Update on Temporary Delegate Selection Committee Meeting

It has been quiet today on the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee (TDSC) front, and as I said yesterday, FHQ was not bullish on any groundbreaking news coming out of this meeting. Again, they aren't set to have the rules for 2012 in place until next summer. However, not content to just say there was a meeting and leave it at that, I had a back and forth with former Michigan GOP chair, Saul Anuzis.

My question? "Is there any consensus on the TDSC to work with the Democratic Party to bring about meaningful presidential primary reform?"

There was a report that James Roosevelt (former head of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee) and Bill Bennett (former head of the GOP equivalent) talked up the need for coordination on this issue over the summer, but remained skeptical about how widespread that was within the parties. Now, all Anuzis said when he responded was, "Yes, in progress." This is still more evidence that both parties recognize the need to coordinate their efforts if they are going to change the system in any significant way.


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Impact of Early Voting in New Jersey: A Follow-Up

A couple of weeks ago, FHQ looked into the impact that early voting might have in this year's gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. The conclusion there was that the impact would be minimal. What was glossed over in the process, though (and something FHQ was called on via email), was that New Jersey has a new law on the books this year allowing for no excuses absentee voting by mail. The 2009 gubernatorial election in the Garden state will be the first time this gets a statewide test.

The question, as posed before, is, "Will Republican Chris Christie be able to utilize the enthusiasm gap -- as manifested in recent polls' likely voter models -- to bank early votes and put Corzine on the defensive* down the stretch?"

Though the potential is there for mail-in absentee voting to have an impact, there has not been any overt push by either campaign on that front. Ballots can start going out as early as tomorrow, though (five weeks before the election), so early voting chatter may ramp up.

*This would require more of a last minute get-out-the-vote effort than if votes had been banked early on.

Hat tip to Paul Gronke at Election Updates for the link to the New Jersey Courier opinion piece.


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Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee Meeting Today

This is just a reminder that the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee is meeting today in Washington. There are a couple of members of the Committee who have Twitter accounts that you can follow:

Saul Anuzis: @sanuzis
Fredi Simpson: @fredi_simpson

I sent Anuzis (the former Michigan GOP chair and nominee for the national position this past January) a tweet last week asking him what was on the agenda and he playfully responded, "Everything." His twitter feed will be a good place to look for quick information on the proceedings, though. He updates with feverish regularity (Simpson's pace is far slower.).

Regardless, these are the places to check first for Temporary Delegate Selection Committee news. We'll likely get information here before it trickles down to the actual news.

UPDATE: FHQ should probably also note that no final decisions on 2012 presidential primary reform are due out of this meeting today. We are hoping for a progress report, though.


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FHQ Friday Fun: Separated at Birth?

I caught Jay Leno's new show last night for the first time since he hit prime time. Well, I saw the first few minutes of it at least. I'm not a real Leno fan (His humor is too tame for my liking.), but The Office led to Community (I'm sorry. I'm just not at a point where I can voluntarily say no to Chevy Chase. I've got a problem.) led to Leno. In that short period I was struck by Leno's new hair. I haven't seen the guy in a while, but he had aged somewhat and the hair; I couldn't shake the hair. At that moment it hit me. Jay Leno now bears an uncanny resemble to Ross Perot's 1992 running mate, Admiral James Stockdale.


















Well, you knew I had to bring something political into this, right?

And the rest of the week in fun?

Obama is good. Obama is very good. ...at smiling the exact same way.

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Won't somebody please think of the insurance company executives?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/25/09)

2012 Presidential Trial Heats: PPP (Sept. '09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/25/09)

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The story in the Virginia governors race currently is what will Bob McDonnell's campaign do to counteract the effect the former state attorney general's master's thesis has had on the dynamics of his contest with Democrat, Creigh Deeds. The answer this week has been to fight back, taking the thesis issue on directly, and attempt to raise the specter of tax and spend Democrats in Deeds' transportation agenda. And given the post-debate back-and-forth over taxes and the transportation plan, that is probably a wise move on the part of the McDonnell campaign.

Still, polling continues to show a tight race to become the Old Dominion's next governor. That was highlighted again by the release of a new Insider Advantage poll that showed McDonnell with a lead of a little less than four points. And as was the case in the Washington Post poll that came out earlier in the week, this one seems to be showing a shift of women into the Deeds' column. Deeds lead among women here by just under three points.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Insider Advantage	Sept. 24, 2009	+/- 3.8%	602 likely voters	44.2	47.9	7.3

The thing to keep in mind, though, how much room McDonnell and Deeds have to grow their support. Deeds is getting nearly 90% of Democrats (about a third of the respondents) while McDonnell has a shade under 80% of Republicans on his side. The Republican is also winning among independents by over 20 points. If Deeds is to catch up he will likely have to keep pounding McDonnell on the thesis and making the case to independents that the Republican is too extreme. But 20 points is a lot to make up.

And we are just now entering a period where the tax issue may be settling in as well. There was a lag between when the thesis revelation took place and when it seemingly showed up in the polling. If the tax/transportation issue has gained any traction, that may manifest itself in next week's polling.

As for FHQ's averages of the race, the margin is now down to seven points and closing.

[Click to Enlarge]

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/25/09)

[Click to Enlarge]

We're close to entering the final month of Campaign '09 and the polling in New Jersey and Virginia is starting to pick up as a result. There were a couple of new polls out in New Jersey and depending on your perspective both are problematic. FHQ won't pile on Strategic Vision any more than has already been the case (see here and here*) except to accuse Strategic Vision of stealing our numbers -- jokingly of course.

...I think.

The first thing we thought here at FHQ upon seeing those numbers was, "Hey, those are the same as our averages in the race right now. What a coincidence."

Later it became, "Was that a coincidence?" Of course it is, but my real point here is that the inclusion of that data has absolutely no impact on the averages. They basically just serve to reinforce the preexisting state of the race. We'll leave the Strategic Vision poll in the averages until something is definitively proven one way or the other. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Strategic Vision	Sept. 18-21, 2009	+/- 3%	800 likely voters	38	46	8	8
Democracy Corp [pdf]	Sept. 22-23, 2009	+/- 4%	601 likely voters	39	40	11	9

The other poll from the Garden state came from Democracy Corp. Now, there isn't anything wrong with the GQR poll other than the fact that the firm leans Democratic. The firm has consistently shown a closer race than most other polling outfits, and that doesn't change here. What this and Democracy Corp's other polls seem to imply, given that Corzine continually hover at or below the 40% mark across these and most other polls, is that the support for independent candidate Chris Daggett is coming at the expense of Chris Christie and not Jon Corzine (as has seemed the case in other polling). Still, the poll certainly seems to accurately show the position Corzine is in, but is underestimating Christie's support relative to other recent polls.

How does that affect the Republican candidate's fortunes in FHQ's assessment of the race? Well, it certainly hasn't trailed off like what Pollster is showing (Christie = 43.7%)**, but it has dropped. Throughout our averaging of the polls in this race, Christie has yet to drop below the 46% mark, but is on the cusp of doing so now. [In fact, the Republican technically has dropped below that point because the average rounded up from 45.99.] However, Corzine has been unable to counteract that decrease from his opponent with an increase of his own. And that continues to be the story in this race. Now, Christie's decline may ultimately wind up meaning that undecideds and some Daggett supporters break toward Corzine at the last minute, but we're a long way off from seeing that. For now, Corzine is still trying to figure out how to break 40%.

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*I had the same question as in one of FiveThirtyEight's early comments to that post. It is fine to compare Strategic Vision to the average across all polling firms but how to other firms stack up under similar isolated scrutiny.
**The Christie decline at Pollster is largely attributable to both the Democracy Corp polls and their inclusion of the Neighborhood Research polls as well. And FHQ is excluding the polls from the latter.


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2012 Presidential Trial Heats: PPP (Sept. '09)

Let's have a glance at those Public Policy Polling 2012 presidential trial heat numbers from earlier but add in the graphics to give us some context.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 50%
Bush: 37%
Undecided: 13%

Obviously, there is no over time element to the Obama/Bush numbers, but FHQ felt compelled to add some sort of graphic to accompany the former Florida governor's numbers against the president. Other than that, there isn't that much more to say about this head-to-head match up. We will say this, though: Jeb Bush filled in and probably closely matched where Newt Gingrich would have been relative to Obama had the former Speaker been included in the poll this month (both in terms of the numbers and in terms of relative order of the Republican candidates). Still, it was nice to see another name in the mix.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 48%
Huckabee: 41%
Undecided: 11%

It is hard to look at Huckabee's numbers against Obama this year and wonder which recent poll is the anomaly. The former Arkansas governor peaked in last month's PPP poll and then bottomed out in the Clarus Research Group poll in the field almost simultaneously. If you split the difference between those two August polls, you end up with Huckabee at around where he is in September; still trailing Obama but performing better than the other Republicans.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 53%
Palin: 38%
Undecided: 9%

July was a good month for Sarah Palin, but since actually leaving office in the Last Frontier, the 2008 Republican VP nominee has slid in the polls; not just in these 2012 trial heats but in other national polls gauging respondents' perceptions of her favorability. This month is no different, though she is in a better position in the PPP polls versus the aforementioned Clarus poll or the August Marist poll. It seems as if Palin was in a better position when people were talking about her leaving office in Juneau rather than her actually doing it.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 48%
Romney: 39%
Undecided: 13%

Finally, Mitt Romney continues to minimize Barack Obama's reach while simultaneously underperforming Mike Huckabee. Throughout much of the year's polling, Romney has been able to keep Obama under the 50% mark (as has Huckabee), but has struggled to break 40% himself (unlike Huckabee). Republicans (in these polls) just seem more comfortable with Huckabee than Romney at this point.

Notes:
Tom Jensen at PPP speculated that much of the difference in this month's results against August's is attributable to the inclusion of Bush in the poll ( This seems an ideal explanation on its face considering the partisan breakdown underlying both polls was largely similar). The candidates have in the past been listed and tested against Obama alphabetically and that meant that instead of Gingrich being first this month, Bush was. In other words, respondents may have been primed because of Jeb's inclusion to consider the most recent Bush administration when thinking about the general election race in 2012. That ends up being a nice recipe for getting similar results to the electoral outcome from last November.

Obviously, Huckabee continues to fare the best against President Obama in these PPP poll, while Mitt Romney lags in terms of favorability and overall support. The gap between the two is particularly surprising given that both have been rather tightly clustered in the 2012 primary polling that has been done. Again, though, this has been a consistent theme in PPP's 2012 trial heat polling since April.

The other theme that has consistently run throughout PPP's and other polls is that a potential Sarah Palin candidacy does nothing to neutralize the typical (though variable) advantage Democrats have among women. In fact, her male counterparts continue to do better among women nationally than does Palin. But that gap is pretty narrow at this point between the former Alaska governor and Jeb Bush.

One last thing to look at is the candidates' abilities to retain their parties' voters from the 2008 election. In this poll Obama held onto 90% of his 2008 voters, while all four Republicans were only able to keep about three-quarters of 2008 McCain voters. [Huckabee is the exception. He kept 80% of McCain's voters.] Of course, if there was some certainty behind the identity of the Republican nominee for 2012, I suspect that McCain voter retention rate would be higher.


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PPP 2012 Presidential Poll: Huckabee Still Does Best, but All GOP Candidates Drop Off Against Obama

Public Policy Polling today released their monthly look at the 2012 presidential terrain. Other than dropping Newt Gingrich this month and replacing him with Jeb Bush, the news is that Obama stretched his advantages relative to all four prospective Republican candidates (versus last month).

Here are the results:

Obama: 50%
Bush: 37%
Undecided: 13%

Obama: 48%
Huckabee: 41%
Undecided: 11%

Obama: 53%
Palin: 38%
Undecided: 9%

Obama: 48%
Romney: 39%
Undecided: 13%

Margin of error: +/- 3.9%
Sample: 621 voters (nationally)
Conducted: 9/18-21/09



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If only we had one of these for each of the prospective Republican presidential candidate in 2012.
Red states indicate personal travel
Green states indicate official (gubernatorial) travel

In our expectations post yesterday, I went on record (There is a record of it until I edit the line out.) saying that Tim Pawlenty is running for president. He's eschewed a third term as governor in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. He's taken on the position of vice chair in the Republican Governors Association and in that capacity has already been traveling the country (see above). He's started his own political action committee (Freedom First -- Side note: Why, oh, why did he not as someone suggested via Twitter yesterday call it T-PAC. The guy does go by TPaw.). All he needs now to make it official is an announcement and a book.

That said I wanted to take a quick glance at the map above and the 2012 primary calendar (neither of which are fully formed at this point) to see if we can glean any patterns. At first glance the answer seems to be maybe. Of all the states Pawlenty has visited since June 2009, all of them with the exception of Ohio held a delegate selection event in February or earlier (But which states didn't in 2008?). Of course, Arkansas has since moved back to May for 2012 and Michigan likely won't be as early in January the next time around either (Well, we'll see.). But those are mostly early primary and caucus states. Is that just a coincidence? Yeah, probably, but humor me for a second, will you.

As I said at the outset, I wish we had one of these for everyone of the prospective 2012 Republicans. It would be a nice addition to the candidate emergence tracker or the Twitter tracking.


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FHQ Reading Room (9/23/09)

Is it too early to be talking about 2010 congressional predictions?

Tom Holbrook says yes (based on the data).

...and Charlie Cook responds that they aren't predictions; they're warnings.

FHQ's take: I love arguments based on semantics. Seriously though, who doesn't take what Cook is writing as a prediction? The bigger question is whether those reading it take them literally or of their own volition add the caveat that conditions may change between now and November 2010.


Is race an underlying factor in the opposition to Obama's health care reform agenda?

There has been an interesting (political science-based) discussion of this stemming from Jimmy Carter's recent comments.

John Sides weighs in here. And Seth Masket here and here. All are well worth reading.

FHQ's take: As spurious relationships go, this one is the spurious-est. Just because there is a high correlation between ice cream sales and swimming pool drownings doesn't mean that one is driving the other. Both are driven by rising prices. Obama was correct in saying that race wasn't the "overriding" factor and Bill Clinton (as Seth points out) said it even better by mentioning that those opposing Obama would oppose him if he was a white Democrat too.


Who tweets more? Congressional Democrats or Republicans?

Apparently it's Republicans. Additionally, here's a great site that aggregates the tweets of all members of Congress.

FHQ's take: Bookmark Tweet Congress.

What are you waiting for?

Bookmark it now. Go on.


The Dos and Don'ts of Vice Presidential Selection: A Guide for Presidential Nominees

John Edwards' continuing story got Andrew Gelman thinking which, in turn, got Jonathan Bernstein thinking.

FHQ's take: The result is a pretty good guide to VP selection. There has been a certain amount of chatter out there in terms of Republicans selecting the "none of the above option" in terms of those prospective candidates being polled with 2012 in mind. Makes you wonder if Huckabee or Romney would be potential running mates for someone like Palin or Pawlenty (I mean, if the Republican primary voters opt to go in a different direction in 2012 and both Romney and Huckabee still have political careers after all is said and done.).


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Arizona in 2012? Still Red.

Expectations and the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination