Wednesday, October 28, 2009

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/28/09)

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FHQ is going to go with a Twitter-like, quickie post of the events of the day in both Virginia and New Jersey.

Like in Virginia, the polling in New Jersey maintained the status quo in this race.

The new Quinnipiac poll today mirrored the PPP poll from yesterday except that the two major party candidates traded positions

There was an interesting discussion about the difference between polls based on live interviews or a recording over the phone.

Phone polls are showing Christie ahead. Interviews favor Corzine.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Corzine
Christie
Daggett
Undecided
Quinnipiac
Oct. 20-26, 2009
+/- 2.8%
1267 likely voters
43
38
13
5

Still, this poll represents a six point gain for Corzine over the last Quinnipiac poll two weeks ago.

Unlike yesterday's PPP poll though, this one showed Daggett supporters opting for Christie over Corzine by a 43-27 count.

The PPP count of Daggett supporters found Corzine had the advantage 44-32. Again, there's a difference in poll type there.

As I said, this one merely maintained the state of the race from a day ago. Here at FHQ that means Christie is slightly ahead.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/28/09)

CNN 2012 GOP Primary Poll: Huckabee Pulls in Almost a Third of Support

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/27/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/28/09)

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FHQ is going to go with a Twitter-like, quickie post of the events of the day in both Virginia and New Jersey.

If the worst thing that can be said about your campaign is that complacency may set in, you're in pretty good shape. --Giuliani on McDonnell

That pretty much sums it up in Virginia. The day after Obama rallied with Deeds, the talk from the Republicans concerned complacency. Ouch!

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Deeds
McDonnell
Undecided
Rasmussen
Oct. 27, 2009
+/- 3%
1000 likely voters
41
54
4
Virginia Commonwealth [pdf]
Oct. 21-25, 2009
+/- 4.9%
625 likely voters
33
51
15

VCU's poll is its first in the race. The undecideds are higher than would be expected, but McDonnell's total seems about right.

That 33% for Deeds is off, but it wasn't the most recent poll and didn't affect the averages that much.

This Rasmussen poll is akin to the PPP survey a day ago. This one's gone from "feeling" like a 52-45 race recently to a 55-44 race now.

FHQ's averages didn't shift that much. McDonnell held steady and Deeds shifted downward slightly. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

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Recent Posts:
CNN 2012 GOP Primary Poll: Huckabee Pulls in Almost a Third of Support

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/27/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/27/09)

CNN 2012 GOP Primary Poll: Huckabee Pulls in Almost a Third of Support

New Addition: FHQ has also now made it easier for you to track the evolution of the 2012 Republican primary trendlines you see below. Just click here or on the link below the latest 2012 update on the left sidebar to see the posts dealing with each of the eleven surveys released thus far.

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Poll: CNN/Opinion Research
Conducted : Oct. 16-18, 2009
Sample: 1038 adults (nationally), 462 Republicans
Margin of Error: +/- 3% (full sample), +/- 4.5% (Republican sample)

Huckabee: 32%
Palin: 25%
Romney: 21%
Pawlenty: 5%
Someone else: 10%

Notes:
1) Mike Huckabee is the first candidate to top 30% in any of these polls thus far. On top of that, the former Arkansas governor is close to pulling in a third of the (Republican) survey respondents' support and is the most favorable among all respondents.

2) Sarah Palin is the next most favorable, but is also the most unfavorable with over half of all the respondents leaning toward the latter. It would have been nice to have seen the favorables split by party. Still, Palin does the best in this primary poll (25%) as she has done in any such poll since stepping down from the Alaska governorship in late July.

3) Finally, Mitt Romney falls back for the second consecutive poll, but remains the least favorable/unfavorable candidate outside of Tim Pawlenty (a function of nearly half the respondents not knowing who the Minnesota governor is).

And FHQ was going to write Palin off as being a part of that top tier of candidates.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/27/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/27/09)

Why the Democratic Change Commission's March 1 Mandate Will Be a Tough Sell Without a Bipartisan Primary Reform Plan

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/27/09)

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While Virginia is quickly being supplanted by the three way race in New York's 23rd congressional district in terms of competitive interest, New Jersey is not; buoyed by a three way race of its own. Of course, things were seemingly back to normal on Tuesday, a day after a Suffolk poll found incumbent, Jon Corzine ahead by an unseen-to-that-point 9 point advantage over Republican Chris Christie. Today, though, it was back to the within the margin of error polling leads that have marked this race in the Garden state for the last few weeks. Both Rasmussen and Public Policy Polling found as much in the state, though PPP's margin between the two major party candidates was technically outside of the margin of error.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Corzine
Christie
Daggett
Undecided
Rasmussen
Oct. 26, 2009
+/- 3%
1000 likely voters
43
46
7
4
Public Policy Polling [pdf]
Oct. 23-26, 2009
+/- 3.9%
630 likely voters
38
42
13
6

Still, both polls found Christie to be slightly ahead. The PPP survey is much more in line with where you no doubt see FHQ has the race pegged currently. Rasmussen, on the other hand, has a much more optimistic view of both the Democrat's and the Republican's position in the race, seemingly at the expense of independent, Chris Daggett. That is the real difference here: that Daggett has twice as much support in the PPP poll than in the Rasmussen one. Of course, the PPP survey also found that Daggett's unfavorables are rising and that he is more likely to hurt Corzine than Christie. 44% of Daggett supporters called Corzine their second choice to only 32% for Christie. The independent continues to play the wildcard in this race. Christie, however, maintains the advantage. The Republican actually gained a bit today (a function of the fact that yesterday's 33% in the Suffolk poll was replaced by the Rasmussen 46% as the most recent, fully weighted survey). Corzine, meanwhile, held steady.

What will tomorrow bring?

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/27/09)

Why the Democratic Change Commission's March 1 Mandate Will Be a Tough Sell Without a Bipartisan Primary Reform Plan

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/26/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/27/09)

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Another day brought another couple of polls in the Virginia governors race showing Bob McDonnell pulling away from Creigh Deeds. It was not the kind of day Deeds otherwise would have wanted considering that the president was coming in to campaign with the Democrat. The McDonnell campaign has to feel good knowing that even despite Obama's appearance in the Old Dominion, much of the talk surrounding the day's polls centered on comments like, "It basically seems like Democratic voters in Va. are giving up on this election." That's never a good sign coming from a pollster.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Deeds
McDonnell
Undecided
Survey USA
Oct. 25-26, 2009
+/- 4.4%
502 likely voters
41
58
1
Public Policy Polling [pdf]
Oct. 23-26, 2009
+/- 3.6%
729 likely voters
40
55
5

Yet, such was the dichotomy of the day in Virginia. Bob McDonnell didn't gain that much in either the Survey USA poll or the Public Policy Polling survey, but Deeds didn't either. Well, in spite of the talk about landslides surrounding the Survey USA result, Deeds did actually fare better in this week's Survey USA poll versus last week's. But that's a small consolation to the Democrat. Meanwhile, in FHQ's averages, McDonnell has stretch his lead into the double digits; something that seemed to be on the verge of happening these last couple of weeks, but had yet to come to fruition.

With one week to go, that's pretty much all she wrote in Virginia. When candidates turn off the flow of money for buying ad time, it is a pretty good indication.

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Recent Posts:
Why the Democratic Change Commission's March 1 Mandate Will Be a Tough Sell Without a Bipartisan Primary Reform Plan

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/26/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/26/09)

Why the Democratic Change Commission's March 1 Mandate Will Be a Tough Sell Without a Bipartisan Primary Reform Plan

One thing that was made clear at this past weekend's Democratic Change Commission meeting was that the group's final recommendation to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee would heed the call of the convention provision that created the group in the first place. Namely, in regards to the timing of presidential primaries in 2012, the DCC is committed to closing the window on February delegate selection events (with the exception of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina).

But the March 1 mandate is problematic for the very same reasons that make reforming the presidential process difficult: that the lack of a bipartisan approach hampers the entire effort at reform. And without bipartisan action to confront the reform process, there could potentially be several classes of states.
  • The first distinction to be made is between states that have to move the date on which their delegate selection events are held and those that don't have to do anything to reach compliance. Well, there were a lot of February states in 2008.
  • Secondly, there is a line that separates caucus states and primary states on this as well. The dates on which caucuses are held are determined by the state parties more often than not, while state governments (state legislatures and governors) set primary dates. State party compliance is easier to come by than state legislative compliance (see here for more on this point.).
  • On a level that is more troublesome, however, is where the March 1 mandate intersects with state governmental action. In states where the Democratic Party is in control of the state government, there may be some difficulty getting legislation altering the date on which any state's primary is held, but it would likely be minor compared to the potential resistance faced in states where the Republican Party controls both the executive and legislative branches.
Again, all this assumes that the GOP does nothing to significantly alter the rules governing their delegate selection process. Yes, the party took the unprecedented step of creating a group (the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee) to look at those rules outside of the convention for the first time. Now, the party could opt to stick with the frontloaded system as a means of settling the 2012 nomination quickly in order to prepare for a long general election campaign against Obama. They could also radically alter the primary process in a way that exceeds what the Democratic Change Commission is charged with examining. In either scenario, a go-it-alone strategy by either party likely nets them both a situation where there is a partisan discrepancy in some states. In other words, some states may have no incentive to go along with one of the parties' rules.

That's how we get back to the battle lines outlined above. Let's key in on that last one for the moment because that is where this gets Florida/Michigan messy. For the moment, let's assume that there are only minor changes to the Republican rules, that the Democrats go forward with this March 1 mandate for all non-exempt states, and that the GOP continues to allow February primaries and caucuses (Keep in mind Hawaii Republicans have already staked a claim to February 21, 2012 as the date for their caucus.). How many states have or will potentially have unified Republican control of the state government and could completely ignore Democratic rules (in the way that the Florida state government did a year ago)?

There are elections to be held that could change this before the 2012 delegate selection rules are adopted by both parties sometime next year. However, there are only three states that would not be in compliance with Democratic Party rules (a March 1 mandate assumed) given the current shape of the 2012 presidential primary calendar: Arizona, Florida and Georgia. Well, that's not that many. No, it isn't and that doesn't even include the caveat that Arizona's governor can use the power of proclamation to move the primary date to a more competitive date. [Traditionally, that has meant that the late February primary date that is on the books has been moved to early February. There is no language that I know of in the gubernatorial proclamation law that could allow the governor to move the primary back. That would be a test of the law. That point may be moot if Jan Brewer or another Republican is elected in Arizona next year. They wouldn't be motivated to move the date back to comply with the Democratic Party's rules for delegate selection anyway.]

Three isn't that many. Again, it isn't, but what's missing is states where there is a unified Republican legislature and a Democratic governor. The governor in those states can't make the state legislature pass a law just to comply with another party's rules. That adds three more states: Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Of course, those latter two may very well have Republican governors after the 2010 elections. Democrats in Tennessee and Oklahoma have very little depth on the bench behind either Bredesen in Tennessee or Henry in Oklahoma.

Now, we've already potentially tripled the Florida and Michigan problem from 2008. But what about early states with legislatures that have two chambers split between the two parties. One chamber (the Democratic one) may want to push a bill through that would bring the state's primary within the Democratic delegate selection rules, but the other chamber may find some better use of their legislative time. Well, that nets us two more states, Michigan and Virginia.

That would present the Democratic Party with a real dilemma. Eight states would potentially be in violation of the party's 2012 rules (specifically the March 1 mandate) through no fault of their own. Either legislative gridlock or unified Republican control of the state government could prevent compliance. How do you penalize states in that scenario? Would the state parties be forced to foot the bill for a party-run primary or caucus?

It is just this sort of exercise that the Democratic Change Commission should be considering. There have been a number of questions in both meetings thus far along the lines of "is coordination with the RNC possible?" that give a sense of detachment. Both parties are set to nail down the 2012 rules next year and yet there is no apparent effort at coordination taking place (at least not at the level of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee or the Change Commission) despite the very real possibility that problems like those described above could take place.

Food for thought.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/26/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/26/09)

Wrong! Wrong! A Thousand Times Wrong! One Bit of Misinformation from the Democratic Change Commission's Meeting This Past Weekend

Monday, October 26, 2009

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/26/09)

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A nine point Corzine lead? According to a new Suffolk survey of the Garden state, that is the case. However...
  • It was Suffolk's first poll in the state for this race.
  • The sample size is on the small end; only 400 people.
  • There were a lot of undecideds (14%). The last time there was anything in the double digits for undecideds was the September 9 Rasmussen release (10%). Let me add some context: that was "You Lie!" week.
  • Being that it was Suffolk's first poll in the race, they may have committed a grave error; weighting party identification to party registration. That's a no-no in New Jersey with unaffiliated registration.
Is the poll something to be dismissed? No, but it should certainly be treated as an outlier. At one end of the spectrum (an extreme application of the margin of error), if Corzine cedes five points to Christie, the Republican has a one point edge. If you were to do Monte Carlo simulations given the data in this poll, that particular outcome wouldn't come up very many times though.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Corzine
Christie
Daggett
Undecided
Suffolk [pdf]
Oct. 22-25, 2009
+/- 5%
400 likely voters
42
33
7
14

In FHQ's opinion, though, there is one saving grace to this survey: the Daggett result. Sure, perhaps that number should be written off as an outlier given the independent's polling numbers of late. But I think there's something to this and we all should have been tipped off to the possibility a few weeks ago when Fairleigh Dickinson released a poll with a split sample where Daggett's name was used against Corzine and Christie with one subsample and Gary Steele, another candidate for governor, was used in the other subsample. I was too busy that day bemoaning the fact that we couldn't really trust the results of such a small subsample. All the while, though, there was an interesting trend underlying that poll and now this Suffolk one: Daggett has been afforded a privileged position in most of the polls in which he has been included. The independent has been the only non-Corzine/Christie candidate to appear in many of these polls and as such has been adopted by disaffected survey respondents as the anti-Corzine/Christie; a refuge for all wanting to avoid casting a ballot for either of the two major party candidates.

When other third party names are included Daggett's support slips. Sure, he bested Gary Steele when the two subsamples of that Fairleigh Dickinson poll were compared, but the fact that Steele got over 10% was indicative of the fact that there was a fairly sizable portion of the likely electorate that did not particularly care for either Corzine or Christie.

In today's Suffolk poll, all 12 gubernatorial candidates that will appear on the ballot next Tuesday were named. Again, Daggett lost his position as the only Corzine/Christie alternative and was knocked down to earth to some extent because of it. FHQ has already discussed Daggett's ballot problem and this poll may have picked up on what Daggett faces in the ballot box next week: that instead of one alternative to Corzine and Christie, there are several. Daggett's problem now appears to be that survey respondents recognized in him an alternative to Corzine and Christie and didn't necessarily recognize him.

We won't know one way or the other until next week or until we get some more data along these lines (with hopefully a bigger sample).

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But what about the top two contenders vying for a chance to call Drumthwacket their home for the next four years? I don't think that it comes as a surprise to anyone that posting a 33 in this poll negatively affected Chris Christie's average. It did. In fact, it brought the former US attorney's average closer to the 43% mark; again uncharted territory. Meanwhile, Corzine inched ever so slightly further up, but the incumbent Democrat still pretty much sits on the 39% line. So, while Christie maintains a four point lead here, that is shrinking quickly. That's because he is doing far more falling than Corzine is jumping, though.


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State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/26/09)

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Today continued a string of poor days for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. It was a day that not only saw his opponent's campaign, Republican Bob McDonnell, hand over $25,000 to the Republican running for attorney general in the state, but also saw a continuation of the back and forth between national Democrats and the Deeds campaign over President Obama's involvement in the race. And if that wasn't enough, the Washington Post late in the day released another poll in the race showing basically no change in a 53-44 lead McDonnell held over the Democrat two and a half weeks ago. And it doesn't look like tomorrow's news is going to be any brighter for Deeds.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Deeds
McDonnell
Undecided
Washington Post
Oct. 22-25, 2009
+/- 3%
1206 likely voters
44
55
1

What the news, well the numbers behind the news at least, mean is that McDonnell is looking like a pretty good bet in next Tuesday's vote. And that's a good pick up for the Republicans given how Virginia has trended at the national level in the last two cycles (two Democratic senators in 2006 and 2008 and 13 electoral votes for Obama last year). Given that it looks like Democratic turnout is going to be low, it seems a near certainty that Republicans will make gains in the other down-ballot races as well. That's especially significant in the year ahead of the Census and a potential redraw of the districts in the Commonwealth. The Democrats narrow lead in the Virginia Senate seems vulnerable and that would mean complete Republican control of the redistricting apparatus in the Old Dominion.

That won't have direct implications for next year (Democratic turnout could be down again, though.), but in 2012? Well, that's a different story.

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Meanwhile, in FHQ's averages in this race, Bob McDonnell is approaching a double digit lead, and it doesn't appear as if he's going to look back.


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Wrong! Wrong! A Thousand Times Wrong! One Bit of Misinformation from the Democratic Change Commission's Meeting This Past Weekend

The one big criticism I have of what I've read about the Democratic Change Commission meeting this weekend is that there still is no viable incentive structure in place to get states who have or will in the future want to frontload their presidential primaries and caucuses to move back or stay put. That's a thorny issue, though, at the intersection of state parties, national parties and state legislative jurisdiction, so I don't blame the 37 member group for not having gotten to that point yet. [Their recommendations won't come until after the group's December 5 meeting in Washington.]

However, what I can't forgive is one bit of misinformation that made its way out of the proceedings that is bad, bad, bad. Here's the Q&A exchange with North Carolina State Senator Dan Blue fielding the questions (from DCC member, Suzi LeVine's notes):

Q: what is the situation about states having separate state & presidential primaries? Ie – California did it.

A: expensive – but sense that California being so late is problematic. Last time California went early and they still didn’t get the attention. Very unsatisfactory then. State legislature seems to like moving it up. However, remember that incumbents benefit with an early primary ‘cause challengers haven’t been able to raise money and awareness and these positions are often chosen in the primaries.

Q: How would budget deficit in California affect 2012?

A: Bifurcating the 2 primaries is expensive. Usually have to stay unhitched to address local laws. Brought up the Affect of redistricting (will happen ‘cause of census)

Q: states with federal and state primaries on the same day?

A: most are together – but will find out exact number.

WRUH-ONG! [It is difficult to make something monosyllabic, have two syllables.]

In fact, this is very wrong. By my count, the 2008 primary calendar saw just 13 states with presidential primaries and primaries for state and local offices held concurrently. The remaining states and territories had their presidential nomination contests separate from their statewide and local primaries. And I say nomination contests there because 24 of the remaining 37 states held two separate primaries while the remaining 13 held caucuses for presidential delegate selection and later primaries for the other offices.

Together at Last, or Are They?
Presidential Primaries and State and Local Primaries (2008)
Concurrent Primaries
Split Primaries
Caucuses
Illinois
Maryland
Ohio
Texas*
Mississippi
Pennsylvania
Indiana
North Carolina
West Virginia
Kentucky
Oregon
Montana
South Dakota
New Hampshire
Michigan
South Carolina
Florida
Arizona
Alabama
Georgia
Arkansas*
California
Connecticut
Delaware
Massachusetts
Missouri
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Utah
Louisiana
Virginia
Wisconsin
Rhode Island
Vermont
Maine
Minnesota
Iowa
North Dakota
Nebraska
Kansas
Wyoming
Colorado
Nevada
Idaho
Washington
Alaska
Hawaii


Here's the thing: This idea -- split primaries, as I've called them -- is the number one reason why some states have moved in the time since the McGovern-Fraser reforms that were instituted in 1972 and others have not. In the 1976-1996 period, presidential primary states that already had separate primaries were over five times more likely to move their contests to an earlier date than were those with concurrent presidential and state/local primaries. Once you add the cycles of the hyper-frontloaded era (2000-2008) -- when the incentive, like in 2008, was to move or get left out -- that effect dropped to only twice as likely. And no, that doesn't even take into account the caucus states. With those split caucus states included the effect is even greater.

Why?

Well, those states that have already severed the tie between the two primary types, and have institutionalized the resulting structure over successive presidential election cycles, don't face the same problem states with concurrent primaries have. Concurrent primary states face the start-up costs associated with funding an all new presidential primary election (see constant reference to California's expensive transition in 2008 in the quoted text above). The split primary states have already dealt with and absorbed that cost. Those states, then, are much freer to move their delegate selection events where they please. And since about 1980, the motivation has been to frontload.

So, do more states hold all their primaries together? No, they do not. Two-thirds of the country, in fact, hold separate contests.

*The data for the years prior to 2000 were gather from various sources by the author, but from 2000 onward were thankfully publicly available on The Green Papers.
**Texas could also fall into the caucus category simply because of its hybrid prima-caucus system.
***Arkansas was split for 2008, but has already passed legislation that will eliminate the separate primary in 2012.


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Sunday, October 25, 2009

New 2012 Presidential General Election Trendlines. Now Time Adjusted!

I think we've gotten to a point where we have had enough 2012 trial heat polls out thus far this year to warrant adjusting them for time. To this point FHQ has displayed the polls as if they were equidistant apart, but with Palin v. Obama topping double figures from a number of polls standpoint, the time has come for the figures to take on a more natural look. Below you'll find the trends for...

Newt Gingrich...
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Mike Huckabee...
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Sarah Palin...
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and Mitt Romney.
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Gender Gap or Gender Deficit in 2012?