Obama v. Palin (2012 Trial Heats, July '10)

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As FHQ has not updated its 2012 presidential trial heat poll graphics since December, there is a lot of catching up to do. And what better place to start than with the most talked about candidate, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Let me make a few notes before diving in to all of this. First of all, I will spare you the mess of all the candidate data being dumped into one post by splitting this up into one post per candidate. We'll start with Palin and move on to the other candidates who have been surveyed multiple times in a hypothetical match ups against the president. I don't know whether I'll continue this practice in the future, but it makes sense in trying to synthesize all of the data from the first half of 2010. One addition I have made here is to add a table with all the past numbers included (dates, sample sizes, margin of error, etc.). [You'll find that at the conclusion of the post.] Such an inclusion likely works against the traditional -- all candidates in one -- presentation of the data if kept permanently (and I think it should be. There is too much data now not to.). The best course of action in future is likely to have timely breaking news-type updates when new polls are released followed by updated graphics for each candidate and finally a post discussing the trends across all candidates. That is how we will procede in the short term anyway.

There are a few other things to mention as well. Obviously, things are getting bunched up with so many polls having been conducted in the cases of some candidates. This is most problematic in terms of reporting the polling firms on the figure itself. It is really pronounced in the case of Obama v. Palin. I doubt this practice will be able to survive for much longer. FHQ is currently looking into some Flash- and Java-based alternatives that will allow users to simply hover over a data point on the graph and receive the attendant information. I'll keep you posted on that progress and in the meantime, if anyone has suggestions on how to do that relatively quickly and easily, please just drop a note in the comments section or shoot me an email.

And what of Obama and Palin?

For the sake of brevity, FHQ will confine this catch-up analysis to the overall trend throughout 2010. A poll-by-poll analysis eight months into the year seems like overkill. Public Policy Polling has surveyed this match up every month since March 2009 and as such is by far the most consistent player on the 2012 polling front. Palin has fairly regularly brought up the rear compared to the other three regulars (Gingrich, Huckabee and Romney) against Obama and yet, she, like the others has seen her share of respondents increase in 2010 as Obama's approval has declined. The one noticeable trend is that Palin does better in the PPP (and Rasmussen) surveys than she does in polls conducted by other firms. That is likely to elicit the classic robo-call versus live (phone) interview debate among some, but with so few polls from other outlets, FHQ will simply rate it as something to keep tabs on in the future. Palin's PPP presence has shifted from consistently in the 30s in 2009 to consistently in the 40s in 2010. Other firms are more likely to find her in the 30s in 2010.

The bottom line in this hypothetical match up is that Obama stays closer to 50% against Palin than he does against any of the other regular GOP names in the presidential race. I'll dispense with the straight averages comparison -- it is included in the table below -- but will mention the regression time series. Taking that trend into consideration, Obama leads Palin 49-41. That is all well and good, but none of this particularly matters until and unless the Republican nomination race in 2012 boils down to a two person race where general election electability becomes the argument a la Obama v. Clinton in 2008.

2012 Presidential Trial Heat Polling (Obama v. Palin)
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Obama	Palin	Undecided
Politico [Internet]	July 9-14, 2010	+/- 3.1%	1011 likely voters	48	36	16
Time	July 12-13, 2010	+/- --%	1003 adults/873 r.v.	55	34	4
Public Policy Polling	July 9-12, 2010	+/- 3.8%	667 likely voters	46	46	9
Public Policy Polling	June 4-7, 2010	+/- 3.8%	650 likely voters	50	41	9
Public Policy Polling	May 7-9, 2010	+/- %	707 likely voters	50	43	6
Public Policy Polling	April 9-11, 2010	+/- 3.9%	622 likely voters	47	45	7
CNN	April 9-11, 2010	+/- 3.5%	907 reg. voters	55	42	--
Clarus Research	March 17-20, 2010	+/- 3%	1050 reg. voters	52	34	14
Public Policy Polling	March 12-14, 2010	+/- 2.6%	1403 likely voters	49	41	10
Harris [Internet]	March 10-12, 2010	+/- --%	2344 adults	52	35	13
Public Policy Polling	Feb. 13-15, 2010	+/- 3.5%	743 likely voters	50	43	7
Public Policy Polling	Jan. 18-19, 2010	+/- 2.8%	1151 likely voters	49	41	9
Public Policy Polling	Dec. 4-7, 2009	+/- 2.8%	1253 likely voters	50	44	6
Rasmussen	Nov. 24, 2009	+/- 3.5%	800 likely voters	46	43	3
Public Policy Polling	Nov. 13-15, 2009	+/- 3%	1066 likely voters	51	43	5
Public Policy Polling	Oct. 16-19, 2009	+/- 3.5%	766 likely voters	52	40	8
Public Policy Polling	Sept. 18-21, 2009	+/- 3.9%	621 likely voters	53	38	9
Clarus Research	Aug. 14-18, 2009	+/- 3.1%	1003 voters	53	34	13
Public Policy Polling	Aug. 14-17, 2009	+/- 3.3%	909 likely voters	52	38	10
Marist	Aug. 3-6, 2009	+/- 5%	854 reg. voters	56	33	11
Rasmussen	July 16-17, 2009	+/- 3%	1000 likely voters	48	42	3
Public Policy Polling	July 15-16, 2009	+/- 4.1%	577 likely voters	51	43	6
Public Policy Polling	June 12-16, 2009	+/- 3.9%	638 likely voters	52	40	8
Public Policy Polling	May 14-18, 2009	+/- 3.1%	1000 likely voters	56	37	7
Public Policy Polling	April 17-19, 2009	+/- 3.7%	686 likely voters	53	41	6
Public Policy Polling	March 13-15, 2009	+/- 3.7%	691 likely voters	55	35	10
Average				51.2	39.54	--
Regression Average				49.11	40.51	--

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