Thursday, February 11, 2010

Gallup on 2012: Obama in a Deadlock with Generic Republican

Oh, and there was an open-ended GOP primary question too. [Here's the Gallup release.]

2012 General Election
Obama: 44%
Republican: 42%
Other: 3%
Not Sure: 11%

Sample: 1025 adults (nationwide)
Margin of Error: +/- 4%
Conducted: Feb 1-3, 2010

Notes: Obama garners nearly 90% support from Democrats and the Republican gets 86% from Republicans in the survey. Among independents, though, the GOP holds a 45%-31% advantage over the president.

2012 GOP Primary Race
Romney: 14%
Palin: 11%
McCain: 7%
(Scott) Brown: 4%
Huckabee: 3%
Gingrich: 3%
Paul: 2%
Pawlenty: 1%
(Bob) McDonnell: 1%
Fred Thompson: 1%
Jindal: 1%

Other: 10%
None/No Opinion: 42%

Sample: 495 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents (nationwide)
Margin of Error: +/-5%
Conducted: Feb 1-3, 2010

Notes: That's a lot of survey respondents who have no opinion or chose no one. Despite that lack of a clear "face of the party," the generic GOP candidate still fares rather well against the president. Yes, generics usually do pretty well, but still, it isn't a bad place to be if you happen to be on the right.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You missed the Kos/Research 2000 2012 poll that came out recently.

Josh Putnam said...

Thanks anon6:47. I'll add it over the weekend.

Anonymous said...

It wasn't an open-ended question either but the results are strikingly similar.

Robert said...

The problem with running a generic Republican or a generic Democrat against a specific person is that it is easier to be against someone than for one. Also, someone who is not running is always more popular until they actually start running. In 1980 Teddy Kennedy was a shoo-in to get the nomination as long as he was thinking about it. Once he declared, his numbers plunged, particularly when he couldn't tell Roger Mudd why he was running. In 2008, John McCain was the clear nominee until he started running when he became the Howard Dean of the Republicans without a chance. Then Fred Thompson was the obvious choice until he actually declared (I drank that Kool-Aid), leaving McCain to be the comeback kid. Right now Palin and Pawlenty are obviously running even though neither has formally declared. Gingrich is also running, but his campaign in a stealth campaign and not generally perceived as running. The one-on-one numbers between Palin or Pawlenty and probably Huckabee vs. Obama are real. All other numbers are unreliable.