A 2012 Minnesota Toss Up, Too?

Eh, not so much.

I couldn't get much more than a tweet out yesterday about the Public Policy Polling [pdf] survey of Minnesota (It was my last day on the beach. What can I say?), but I don't want to let the results go by without comment.

First of all, PPP at least one-upped the Texas poll released a day earlier, by asking the hypothetical 2012 general election question with two candidates (Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin) instead of one (Mitt Romney). It would have been nice if they would have included all of the primary prospective candidates the organization has been polling on the national level. [Speaking of which, be on the lookout Sunday for an updated and long overdue version of the trial-heat graphs I started a while back to account for the changes from June.] But PPP didn't ask the hypothetical, "if the election were held today" question with Gingrich, Huckabee or Romney alongside Obama.

Oh well. I'm not going to get picky. This isn't 2011.

But PPP did provide us with some interesting information about the state of play in Minnesota:

Obama: 51%
Pawlenty: 40%
Not Sure: 8%

Obama: 56%
Palin: 35%
Not Sure: 9%

President Obama, then, is ahead of the state's outgoing (as of 2010) governor by roughly the same margin he bested John McCain by in the North Star state last November and he's leading the soon(er)-to-be outgoing Alaska governor by nearly twice as much. Now, this isn't earth-shattering news here. Minnesota has been a reliably Democratic state throughout much of the last few decades, but has tightened some in recent elections until 2008. As others have pointed out (here and here), the approval numbers for Obama, Pawlenty and Palin may be another number to focus on, but I'll stick with the election question.

What these results tell me is that 2012 is going to be a very difficult year for sitting or recently term limited/"stepping down" governors to do well in the presidential primaries. There is just too much for them to answer for, it appears. Granted, things could turn around on the economic front, but this past few years won't necessarily be kind to governors in the near future. Tim Pawlenty is exhibit one: a Republican governor in a blue state who is trailing the incumbent president in a poll of said state. And the speculation surrounding his decision not to seek a third gubernatorial term places him squarely in the 2012 sweepstakes discussion. It isn't as if John Hoeven was the prospective Republican candidate and the poll was conducted in North Dakota. Pawlenty is at least a legitimate candidate for the GOP in 2012. He may not win the nomination, but he is legitimate. To come up so far behind the president, then, is a bit of an eye-opener. Yes, this is still just one poll, but I do think it speaks to this larger point about governors in the next cycle. The task is going to be a daunting one with all the red ink at the state level these days. And for Pawlenty (and Palin, too), he won't be around to reap any rewards if things start turning around in any noticeable way between now and 2011-12. I mean, we're not talking about George W. Bush in the late 1990s here (popular governor of a populous state during an economic boom).

So let's put this idea on the shelf for the time being and revisit it when the field of candidates starts to take shape. Governors from states that are doing relatively well may have an advantage over those who either are from states that are doing worse or have since left office. Does Haley Barbour fit in the former category? Who else fits in the latter (other than Palin and Pawlenty)?

Thoughts?


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A 2012 Texas Toss Up?

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A 2012 Texas Toss Up?

National polls are fine, but FHQ's bread and butter are the state-level polls that give us a glimpse into the state of the electoral college race. Of course, considering that the US is still over three years away from the next presidential (general) election, the expectation is that we just aren't going to see that many state polls (...not until after the 2010 midterms, at least). It is a good thing then that the good folks at the University of Texas threw us all a bone -- and an interesting one at that.

You have to dig, but buried within the survey notes [pdf] headlined by the lead Rick Perry has over Kay Bailey-Hutchinson in the much anticipated 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary, is a question asking respondents about the 2012 presidential race.

Q24: If the 2012 presidential election were held today, which of the following would you vote for, or haven't you enough about it to have an opinion?

Among the full sample of 924 Texans, Barack Obama edged Mitt Romney 36-34 (with a full 30% still unsure). There is a lot there at which to look. For starters, Barack Obama is ahead in Texas; that's fairly monumental whether it is July 2009 (Well, actually June, since the poll was conducted from June 11-22.) or July 2012. Granted there are some caveats. First of all, the above numbers are pooled from the full sample of respondents. Among just the registered voters, Romney leads Obama 39-34. And while that's more in line with where we'd all expect Texas to be from a partisan perspective, there is a note of caution for Republicans there (and Democrats, too). First of all, let's not read too much into a state poll three years in advance.

That said, is Mitt Romney a good candidate for the GOP? If Texas is a toss up, the White House will be a tough proposition for the Republican Party; it's that simple. Without those 37 or 38 electoral votes (after the 2010 reallocation), there just aren't that many paths to 270 for the GOP. Before this runaway train gathers too much speed, let's attempt to put on the brakes. Much of this is attributable to the fact that Texans (a quarter of them) just don't have that much knowledge about Mitt Romney. 27% of the respondents weren't sure enough about the former Massachusetts governor to offer an opinion on whether he was from outside of government, someone with experience or somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. It could simply be that Texans are waiting for the identity of the Republican candidate -- any Republican candidate -- to be revealed.

And this is where the Democrats come in. This is the type of poll that sends Democrats to Texas to register new voters. It isn't unlike how Republicans are looking at New Jersey in the governor's race right now. Early polls are deceptive. Though, if the GOP doesn't do something to pull in Hispanic voters in Texas (and elsewhere), those states won't be like New Jersey to the GOP for long; they'll shift toward the Democrats (with all other things held constant).

Finally, why was only Mitt Romney included? No Palin. No Huckabee. No Gingrich. And this poll was in the field before the Palin announcement last week. It is a curious move, but perhaps an interesting nod to the fact that Romney is still the odds on favorite to be the next GOP nominee (albeit it an only slight one). I really would like to have seen some of those other prospective candidates included.

But with three years to go, beggars can't be choosers. A poll is a poll is a poll, after all and FHQ will take what it can get.


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State of the Race: New Jersey (7/9/09)

Which is Bigger?

State of the Race: Virginia (7/8/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (7/9/09)

Just over a week since the last update, there is little perceptible movement in the New Jersey governor's race. Republican Chris Christie still maintains a nearly ten point lead over incumbent, Jon Corzine, but the latest poll from Rasmussen on the race adds a twist. Yes, Rasmussen is back with the leaners/without leaners distinction the polling outfit used during the mid- to late summer last year during the presidential race (Read more here and here). The goal of the leaner distinction is to provide a glimpse into a race if some of the undecideds were categorized as for one candidate or another. In the New Jersey race, the leaners had Christie ahead 53-41, which isn't that out of line with where the polling the race has been. That places the Republican slightly higher than he has been in any other poll, but, again, it doesn't stray that far from where he's been.

With the leaners numbers excluded, Corzine hovers around that 40% mark, but Christie drops to 46%. Rasmussen calls the five point drop from its previous poll of the race an end to Christie's post-primary bounce. That may be the case, but the without leaners numbers basically mirror FHQ's graduated weighted average in the race. In other words, Christie is ahead, but Corzine is still within striking distance; especially with so many respondents in this poll either undecided or open to the idea of switching candidates between now and November.

Before I close, let me add one more note on these Rasmussen polls. FHQ's policy is to use the without leaners data in our updates, but to also mention how the averages would be affected had the leaners been "pushed" into one or the other candidate's categories. For this poll, Christie would have gained a few tenths of a percentage point and Corzine would have inched up even less (47.8-38.3).


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Which is Bigger?

You'd think a hybrid hiking/Argentine vacation and extramarital affair would top a governor resigning from office.

...until you consider who it is resigning. A very interesting, albeit unsurprising visual from Google Trends. [Bobby Jindal's response to Obama is but a mere blip on the radar now.]


You can play around with the Candidate Emergence Tracker here.


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State of the Race: Virginia Governor (7/8/09)

[Click to Enlarge]

The Deeds' post-primary victory boost seems to have peaked. After handily defeating his Democratic primary opponents, Virginia state senator, Creigh Deeds, jumped past his Republican counterpart, Bob McDonnell, in the polling of the Virginia gubernatorial race, but has remained virtually stationary in the (scant) polling conducted since that immediate, after-primary period. In fact, other than the Rasmussen poll that was in the field the day after the primary, Deeds has been at either 43 or 44 points in every poll since the May 22 Washington Post endorsement (other than the Daily Kos poll that was in the field just prior to, during and after the June 2 primary). [As you can see in the graph below, McDonnell has ever so slightly stretched his lead from the last update and has pulled ahead since Deeds surged to the lead following his win in the primary.]

The real story, then, seems to be McDonnell's approaching that 50% mark FHQ has been discussing in the New Jersey race. The new Public Policy Polling poll out for the race has McDonnell ahead 49-43 and that keeps Deeds just within the 4 point margin of error for the survey. Sure, this is just one poll, but McDonnell's ability to stay at or around that mark, puts the onus on Deeds and the DNC to turn this race around. Regardless, this poll doesn't particularly change the long-term outlook. The race still "feels" like a toss up with a slight lean toward McDonnell at this point. And in that case, turnout becomes highly important. If Democrats can remain as enthused as they were throughout 2008, that likely helps, but if not, this becomes McDonnell's and the Republican Party's race to lose.

In any event, there is quite a bit of time between now and November. This one should continue to be a tight one.

[Click to Enlarge]

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2012 GOP Primary Polling (July 2009 -- Rasmussen)

Is Palin in? Is she out?

That's been what everyone has been trying to hash out over these last few days since the former VP nominee's resignation announcement Friday. Regardless of the answer, though, Palin remains among the top tier of candidates in Rasmussen's first poll of the 2012 Republican presidential primary race (a poll conducted after the announcement). The soon to be former Alaska governor continues to poll nearly evenly with both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and as a trio they consistently run about ten points ahead of former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich and well ahead of the other potential challengers.

Between the two early CNN polls on the race (here and here) and the newly released Rasmussen poll, there is a fairly clear picture of where things stand. There is a top tier of candidates that has been solidified -- whether they enter or not -- and an as of yet undetermined group of secondary candidates. And those options haven't significantly changed since last November's election. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee had their hats thrown in the race by virtue of their showings in the 2008 Republican primaries. Similarly, Sarah Palin being tapped as the 2008 presidential ticket number two and Gingrich's continued outspoken manner kept the two of them toward the front of the 2012 presidential queue.

[Click to Enlarge]

Those four options have been there, but the darkhorse options behind them have emerged and faded very quickly for still being three years away from the next round of primaries and caucuses. By this point, it is a bit redundant to recount the stories of Jon Huntsman, John Ensign or Mark Sanford, but it is the candidates of that ilk who will likely fill out the primary field in just two short years. This time around, Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour are the secondary candidates included in the poll. And as has been the case in the CNN polls (with Bobby Jindal and Jeb Bush ), the candidates outside of the foursome mentioned above lag well behind. However, among likely Republican primary voters, it is this group of candidates that still has the most to gain. Opinion has largely solidified around Palin, Romney, Huckabee and Gingrich and it is overwhelmingly positive (favorability to unfavorability ratio) as one might expect for well-known, prospective candidates among Republican voters.

[Click to Enlarge]

And while the "not sures" are well into the single digits for that quartet in the Rasmussen poll, over a quarter of respondents are still unsure about both Pawlenty and Barbour. In other words, there is still a significant faction of likely Republican primary voters who have yet to fully weigh in on those secondary candidates. And there is still plenty of time for each to grow his or her support, but the second tier candidates have the most wiggle room and can yet make it up to the top tier.

Time will tell...


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And Another Thing About Those Winner-Take-All Primaries

In the car yesterday, I was thinking again about the possibility of the Democratic Party utilizing winner-take-all primary rules in some states in 2012. And killjoy that I am, I was probing the idea for unintended consequences. [I had plenty of time.] Perhaps you've noticed that the problems with the current system are the unintended consequences of its piecemeal construction and evolution over the last nearly forty years. Everything from frontloading to the proportional allocation of delegates on the Democratic side to the proliferation of primaries has developed in that span of time.

Anyway, it occurred to me that there is already a line of demarcation drawn between early states and late states and that that line has become quite a problem over time. In actuality, though, I suppose that the line between early states and earliest states is the one that is more problematic. However, that raises an interesting question: Instead of two classes of states based on when a state's primary or caucus is held (something that just recently led to Florida and Michigan going rogue), could the line between proportional states and winner-take-all states similarly set up two classes of states? And do the Florida and Michigan examples from 2008 make that more likely in the future?

Let's take a state like Georgia as an example. The Peach state is already situated on Super Tuesday (February 7, 2012 and every other first Tuesday in February from then on) and is a nicely-sized state from a delegate standpoint. But Georgia is stuck behind the Californias and New Yorks of the world on that particular date. "Fine, the Democrats are allowing winner-take-all rules in some cases (the later states), says the Georgia Democratic Party (because that would be the decision of the state party and not the state legislature). "Why don't we adopt those rules and differentiate our state from the pack?"

Why, indeed? Georgia would certainly provide a much larger delegate cushion with a winner-take-all format than other delegate-rich states using a proportional method of allocation.

Of course, there are a couple of caveats here. First, this sort of delegate allocation difference between states has been the norm in the Republican nominations for quite a while and has gone on without incident. It is, after all, an intra-party issue (between the national and state parties). Theoretically then, the national party should hold some sway over the state party. Florida and Michigan, however, demonstrated that that is not necessarily the case on the Democratic side. And that's the difference. The enforcement mechanism is not as strong for the Democrats as it seemingly is for the Republicans.

Secondly, I find it somewhat hard to fathom a situation where a state (party) like Georgia would buck the national party on the newly changed delegate allocation rules and not go ahead and challenge the party on the scheduling issue as well. If you're going to break the rules, go ahead and break the rules. In other words, why not have a winner-take-all primary that challenges Iowa and New Hampshire on the calendar?

Again, the enforcement mechanism would have to be prohibitive on this point. The backtracking the Democratic Party did on the Florida/Michigan matter was not helpful to its cause (as a national party); both states ultimately got their delegates back. States, then, are certainly less likely to take the party's word on it in the future. [Why not move forward if the party's just going to give our delegates back?] However, the candidate sanctions the Democratic Party used in 2008 kept the candidates (or most of them) out of both states. Yet, the candidates are not operating in a vacuum and would potentially be less likely to follow those rules in 2012 or 2016. The underlying issue is the same for the candidates as it is for states: If we can get a competitive advantage by campaigning here/moving forward, then why not go for it?

And that is the real point. Sure, allowing for winner-take-all primaries may open the door to a new form of rules violation, but the conundrum for the Democratic Party is determining a way of keeping states and state parties in line. The Change Commission is about superdelegates and caucuses and the 2012 calendar, but what lies under the surface is the idea that the national party has to have everyone on board. Their recommendations may represent the new rules structure, but that has to trickle down and be implemented by the state parties. They are the entities charged with structuring and submitting delegate selection plans to the national party for approval. But all of this is an intra-party struggle unlike the court battles witnessed over similar issues between the parties and state governments. The party took precedent in that case, but in a state party versus national party debate, legal challenges are of a different breed.

This is the real issue to be looking at as the Democratic Change Commission continues its work.


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Happy July 4th! No More 'Politics as Usual' Palin Edition

First off, FHQ wants to wish everyone out there a Happy Independence Day.

Good, now that that's out of the way, we can get down to the real business of the holiday weekend: Sarah Palin's surprise (Is it still a surprise today? Yeah, I think it is.) announcement that she's not only not seeking re-election to her current position as Alaska governor, but that she will be resigning the post altogether toward the end of July. Half a day later, I'm still trying to make sense of the move. Of course, in retrospect, it may be futile to try and make sense of it.

Is she running for president?
Some think so.

Is she running for senate?
That idea has been thrown out there.

Is she done with politics for good?
That, too, is on the table. I couldn't say I'd blame her.

Could it be all three? Well, it couldn't be (not if she's done "for good"). But let's assume she's just taking a break* and that she and Lisa Murkowski have a "deal" to basically switch places. Palin runs for Senate and Murkowski comes home to run for governor in 2010. Is it far-fetched? Sure. Lt. Governor Sean Parnell will certainly have a claim to the governor's office at that point. However, Murkowski would start out with name recognition in the state; an understatement considering her father, Frank, served as the state's governor earlier this decade (not to mention a senator for two decades prior to that.).

Well, why would Palin quit her current job to do this? I'd argue that a backroom deal such as this proposed political switch is a direct challenge to the "politics as usual" she has been fighting against. Yes, it's still far-fetched, but I'm throwing the idea on to the table.

I'm on the road today (and was yesterday), so I'll be back later with more. In the meantime, consider this an open thread on the Palin issue. I'll move the comments already made (in the New Jersey post) over here later on.

Happy 4th everyone! (Oh, and thanks to Jack for the Mitchell and Cillizza links above.)

*I'll define break as building the organizational infrastructure necessary for a national run.


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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (7/1/09)

What is this? A presidential race? Another day brings another new poll in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. There's no real news here other than the fact that Chris Christie is below the 50% mark against Jon Corzine for the first time since his Republican primary victory on June 2. But I'm not reading too much into that. For one thing, Fairleigh Dickinson, if you look across the full list of polls conducted in this race since the first of the year, has been an outlier in terms of the number of undecideds that are revealed in each poll. There's no reason to doubt the FDU results, but it is clear that both Christie's numbers in this poll and the undecided proportion of the responses are different from what we've witnessed in the most recent polling of the race in the Garden state. Oddly enough, Corzine's numbers are fairly close to where they have been in other polls.

Does that mean Christie is being undervalued or that there is some evidence of the "Democrats and independents will come home to Corzine in November" hypothesis in this undecided figure? I'd have to say the former. FDU's final poll of the presidential race in New Jersey last year had Obama up 18 points with about a week to go (which wasn't too far off), but with 10% still undecided. That's a pretty substantial number of undecideds that late in any presidential race, much less 2008 (in a blue state). No other polling organization covering the New Jersey race (other than Strategic Vision) had anything approaching that high a number that late in the contest.

In other words, despite the low total in this most recent poll from Fairleigh Dickinson, Chris Christie is likely still at or above that magic 50% mark. And just for the sake of comparison, the Republican challenger's weighted average only dropped by two tenths of a point from yesterday's update.



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Could Open Primaries Actually Help the GOP in 2012?

Conservative talk radio host, Hugh Hewitt, had RNC chair, Michael Steele, on his show yesterday and they got into a discussion about the 2012 primaries and the potential for idle Democrats to turn the tables and employ Operation Chaos in the Republican presidential nomination process. Hewitt sees this as a real problem for the GOP in 2012, but I'm not so sure. [In fact, I don't know that these complaints aren't a complete contradiction. But I'll get back to that in a moment.]

First of all, which states even have open primaries or caucuses? In 2008, there were 17 states with an open primary rule on the books and another six states that were semi-open (allowing only Republicans and independents to vote). In the latter category I'm including states like Ohio where the enforcement of the rules that call for voters to vote in the same party's primary as they voted last time are lax.

Well that's about half the country, right? Perhaps Hewitt has a point. Maybe, but we also have to consider when a primary or caucus is being held. Unless the GOP in 2012 is divided in a way similar to the way Democrats were in 2008 (and that's certainly possible), then Super Tuesday is likely to decide who the Republican presidential nominee will be. If, then, a state falls after that point, being opened or closed won't really matter. All that really does is remove Idaho's open primary and the semi-open primary in North Carolina from the equation. I could also strike off Mississippi, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont, but since the most likely outcome of the reform efforts underway in both parties (see posts related to the Democratic Change Commission and the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee for more.) is that the February activity from 2008 gets moved to March in 2012, then those states will be part of a massive group of contests.

That said, what would Democrats need to know to be able to make some noise on the Republican side in 2012? If Democrats with nothing better to do, decided to cross-over and vote in open (or semi-open) primaries, the first bit of information they would need is the identity of the frontrunner. It would also be helpful if said frontrunner was also the Republican candidate seen as the best possible candidate to run against President Obama. Those are the conditions where Democrats-turned-Republican primary voters would have the maximum impact. In essence, they would know who to vote against; just as Republicans cross-overs had the choice of Clinton or Obama in 2008.

The more likely scenario is that there is a nominal frontrunner, making the strategic end of things more difficult for would-be cross-over "Republicans." In other words, the earlier in the process it is, the more likely it would be to have an uncertain outcome. Uncertain outcomes make strategic voting, especially en masse, that much more difficult. Faced with that situation Democrats would either vote for the worst possible candidate, but simultaneously run the risk of having no impact or vote for someone who had a chance of winning the primary contest in question but does the worst against Obama head-to-head.

In the case of the former, envision a scenario where Democrats were idle in 2008 and opted to vote for someone like Duncan Hunter in the New Hampshire primary. I can't see a situation where Democrats outnumbered Republicans in a cross-over vote. The best/worst case scenario (depending upon which side of the aisle you're on) would see Democrats make up approximately 20% of the primary electorate. [Too high? Too low? Sound off in the comments section.]. Even if all those Democrats voted for Hunter, that wouldn't really make much difference. If that figure is layered in with the 2008 New Hampshire primary results, Hunter would have placed third and had no impact. Democrats would have been better served staying home and voting in their own uncontested primary (uncontested in the sense that we are assuming Democrats are crossing over because their nomination battle is either decided or uncontested).*

The alternative would have that faction of Democrats choosing from among the possible winners of the Republican contest, and preferably one who would not do well against their nominee. Let's assume again that Obama was already the Democratic nominee by the time New Hampshire's primary rolled around and that a pick the worst candidate strategy had been eliminated as a possibility for Democrats crossing over. Who do the Democrats vote for? The odd men out among the list of viable candidates at that point were Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson. McCain, Romney and Giuliani could have attacked Obama from the middle better than either Thompson or Huckabee.**

If that's the case, though, wouldn't either of those two have been palatable to the Hewitt crowd; at least more so than, say, McCain? There appears to be a disconnect between choosing "one of our own" and choosing someone who is electable among this group of Republicans. It is an age-old question, but one that seems unanswered in this case. If the answer is, "we want one of our own" (a social conservative), then holding open primaries really doesn't seem to make that much difference. Democrats would actually help Republicans reach that goal; they'd be better off in the general election for their efforts. If hijacking of the nomination by Democrats is a real concern, then, it isn't because they'd select someone like McCain, but because they'd help select someone who social conservatives like, but couldn't get elected.

[Such a coalition isn't unheard of. African Americans and Republicans across the South have worked together on redistricting plans following the last couple of Censuses. The result was that African Americans got an increased number of majority-minority districts and Republicans got more districts of their own. In the process, Democrats lost representation in Congress which, on its face, was perhaps somewhat counter to the interests of the overwhelmingly Democratic African Americans.]

Just for an open discussion/thought experiment, let's discuss how the 2008 Republican nomination would have played out if Obama ran uncontested and Democratic primary voters behaved rationally, as described above: selecting someone who could win, yet fared the poorest against Obama. Here's the 2008 primary calendar and here are the actual results of the primaries to reference. The comments section awaits.

*For Democrats to vote in the New Hampshire primary, though, they have to register as Republicans ahead of time; not on election day. Plus, another factor here is that if the Democratic race was uncontested, all the independents would flock to the Republican contest. That would advantage McCain.
**The Real Clear Politics averages for all the candidates are only marginally different in hypothetical match-ups against Obama in 2008. Huckabee did worst, but essentially trailed by the same margin as both Giuliani and Romney. McCain did best and Thompson proved difficult to locate.


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