusses the Des Moines Register’s new poll of Iowa likely caucusgoers. They say the numbers should be taken seriously, so I will. In this poll Mitt Romney gets 30% of the vote, John McCain gets 18%, and Rudy Giuliani gets 17%. I suspect that other polls will come out saying different things, but …

One of the questions that you have to ask when you see a big move in polls is what changed? Was there an event that a lot of people would have seen? Was there some sort of communications?

I was struck recently by this post at Cyclone Conservative:

Tonight, their phone rang to the voice of Governor Romney inviting them to participate in a live Tele-Townhall meeting. So I did. I must say, this was perhaps one of the coolest political ideas that I have seen come down the pipe in a long time. From one telephone, Romney can speak directly to literally thousands (and yes, there were thousands of people in on the call) of Iowans all across the state, who can stay in the comfort of their own home.

Between that and sending out 70k DVDs, Romney could have moved numbers. I suspect that it won’t be sustained, but it is clever.  As I’ve said before, the campaign is great. Too bad about the candidate.

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Why aren’t we addressing the right issues?

May 9, 2007 – 4:31 pm

I think David Frum nails it here:

I wish somebody at the Reagan Library had said: "Ronald Reagan was a great leader and a great president because he addressed the problems of his time. But we have very different problems — and we need very different answers. Here are mine."

Reagan really did have different problems. A conflict with Iran. 18.2% inflation in Feb of 1980. A country that had lost faith in itself. 70%+ tax rates for the top bracket.

There are real problems in our country today. Future entitlement costs and current and planned deficits are out of control. We haven’t talked about how to deal with globalization or provide education for tomorrow’s world. As Michael Barone pointed out yesterday:

Consider two long-range issues that are not pressing matters this year but pose, or are said to pose, threats a generation or two away. One of them you don’t hear much about: Social Security. The other you hear about all the time: global warming. Yet this gets things upside down. We have an unusually precise knowledge of the problems Social Security will cause in the future.

As I pointed out about Fred Thompson’s widely-panned speech, he actually did address these. John McCain has in many ways.

This disconnect was discussed today on HotlineTV. They noted from their recent poll (PDF):

With regard to key issues facing the country, Hillary Clinton beats all other 2008 front-runners on the economy, healthcare, and the environment. On the issue of the War in Iraq and terrorism, voters are split between Clinton, Giuliani and McCain.

Shouldn’t this scare Republicans? Not about Clinton, but that the Democrats are well ahead on their issues and splitting with the GOP on their issues.

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The GOP ballot problem

May 7, 2007 – 6:06 am

Ok, now I have argued that electability will matter in this election. And early polls only matter a little. But the new Diageo/Hotline poll, via Pollster.com, should terrify Republicans:

  Clinton Obama Edwards
Rudy Giuliani +4 -9 -6
John McCain 0 -11 -11


That is, Rudy Giuliani is beating Clinton by 4%, and the rest is … a mess. And Hillary Clinton performs worst against the Republicans. Not surprising with fav/unfav of 48/51, net -3% with only 1% left to go.

Now, there is plenty more time for this stuff to change. But, especially McCain and Hillary are fixed. There is plenty that the country does not know about Giuliani, but it is hard to imagine how much of it is going to help.

The GOP should be scared.

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ARG polls

May 2, 2007 – 8:10 am

First, of all, let me say that the recent ARG polls, strike me as a little weird. (I am suspicious of their likely voter model, especially in Iowa) My money is on these being outliers. Several things do occur to me though. First, the numbers:

Republicans IA NH SC
John McCain 26% 29% 36%
Rudy Giuliani 19% 17% 23%
Mitt Romney 14% 24% 6%
Fred Thompson 13% 7% 10%
Undecided 12% 14% 12%
Gingrich 8% 4% 6%


Romney does dramatically worse in South Carolina. These numbers do confirm what Gallup found about Romney’s performance in the South. He just does dramatically worse there compared to other regions. Also, Fred Thompson’s weakness in New Hampshire suggests a similar pattern.

In any case, we shall see.

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Gallup on the GOP field

May 1, 2007 – 8:45 am

Gallup aggregated their March and April polls on the GOP field. There are several important breakdowns in the polls.

In a variety of ways, these suggest several points:

  • Rudy Giuliani’s support is strongest among moderates, younger age cohorts, and people who attend church the least. These are groups that the GOP needs to reach out to. But do they vote reliably in primaries? This raises questions about the quality of the likely voter screens in polls.
  • John McCain’s support appears to be flat across these groups, with a skewing towards older Republicans.
  • Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have similar profiles among older voters and by church attendance and ideology. Newt performs much better in the South, whereas Romney performs very well out west.
  • Fred Thompson’s support is flat across Church attendance, but skewed towards conservatives. What other axis is in play here?

by Church Attendance
 

Weekly

Monthly

Seldom/
never
 

%

%

%

Rudy Giuliani

29

36

40

John McCain

19

25

19

Fred Thompson

11

10

11

Newt Gingrich

10

7

8

Mitt Romney

10

5

4

 by Ideology

Conservative
Republicans

Moderates/Liberal
Republicans

%

%

31

41

19

22

13

7

11

4

8

3


Note how ideology and church attendance track for all the candidates but Thompson. What is going on here?

by Region

 

East

Midwest

South

West
 

%

%

%

%

Rudy Giuliani

41

35

36

27

John McCain

24

21

14

25

Fred Thompson

7

8

15

9

Newt Gingrich

6

6

11

9

Mitt Romney

6

4

3

13

by Age

18 to 29

30 to 49

50 to 64

65+

%

%

%

%

41

36

34

28

16

22

18

23

5

12

11

12

4

6

12

14

3

6

7

9


Looking at the difference in Romney’s performance in the South and the West, I cannot help but wonder if Mormonism is the issue here. Are Republicans out west just more comfortable with Mormons and Republicans in the South (overwhelming more evangelical) simply less?

And this suggests that Fred Thompson is basically Newt Gingrich in people’s minds everywhere in the country except the South, where people seem to perceive a real difference. What is that?

Can we start getting polls without Newt Gingrich?

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GOP Winning in 2008

April 12, 2007 – 11:02 am

Kavon over at Race 4 2008 got me back to this little project I have of comparing general election matchups for various GOP candidates.

Rasmussen has started to collect general election matchups. I have collected them and presented them in, what I think, is the clearest and most useful format (note that these are not all from the same poll, so methodologically, there is something deeply unsound about this. RCP averages would be great):

  Clinton Obama Edwards Fav - UnFav % unknown
Giuliani +8 +1 +7 +33 3%
McCain +7 0 -9 +17 3%
Thompson +1 -12  -14 +13 41%
Gingrich -7 -10   -5 9%
Romney -9 -15 -26 -5 31%
Brownback -5 -15   -19 43%


Analysis of the digits after the jump.
Read More »

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Interesting new Gallup poll

April 10, 2007 – 10:05 am

Gallup just released their new April poll. There are some interesting things going on inside. First, an omnibus table with all the numbers, margin of error is 5%:

Candidate GOP % Without  Newt GOP Fav GOP UnFav Overall Fav Overall  UnFav
Rudy Giuliani 38 42 77 14 61 27
John McCain 16 18 68 19 57 26
Newt Gingrich 10 - 54 29 29 48
Fred Thompson 10 12 35 7 24 11
Mitt Romney 6 7 37 15 25 21

Some observations.

First, the big one. Thompson is tied for 3rd with Newt even with very low name ID. The idea that he is doing well because of his high name ID from his TV life is bogus. It is an excuse being used to explain other people’s poor polling, especially relative to Thompson. Look at this this way. Just under 25% of the people who know who he is support him. Compare to Romney, where less than 15% of the people who know who he is support him, or McCain, just under 20%. (Needless to say, Rudy is a different ballgame)

Second, Romney’s unfavorables are still very bad. Among GOPers, Romney and Rudy Giuliani have about unfavorables, even though Rudy is twice as popular overall.  Romney is still getting introduced by someone else (the AP) rather than himself. It doesn’t matter how much TV you are buying if you can’t get a decent story in the papers.

Third, while McCain’s top-level polling is not great, indeed he is struggling, his fundamentals are pretty good. How many Republicans other than Rudy and Bush have a more positive image nationwide than McCain? It is too bad that the polls don’t try to figure out why he is not doing better. The answer that he is not liked by the base is not born out in these numbers. Indeed, according to these numbers, Romney is almost as disliked at John McCain, even though half of GOP voters don’t know anything about Romney. The number of people who dislike him is only going up…

Fourth, Rudy’s numbers are back up from the 31% last month…

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Interesting new IA poll: They don’t like Iraq

April 4, 2007 – 1:39 pm

Strategic Vision just released a poll of Iowa caucus-goers. I don’t want to focus on the horse-race numbers because it is so hard to do a likely voter screen in Iowa (nonetheless, they are after the jump, and we will let you debate whether or not Romney’s single-digits are still real). However there are some interesting things that are worth noting:

First Iraq:

4. Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? (Republicans Only)
Yes 52%
No 39%
Undecided 9%

I have argued for a while that the Iowa GOP is more anti-war than other states. This would also explain Mitt Romney’s recent flip-flop on Iraq.

They also ask:

3. How important is it for the Republican presidential candidate to be a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan, very important, somewhat important, not very important, not important, undecided? (Republicans Only)
Very Important 39%
Somewhat Important 18%
Not Very Important 14%
Not Important 13%
Undecided 16%

But this does mean different things to different people… But only 6% believe that George Bush is like Reagan, so at least they get that straight….

Horserace after the jump…
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Do people vote on issues?

April 4, 2007 – 1:24 pm

Michael Barone discusses the apparent transfer of votes between Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson and poses the following question and answer:

But they must also be people who believe Giuliani and Thompson have something in common that they’d like to see in the White House. What is that? … Strong leadership at a time when we’re at risk of attack, I think.

On cue, the Gallup releases results (here and here) from a poll on what qualities voters want in their next president, broken down by party:

Top Five Qualities Partisans Are Looking for in Next President

March 26-29, 2007

Republicans/Lean Republican

Democrats/Lean Democratic

Honesty/straightforward (30%)

Honesty/straightforward (34%)

Leadership/strength (22%)

Listen to people/not special interests (13%)

Integrity (13%)

Put U.S. first/focus on domestic issues (13%)

Competent/govern effectively (11%)

Leadership/strength (12%)

Good moral character/family values (8%)

Competent/govern effectively (10%)


Now these are probably things that people have to demonstrate to be considered. And it is also why challenges to these are so threatening, such as allegations of Mitt Romney’s flip-flopping (which the press and some activists seem to believe), Rudy Giuliani’s links to Bernie Kerik (which has little traction yet), or Democratic allegations of McCain switching parties (old news, but tweaking distrust). By attacking people’s character, voters no longer balance the issues.

This is also why Barack Obama is so dangerous to Hillary Clinton. How does she compare on "honest and/or/ straightforwardness" or "listening to people, not special interests"? Poorly. Very poorly.

Now, this is different than what we see now with the endorsement process. Politicians are endorsing for other reasons. Political leaders, either electeds or interest group leaders,  want access, power, and their agendas to be advanced. Business leaders (high dollar donors) want access, among other things.

This is also something to keep in mind when you look at the level of grassroots support in these fundraising numbers. Why does Obama have twice as many donors as Clinton and McCain as Romney? (or that Sam Brownback has 2/3rd the number of donors as Mitt Romney, even though Romney outraised him over 10-to-1?)

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