North Carolina in 2012: Obama - 49, Palin - 42

Public Policy Polling today released the second half of its survey of North Carolinians (full results here -- pdf). It isn't that yesterday's approval numbers for Governor Bev Perdue, President Obama and former-President Bush weren't interesting to look at, but FHQ would be lying if it said it wasn't more interested in the prospective 2012 general election match up between the president and Sarah Palin.

Though Obama's approval in the Tar Heel state declined to below 50%, the president has basically held steady at the 49% share of the vote he garnered in November's presidential election against John McCain. With Palin substituted as the GOP standard bearer for 2012, the Republican share of North Carolina drops from 49% (McCain's nearly identical portion of the vote in 2008) to 42%. As Tom Jensen at PPP points out, that would amount to the largest margin for Democrat since the last time a Democratic presidential nominee won the state (Jimmy Carter's 1976 win over Gerald Ford).

There are a couple of interesting points hidden in the cross-tabs:
First, Obama did better among North Carolina women (53-38) while Palin bested the president among men in the state (47-45). Despite a woman representing the GOP at the top of the ticket the gender gap still favrs the Democratic candidate. And in comparison with the 2008 exit polls, the Republican margin among males drops from 12 points to the 2 points in this poll. Meanwhile Obama maintains about the same level of support among women in the state.

Based on party identification, Democrats still overwhelmingly support Obama (79-13), while Republicans strongly favor Palin (83-9). Among independents the split is only advantageous to Obama to the tune of 45-42. These numbers seem to indicate there were more Democrats in the sample than Republicans. [They also seem to indicate that the powers of deduction are strong with FHQ. As AKReport and Jack both point out in the comments below, the party ID splits -- 47% Dem, 33% GOP, 20% Ind. -- are on par with registration in the Old North state.]

As I said earlier in the week, it is nice to have one of these polls emerge from a 2008 swing state. Texas and Minnesota are nice, but may not end up being very swingy in 2012. And even though other prospective candidates being included would have been ideal, it is at least something of a baseline to see where one of the most high-profile Republicans stands relative to the president. Now if only PPP had decided to poll Iowa instead of Louisiana next week, I'd be a happy camper.


Recent Posts:
The Paths of Presidential Primary Frontloading

State of the Race: New Jersey (7/14/09)

A 2012 Obama v. Palin Poll in North Carolina?

The Paths of Presidential Primary Frontloading

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At various points during the tenure of this site, FHQ has referred to the process that is the frontloading of presidential primaries. [As the site is called Frontloading HQ, we should probably do more of that. But I digress...] To this point, though, the piecing together of that process has been left to reader. I thought it might be helpful to take a step back and discuss this at a time in the presidential election cycle when frontloading is dormant until at least early 2010 (if not 2011) and the talk of the field of Republican candidates is still a low whisper (unless Sarah Palin is the topic of conversation).

The basic theory of frontloading, as I'm laying it out, is based on a twofold approach. Frontloading decision-makers, whether they are state governments, governors, secretaries of state or state parties, are faced with varying levels of obstacles from state to state that affects both a state's willingness and ability to move its delegate selection contest. But while there are obstacles to frontloading, there are also benefits to the moves or else the presidential primary calendars from 1972 to 2008 would have remained static. In this cost/benefit analysis, the costs disproportionately affect a state's ability to move while a state's willingness to shift to an earlier date is influenced by both the costs and the benefits of the frontloading move.

Now, I should note that much of this is predicated on the idea of a rational-acting decision maker. Faced with costs that outweigh benefits, a state's decision maker will opt to stay put. Conversely, states with more benefits relative to costs, are more likely to move, all things held constant. That said, the goal here is to look at the behavior of these various political actors over the course of the last nearly four decades and generalize. Certainly there are instances where, say, Zell Miller and Bill Clinton were good friends from their days in the Democratic Governors Association and that relationship got the ball rolling on Georgia's move -- one advantageous to Clinton after New Hampshire -- to the first week in March in 1992. However, the point is to construct a theory here that can help us to set a certain level of expectation concerning why some states move and others decide not to.

Let's start by taking a walk through the flowchart that led the post. It captures the topmost layer that best evidences the obstacles to frontloading. First off, the national parties, as they are doing now with the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee and the Democratic Change Commission, set the rules of the presidential nomination process from cycle to cycle. That includes rules covering the timing of delegate selection events. Those rules are then filtered through the state party level, where the decisions are made regarding how (and more importantly for our purposes, when) delegates will be chosen in a given state. Those decisions are then submitted to the national party for approval (...at least on the Democratic side. There is a bit more leeway granted states within the Republican process.).

At the outset of the the McGovern-Fraser era, the easiest way for states to check off the guidelines set forth was to hold a primary election concurrently with those primaries for state and local offices. That did two things: First, it brought state governments into the process and then, once presidential primaries proliferated, institutionalized their presence in the process. But that presence in the process is not uniform across all states. State parties have an easier decision to make if the state is footing the bill for the primary election, but at the same time are potentially hamstrung by where the state government holds its primary or moves its primary to on the calendar.

This effectively sets up a barrier between primary states and caucus (and party-run primary) states. Sure, state parties can opt to hold a caucus or primary on its own, but most take advantage of the state's elections infrastructure. That's why that path -- from state party to state legislature to governor to primary move -- is highlighted in gray; that is the road most traveled in terms of presidential delegate selection contest movement. It is the most traveled, yet most obstacle-laden path simultaneously. Obviously, if a state party prefers a caucus or party-run primary to a state-funded affair, it has the ability to move the contest wherever it pleases. The institutional roadblocks are minimized. The same is true for states where either the governor (Arizona and New Mexico) or secretary of state (New Hampshire) has the ability to single-handedly make the frontloading decision. Again, the roadblocks are minimized.

But in the case of the state government making the decision, the road is far bumpier. State governments have to be concerned with divided government (inter-chamber or inter-branch), whether and if the state's presidential primary is separate from its primaries for state and local office, and where the primary was in the previous cycle. All those structural factors separate the states that can move and those that can't or won't move.

If you'd like to read a more in-depth treatment of this, I have a paper [pdf] I presented at the Western Political Science Association's meeting last year. However, the data only goes through the 1996 cycle. Soon, I'll be able to update those numbers for you through 2008.

...if you're interested (and probably even if you're not).


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey (7/14/09)

A 2012 Obama v. Palin Poll in North Carolina?

A Woefully, nay, Dreadfully Tardy Update of the 2012 Presidential Trial Heats

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (7/14/09)

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Quinnipiac has a new poll out in the New Jersey governors race, and like the recent Rasmussen poll offers some choices. Instead of a leaners/without leaners distinction, though, Quinnipiac provides us with both a two-person and three-person race perspective. Coincidentally, the two-way race with independent candidate, Chris Daggett, excluded, looks an awful lot like the "with leaners" version of the Rasmussen poll last week. [Both polls show a 53-41 advantage for Christie.] With Daggett included, Christie's and Corzine's numbers trail off a bit. Christie maintains a fairly significant advantage either way, but with Daggett in the picture, the Republican's advantage is 47-38 over the incumbent Democrat. [Daggett comes in at 8%.]

A few of notes:
1) FHQ's policy has always been to include the polls that account for third party candidates when available. The third party candidate is in the race, after all, and as such, the version with said candidate included is theoretically the more accurate depiction of reality. [Yeah, we could probably debate that logic.] We employed the same methodology in last year's electoral college updates as well.

2) That said, Daggett's share of the "vote" in this survey strikes me as a touch high. In other polls since the beginning of 2009, "someone else"/generic "other" candidate (other than Corzine or Christie) has never exceeded 6%. That's a poor comparison, but Daggett has yet to be included in any Quinnipiac poll prior to this just-released survey.

3) Just for the sake of transparency, if the numbers from the two-way race were used, the same 47.2-38.2 spread from the last New Jersey update would have been maintained (as opposed to the drop you see both above and below in the graph).

The major take-home message from this poll is that, the independent polls in this race are not showing the same things Corzine's internal polling seems to be indicating. Christie may be back under the 50% mark (a level the Republican exceeded for much of June after his primary victory), but Corzine does not seem to be breaking that 40% barrier anymore either. Just after the June 2 primary, FHQ got in its time machine and took a trip back to the two most recent instances of incumbent Democrats seeking re-election in New Jersey. Of those two instances, Corzine's current position is still closer to Byrne's (1977) than Florio's (1993) simply because Corzine, like Byrne, is trailing by double digits in July. Whether Corzine can repeat the Byrne comeback is yet to be seen. The climb is an steep one, but not an unmanageable one.

NOTE: The Quinnipiac poll also did not have a question about how firm respondents were in their current choices or the likelihood they would switch candidates between now and November. That was the one silver lining for Corzine in the Rasmussen poll last week.

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Recent Posts:
A 2012 Obama v. Palin Poll in North Carolina?

A Woefully, nay, Dreadfully Tardy Update of the 2012 Presidential Trial Heats

A 2012 Minnesota Toss Up, Too?

A 2012 Obama v. Palin Poll in North Carolina?

If you didn't catch my tweet earlier, Public Policy Polling is due to begin releasing some numbers from its most recent survey of North Carolinians tomorrow. Included are some questions regarding President Obama's favorable ratings in the state as well as Sarah Palin's. And as I alluded to in the above link, PPP has hinted at the fact that this will include a North Carolina sample on the Obama v. Palin question for 2012. Now, Minnesota and Texas weren't anything to sneeze at -- again, a poll is a poll, especially where 2012 is concerned -- but in North Carolina, you have one of the closest states from the the 2008 presidential election and a real potential barometer of the current (and distant) state of play for 2012. We may not be able to draw anything from this survey, but it will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out in a 2008 swing state.

Here's the link to PPP's blog. FHQ will have something up when and if they post the 2012 numbers. Last week's Minnesota poll came out in two parts, so it could be Wednesday before the 2012 numbers go live and the full results are made available. Stay tuned for that and a couple other little things I've put together for tomorrow.


Recent Posts:
A Woefully, nay, Dreadfully Tardy Update of the 2012 Presidential Trial Heats

A 2012 Minnesota Toss Up, Too?

A 2012 Texas Toss Up?

A Woefully, nay, Dreadfully Tardy Update of the 2012 Presidential Trial Heats

Last month*, Public Policy Polling [pdf] released the results of another round of 2012 presidential trial-heat surveys. As has been their custom in monthly installments over the last three months, PPP has attempted to gauge how four (of the most) likely Republicans (Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin and Romney) stack up against President Obama. [For a full look at the March (for a Palin-only version), April and May iterations, see here, here and here.] The most noticeable trend has been that Obama has been above the 50% mark and more than double digits up on each candidate in each month with but one exception. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee kept the president under 50% and came within seven points of Obama in his first appearance in the poll in April. And that was the only incidence in which those two indicators coincided until the June survey.

And it wasn't Huckabee who fared best.

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Obama: 49 Gingrich: 41

Newt Gingrich pulled Obama below the majority line and simultaneously broke the 40% barrier himself for the first time in three tries. Still, the former speaker bests only Sarah Palin in terms of unfavorability in these polls.

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Obama: 50 Huckabee: 43

On favorability, Mike Huckabee has been the most likable Republican of the four across these three polls, yet only marginally better than Mitt Romney. Both still maintain fairly high levels of undecideds. Huckabee, though narrowly missed out on keeping Obama under 50% (The president was right on that mark against Huckabee in June.) while pulling in the highest percentage against Obama of any of these four Republicans.

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Obama: 52 Palin: 40

It seems silly at this point to dissect the Palin numbers post-July 3, but I'll give it a go. Even before the Alaska governor's surprise resignation announcement, she was performing the worst of the GOP quartet in these polls. More importantly for her, though, she continues to be among the best of the best in the 2012 Republican primary polling conducted thus far. And that performance expands past her announcement into the first Rasmussen poll of the race this past week. If electability was an issue in a tight primary race, though, it could hurt Palin. But in the position we're in the cycle, I don't think now's the time to be making that call. I'll plant the idea, though.

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Obama: 48 Romney: 40

Finally, Mitt Romney fared much better in June than he had when he bottomed out in the May survey. While 40% isn't anything great for the "next in line" candidate, the former Massachusetts governor came within eight points of Obama; the lowest level the president has been at during the course of these several polls. Amid all the hoopla surrounding Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin and to a lesser extent, John Ensign, Romney's low-profile, picking his spots strategy seems shrewd for the moment. It is 2009 after all. Romney's position in this poll and consistently through the few primary polls (Oh, and I should mention the Pew findings concerning Romney's favorability ratings as well.) in conjunction with the calendar, as it currently exists but is likely to change, continues to be the best-positioned candidate for 2012. But Huckabee is at least on par with Romney on all of those counts with the exception of the calendar (especially if Palin enters too).

Here's an interesting note to end on: Is Huckabee, the 2012 version of John Edwards to Palin's Obama and Romney's Clinton? There are some interesting parallels there. Huckabee is a former Iowa caucus stand out, Palin is the upstart from the grassroots and Romney is the GOP establishment pick. If only there were proportional-only delegate allocation rules, lightning could maybe, just maybe, strike twice. I won't count those chickens, though. [I will also try to limit my cliche usage.]

*Ugh, that's hard to type, but in true Brady fashion, "something suddenly came up" each time I was set to bang out the post. Alas, I'll post these in the right hand side bar for permanent horse-race coverage. PPP should have another update out within the next week to ten days if the past four months release times are any indication.


Recent Posts:
A 2012 Minnesota Toss Up, Too?

A 2012 Texas Toss Up?

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

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?


Recent Posts:
A 2012 Texas Toss Up?

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

Which is Bigger?

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.


Recent Posts:
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).


Recent Posts:
Which is Bigger?

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

2012 GOP Primary Polling (June 2009 -- Rasmussen)

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.


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

2012 GOP Primary Polling (June 2009 -- Rasmussen)

And Another Thing About Those Winner-Take-All Primaries

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

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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.

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Recent Posts:
2012 GOP Primary Polling (June 2009 -- Rasmussen)

And Another Thing About Those Winner-Take-All Primaries

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