State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/22/09)

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Six weeks to go until election day and in New Jersey nothing is new. Chris Christie continues to lead incumbent governor, Jon Corzine. The only thing remotely new out of the just released Rasmussen poll of the Garden state gubernatorial race is that the undecided mark has dropped off since the last survey the firm conducted in the state earlier in the month. The good news for Chris Christie is that Corzine does not seem to be taking any disproportionate number of these late deciders (at least not enough to make a noticeable difference).

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Rasmussen	Sept. 21, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	41	48	6	5

And where does that leave this race? With only a little over a week before October dawns, this race is startlingly stationary from the Corzine campaign's perspective. It has to be. If you compare the first FHQ graduated weighted average of this race from all the way back on June 11 to this one you will find that Christie has hardly budged, edging up only three-tenths of a percentage point. Corzine meanwhile has only been able to cut into an initial (approximately) ten point lead by a little under a point. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's probably not how they envisioned the summer going.

A while back I joked that Creigh Deeds needed to find his Bush/US attorney rating story and run with it. The Virginia Democrat has certainly found something in Bob McDonnell's thesis to help close the gap. But now the tables are turned and the Corzine folks are hoping for some new to help turn the tide in the New Jersey race. [Of course Deeds hopes the thesis has a longer shelf life than the Bush link did for Corzine.] The main difference between the two races is that Corzine is running on his record from the last four years and New Jersey voters, at least the ones seemingly likely to head to the polls in November, don't like it. The upcoming debates may have some impact, but will anyone be paying attention? That's a problem for the incumbent.

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Recent Posts:
Arizona in 2012? Still Red.

Expectations and the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part III

Arizona in 2012? Still Red.

Public Policy Polling has a new poll out this morning examining the 2012 presidential playing field in Arizona. The idea heading in was that with home-state senator, John McCain, at the top of the Republican ticket in 2008, there was enough of an advantage to offset gains the Democratic Party and Barack Obama were enjoying in other parts of the southwest.

Does that change when McCain is not at the head of the ballot? Not really. McCain won the Grand Canyon state by nine points last November and depending on the candidate, the Republicans retain that lead over Obama. Well, sort of. Obama is tied with Sarah Palin while Huckabee and Romney lead the president by four and seven points, respectively.

Here's the breakdown:

Obama: 45%
Huckabee: 49%

Obama: 43%
Romney: 50%

Obama: 47%
Palin: 47%

The one theme that continues to run throughout these head-to-head polls against Obama is that Sarah Palin continues to lag behind her male counterparts among women. That holds for polls both on the national and state level. Democrats have long carried a fairly sizable advantage among women in elections (dependent upon several other variables as well) and it could certainly be hypothesized that the Republicans could neutralize that by running women for various offices. That may well be the case, but there is no evidence that Sarah Palin is the woman to close that gap. Christian at GOP12 has co-opted this theme (something I've been pointing out throughout the polling conducted so far this year) to some extent, but has done the numbers in terms of the Republicans' (Huckabee, Palin and Romney) favorable/unfavorable ratings. Let's take a moment and look at the raw numbers from a support perspective.

Male
Obama: 44%
Huckabee: 51%

Female
Obama: 46%
Huckabee: 46%

Gender gap: Huckabee +7

Male
Obama: 45%
Palin: 50%

Female
Obama: 49%
Palin: 43%

Gender gap: Palin -1

Male
Obama: 42%
Romney: 53%

Female
Obama: 45%
Romney: 46%

Gender gap: Romney +12

This isn't a national poll and this is a red state, so that explains some of this. We're just dealing with more Republican women. Even then, Palin does worse than do either Huckabee or Romney among women. Romney actually bests Obama there. When the national numbers are released tomorrow, this will definitely be an area to look first.

Other than that, PPP's main motivation in doing this particular poll was to see if the home state effect had worn off without McCain as the GOP standard bearer. The results above show that it has disappeared to some extent. DiSarro, Barber and Rice (2007) examine this very question and find that, on average, presidential candidates will gain just more than five points in their home states relative to other recent candidates (That encompasses all the major party candidates from 1880-2004.). Again, McCain won Arizona 54-45 last November. Subtract five percent from McCain's total and you have the exact same 49-45 breakdown at the Huckabee result above. Romney did a little better and Palin a little worse. It is obviously a bit more involved than that, but on average, the Republican support dropped off by 5.33 points. Most of that difference can be explained by the fact that Obama is holding onto his voters better than the other Republicans are holding onto McCain's. Depending upon which Republican he was up against, Obama lost anywhere from 2-5% of his voters whereas the loss range for the Republicans and McCain voters was 9-10%.

As always, let me close by saying that it is still extremely early to be reading much of anything into any of these polls (Rob has already rightfully pointed this out in the comments section below.). The trend among female voters, though, is one to continue to track. It continues to undermine any potential Palin candidacy.

See also 2012 polling (on the state level) from earlier in the summer in Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas.


Recent Posts:
Expectations and the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part III

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/20/09)

Expectations and the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

Coming off of the Value Voters Summit 2012 straw poll this past weekend, FHQ has been considering expectations. Expectations are an interesting thing. I often talk to my students (relieved ones, I might add) about having set the bar so low prior to or immediately after taking an exam, that anything C or better is seen as having been successful. [Mind you, I'm not encouraging them to do this; only acknowledging that it takes place.] If you follow college football at all, we saw this play out in the time leading up to and during the University of Florida's game against Tennessee this past weekend. Vegas oddsmakers thought the Volunteers to be a 30 point underdog to the number one Gators. And the talk all week was not about who would win the game, but how much Florida would win by. In other words, expectations were high for Florida and low for Tennessee. That the Volunteers kept it close, ultimately losing by ten points, exceeded the expectations that even the most devout Volunteer fan had going in to the match up. It also had the sports punditry questioning the strength of Florida's team and the odds that the Gators will repeat this year as national champions.

Well, politics is no stranger to the expectations game either. With overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and Barack Obama in the White House, the sky was the limit for Democrats to get something done on a wide range of issues affecting the United States. However, things have gone anything other than smoothly since the beginning of the year for the Democratic Party and the president. It hasn't been all bad, but those numbers in Congress certainly inflated the expectations at the outset. And the party's inability to pass legislation on health care among other things has fed some of the frustration that is being felt primarily among independent voters. [Check out how the gap on the generic congressional ballot for 2010 has closed since last year's election.]

Expectations also play an outsized role in the presidential nomination process. And though this past weekend's straw poll was anything but representative of the Republican Party as a whole or the state of things over two years down the road, it is hard not to look at the results and think about them in terms of the expectations for each of the nine candidates included on the Value Voters' ballots.

Now let's look at those straw poll results again with expectations in mind. Here are FHQ's grades for each candidates relative to their expectations heading into the vote:

Mike Huckabee 28.48% (exceeded expectations)
Mitt Romney 12.40% (failed to meet expectations)
Tim Pawlenty 12.23% (exceeded expectations)
Sarah Palin 12.06% (failed to meet expectations)
Mike Pence 11.89% (exceeded expectations)
Newt Gingrich 6.70% (failed to meet expectations)
Bobby Jindal 4.69% (met expectations)
Rick Santorum 2.51% (met expectations)
Ron Paul 2.18% (failed to meet expectations)

Now some explanation. I think it is probably wise to draw a distinction among the exceeds expectations crowd. Certainly, Mike Huckabee's win -- the margin especially -- exceeded expectations, but given his background and his performance in last year's Republican primaries (not to mention the 2007 Value Voters straw poll where he placed a close second), it wasn't necessarily unforeseen. FHQ, then, would add the caveat here that Mike Huckabee slightly exceeded expectations whereas Tim Pawlenty and Mike Pence greatly exceeded the expectations that met each heading into the vote.

We often talk about bang for your buck in our posts on the 2012 candidates' usage of Twitter (see especially the Follower Ratio) and that applies here as well. The idea in the context of Twitter is that the more you use the service, the more followers you should have. What we could call the Expectations Ratio is comparable. Tim Pawlenty is running for president. Earlier this year, the Minnesota governor announced he would not seek a third term in 2010 and became vice chair of the Republican Governors Association after Mark Sanford's resignation as chair elevated Haley Barbour to the position and opened up the vice chair's spot. Pawlenty's travel schedule surrounding the RGA vice chair position affords him the opportunity to travel the country and get this name, face and ideas out there among the influential elites within the Republican Party. He has also spoken out more against the Obama administration and taken on a more visible presence in the media.

Contrast that with Mike Pence. Sure, the Indiana congressman's name has been quietly whispered in Republican circles as a 2012 possibility, but he hasn't been able to parlay that into any greater a voice than he had before.

But Pawlenty is very obviously working toward the nomination whereas Pence, though he may be quietly doing so, is not. Who got more bang for their buck? Both were in the pack that essentially tied for second place, but Pawlenty is the one who is publicly working to catch up to Huckabee and Palin and Romney in this invisible primary. Pence, on the other hand, though talked about as a possibility (and that certainly counts), just showed up and delivered a speech at the summit. Indiana's 8th district representative seemed to have gotten more for what he's put into it. However, given his current platform, Pawlenty may be able to utilize his showing the straw poll more effectively.

...but I'll have more on Pawlenty in a post later today.

Let's have a look now at the candidates who failed to meet expectations.

Mitt Romney was hurt by the fact that he won the straw poll in 2007, and failed to match that in 2009. Plus, the fact that the former Massachusetts governor is viewed, at least from a policy perspective (His background in business matches well with the current calls from the right for more fiscal conservatism.), as the frontrunner for the 2012 nomination, also made that 16 point margin between himself and Mike Huckabee seem that much wider. [The two basically tied atop the 2007 straw poll.]

Given that this was a group with which she was thought to be in good standing, Sarah Palin also failed to meet expectations. Now, Palin was working at a disadvantage here and her grade should be tempered by that fact. Unlike many of the others on the ballot, Palin was not in attendance, and as such, did not deliver a speech. In fact, there is a nice line of demarcation between the candidates who attended and those who did not. And it should perhaps not come as a surprise that four of the five candidates who were on the ballot and did not attend also ended up on the bottom in the results. The exception? Sarah Palin. That the former Alaska governor managed a second place finish when all the others not in attendance couldn't break the 7% mark in the straw poll, says something. Yet, given her position as the party's former vice presidential nominee and how she has done in some of the early polling (tightly clustered with Romney and Huckabee in the early primary polling for 2012), her showing amongst a group thought to be among her strongest supporters (though some of the early polling seems to refute that notion) places a certain amount of drag on her showing here relative to the expectations.

Finally, Newt Gingrich, for such a large and influential voice in the party, just simply failed to meet expectations. Yes, the former Speaker of the House has consistently polled behind the Huckabee/Palin/Romney troika, but he has also managed to outpace the "everyone else" category. That was not the case in this straw poll. The former Georgia congressman came in below a couple of heretofore "everyone else" candidates in Pawlenty and Pence.

Do the results hurt Romney or Palin or Gingrich? No, not as much as they help someone like Tim Pawlenty get mentioned in the same breath as that threesome or Mike Huckabee in relation to the 2012 Republican nomination.

*For more on the role of expectations in various aspects of the presidential nomination process please see Haynes, Gurian and Nichols (1997) and Haynes, Flowers and Gurian (2002).


Recent Posts:
About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part III

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/20/09)

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part II

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part III

FHQ promised to revisit the recently released Neighborhood Research poll and its August predecessor and gauge the impact those polls would have on the race if they were included in our graduated weighted averages of the polling in the New Jersey governors race. I was going to go the whole nine yards and include a mock-up of the usual graphic I've been putting up with our updates of the New Jersey and Virginia contests. In the interest of clarity, though, I'll hold it to a simple numbers-to-numbers comparison.

I don't think anyone will be surprised by the fact that these polls hurt Chris Christie more than Jon Corzine. That the Republican has pulled in only 37% support among the likely voters in both polls is indicative of how accurate they are. Even when those polls are included amongst the others, they are barely within two standard deviations of the unweighted polling average. Corzine's distribution is much more tightly clustered. Every single one of the 39 polls conducted in this particular match up since the first of the year is within plus or minus one standard deviation of the unweighted average.

I don't want to bog you down with statistical gobbledygook, so this is just a long way of saying that both these Neighborhood Research polls are outliers and both polls put more of a drag on Christie's numbers than on Corzine's.

How much? Well, to be fair, the polls aren't helping Corzine either (other than to decrease Christie's average support). But the incumbent only loses four tenths of a percentage point (from 37.8% to 37.4%) when these polls are added to our averages. However, the comparable figure for Christie is a loss of one point (46.4% to 45.4%). In other words, the polls have twice the negative impact on Christie as on Corzine (at least in terms of FHQ's averaging of the race).

Is that a big deal? Honestly, it isn't, but in an environment where a decreasing margin is expected to some extent (Corzine catching up due to registered Democrats outweighing Republicans in the Garden state), these polls have the effect of inaccurately deflating that gap.

And that, in a nutshell, is why FHQ is looking the other way when these polls are released.

...well, sort of...


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/20/09)

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part II

Huckabee Takes 2009 Value Voters Straw Poll

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/20/09)

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FHQ is averse to taking one poll out of context, but the evidence is mounting in the polling of the Virginia governors race that the contest is tightening as September comes to a close. And in the clearest indication yet that Bob McDonnell's thesis is having an impact on the race, the Washington Post's new survey shows the gap not only closing, but that independent women -- the group of potentially undecided, or at least heretofore undecided, voters most likely to be affected by the thesis revelation -- are moving away from the Republican and helping Creigh Deeds draw closer. In last month's poll, the Post found McDonnell ahead by 28 points among that subsample. Now however, Deeds leads narrowly by three points; a dead heat given the margin of error in the poll (no to mention a larger margin among the subsample).

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Washington Post	Sept. 14-17, 2009	+/- 3%	1003 likely voters	47	51	2

And while Deeds is closing the margin between himself and McDonnell, it is important to note that McDonnell is still above the 50% mark in this poll and is only down three points from the Post's survey a month ago. There has been some damage inflicted, yes, but to this point it isn't the type of damage that will take down the Republican's campaign. As the Post points out, the enthusiasm remains higher on the Republican side of this race. Still, if the thesis continues to have the same dampening effect on the former state attorney general it could spell real trouble. However, FHQ contends that the magnitude of the thesis will decay over time. As more voters move from the undecided to decided column, the less chance there is for the thesis to prove a decisive role in their vote choice.

Does Deeds have some momentum? Yes, but Bob McDonnell is still very well positioned (above 50%) in this race.

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In our averages, the gap between Deeds and McDonnell is under eight points, and as such, Virginia (in the figure at the top) is now not as red as it has been recently.

...but it is still decidedly reddish at the moment.


Recent Posts:
About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part II

Huckabee Takes 2009 Value Voters Straw Poll

Friday Afternoon Open Thread: The Americano

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part II

I think Saturday was a good day for Neighborhood Research to release the results of their most recent poll of the New Jersey gubernatorial race. If people weren't already looking to the Value Voters Summit for a 2012 straw poll, they were planning on watching some football. [Yes, FHQ is aware that there are some people out there who did neither, but we're willing to bet that if you are reading this, you were looking forward to at least one of those.] In any event, it was a good day to sweep last month's snafu under the rug and move on.

New Jersey Gubernatorial Polls
Poll	Date	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Neighborhood Research	Aug. 12-21, 2009	35	37	6	22
Neighborhood Research[pdf]	Sept. 14-17, 2009	33	37	8	22

Yeah, remember their first poll. [Right, the one that led to this post to which this current one is a sequel.] It was the one FHQ was leery of because it showed Corzine ahead (???) and because the pollster was a former campaign manager of a Chris Christie primary opponent, Steve Lonegan. Well, according to Neighborhood Research's release today, that lead wasn't Corzine's; it was Christie's.

...but nevermind that we (Neighborhood Research) didn't bother telling anyone that reported this initial, how shall I put this so that it maintains a modicum of diplomacy, transcription error. Just to prove that I'm not imagining this, let's look at some (still active) screenshots from Pollster and PolitickerNJ from the around the time of the August Neighborhood Research poll.

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That's the view from Pollster, but how about PolitickerNJ?

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But if you follow the the link at this post's outset, you'll see that Christie is now the one who held that 37-35 edge during the mid-August period in which the poll was in the field. At the time, I talked about the two issues with the poll* (the Corzine lead and the potential conflict of interest) being two strikes against Neighborhood Research. Well, I think they may have just struck out.

But just so FHQ doesn't seem too jerky, tune back in tomorrow morning and we'll have a glance at how these polls (to this point excluded) would affect our graduated weighted averages of the race.

*And that doesn't even bring into the picture the small sample sizes and this quirky likely voters/definite voters distinction.


Recent Posts:
Huckabee Takes 2009 Value Voters Straw Poll

Friday Afternoon Open Thread: The Americano

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/18/09)

Huckabee Takes 2009 Value Voters Straw Poll

It wasn't a rout, but Mike Huckabee did win the 2009 Value Voters Summit straw poll by a margin greater than any of his opponents received. Huckabee won a plurality of the 597 voters with Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin and Mike Pence all jumbled up behind the former Arkansas governor.

Here's the count (via GOP12):

Huckabee: 28% (~167)*
Romney: 12% (74)
Pawlenty: 12% (73)
Palin: 12% (72)
Pence: 12% (71)
*Raw votes in parentheses (via Jonathan Martin)
------------------------
Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum all split the remaining 24% of the voters. Rick Perry pulled his name off the ballot on Friday.

One thing that struck me as curious was that, in looking back at the 2007 Value Voters straw poll, Romney won and there were approximately ten times as many votes cast. The total two years ago was inflated by online voting whereas this year's poll was comprised of those in attendance.

What does it all mean? Well, the top two are still the same as they were two years ago, but the ordering is reversed. Again though, it is still early yet to be thinking about the 2012 race (despite the fun). One thing that is interesting is that Huckabee's position in these results mirrors some of what we've seen in the 2012 polls conducted thus far. Especially in the case of the general election trial heats against Obama, Huckabee has consistently done the best. Head-to-head in the Republican primary polling, though, the former Arkansas governor has been trading the top honor with both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, with all three clustered atop the list well ahead of all other prospective candidates. Are those general elections trial heats driving this straw poll result or are these the type of voters that are being picked up in and supportive of Huckabee in those polls? It is an interesting question that I don't think we really have an answer to.

Regardless, this is an early feather in Huckabee's 2012 cap.

...but will he decide to run? (See, I told you it was early.)


Recent Posts:
Friday Afternoon Open Thread: The Americano

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/18/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/17/09)

Friday Afternoon Open Thread: The Americano

Newt Gingrich's new site devoted to providing US Hispanics with a bilingual news source with a different take.

"Hispanic Heritage is as rich today in the United States, as it was back in the 1850s when the first bilingual newspapers were printed," states Newt Gingrich. "We think The Americano will provide a much needed traditional values viewpoint that will honor that heritage."

The big question? Was the site created with a 2012 run in mind? What say you, FHQ readers?


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/18/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/17/09)

What if Obama Won the Electoral College 1265-599?*

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/18/09)

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Another day, another poll in Virginia. And while the new Daily Kos/Research 2000 survey of likely voters in the Old Dominion does not show as close a race as yesterday's Rasmussen poll, it seems a rather accurate depiction of where the race is currently: McDonnell is around the 50% mark and Deeds support has rebounded some after a summer swoon followed his initial post-primary boost.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Daily Kos/Research 2000	Sept. 14-16, 2009	+/- 4%	600 likely voters	43	50	7

And the underpinnings of the poll are consistent with that "feels accurate" idea in mind. In the survey, McDonnell is doing about ten points better among Republicans than Deeds is doing among Democrats (89-80, respectively), but Deeds still clings to a small advantage among women (and while that margin is not statistically significant, it is likely a better gauge of the true breakdown among women than other recent polls that have shown that sub-race all over the map. The bottom line is that there just isn't that much of a gender gap in this race.). Most importantly, though, McDonnell continues to best Deeds with independents. The margin in the race may have decreased, then, but McDonnell's position near 50% has not changed. The movement is all with Deeds at this point as the Democratic state senator has made a move into the mid-40s in the most recent two polls.

In FHQ's averages, though, Deeds still comes in below that point while McDonnell is just under 50%.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/17/09)

What if Obama Won the Electoral College 1265-599?*

GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee to Meet on Sept. 28

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/17/09)

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It must be the thesis, right?

Maybe, but if the thesis is driving the margins in the polling of the Virginia gubernatorial race lower, we should expect that when a "not this optimistic" poll from the Daily Kos and Research 2000 comes out tomorrow (?) commentators to spin the less favorable results as a function of Deeds' tax comments* at today's debate. [Nevermind the fact that the poll was in and out of the field after those comments were made.] Yes, that's an unfair depiction of the media, but such is life when poll gazing.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Rasmussen	Sept. 16, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	46	48	5

The undeniable fact is that once the idea of the thesis and what it meant was internalized, the poll numbers began to dip for Bob McDonnell. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the Republican is still in a good position in the Rasmussen poll that was released today. The candidate who should be getting the focus is Creigh Deeds. The Democratic state senator is at his highest point in terms of polling since he led McDonnell in a poll conducted (by Rasmussen) the day after Deeds' victory in the Democratic primary. Taken on its face, then, this result is something of an outlier compared to the recent polling the race.

Are things closer than they were pre-thesis? Yes.

Are they within the margin of error close? That's debatable.

What's clear is that the thesis seems to have closed the gap to some degree. But does Deeds have the momentum? We'll have to see. Internally, I mocked the idea of a Thursday debate, but it was well timed if there happened to be a gaffe of some sort for either candidate (but more so for Deeds since he didn't have a thesis-type revelation already out there). Fridays are typically days to bury some bit of news before the weekend.

The race is closer, but the fundamentals of the race still favor McDonnell overall. The Republican is inching closer to the 50% mark even as Deeds is closing the gap. And that is something not to lose sight of as we head down the home stretch in this one.

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Surely the good folks at Rasmussen don't follow little ol' FHQ, but it sure sounds like they are being a wee bit defensive/opportunistic with their comment in the write up of the poll above.

"All of those figures include “leaners.” Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. Premium Members can review the data without leaners and complete demographic crosstabs."

In other words, complain if you wish, but if you want the data, pay up. Duly noted.

...said the employed political scientist still trying to shake the cheap graduate student mindset.

FHQ will say this: I'm glad to see Rasmussen come out with some "information" on how they collect their leaners data. [Hint, hint; nudge, nudge.]

*You absolutely have to love the title to that National Review blog entry.

Recent Posts:
What if Obama Won the Electoral College 1265-599?*

GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee to Meet on Sept. 28

Early Voting in New Jersey and Virginia?