On the Polling Horizon: Louisiana 2012?

I ended today's North Carolina post bemoaning the fact that Louisiana had beaten out California and Iowa in Public Policy Polling's vote to determine the location of its next survey. But what's to bemoan. Sure we'll miss out on Iowa numbers three years in advance (Once we get to the end of 2011, there will be more Iowa polls than you can shake a stick at.), but Louisiana could be interesting as well.

...especially if...

"Louisiana: This one will be getting my personal vote. How does Charlie Melancon do against David Vitter, and in general is Vitter really vulnerable or not? Plus, is Bobby Jindal more popular in his home state than Tim Pawlenty?

Voting is open until 11 AM Wednesday, we'll do the poll in the winning state over the weekend, and start releasing numbers from it on Tuesday."

I don't think Jindal v. Pawlenty is a bad consolation, nor do I think Obama v. Jindal/Pawlenty in the Pelican state is all that bad (...if that's what we get). In other words, I'll see you all at the same time, same place as today next Tuesday or Wednesday.


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North Carolina in 2012: Obama - 49, Palin - 42

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North Carolina in 2012: Obama - 49, Palin - 42

Public Policy Polling today released the second half of its survey of North Carolinians (full results here -- pdf). It isn't that yesterday's approval numbers for Governor Bev Perdue, President Obama and former-President Bush weren't interesting to look at, but FHQ would be lying if it said it wasn't more interested in the prospective 2012 general election match up between the president and Sarah Palin.

Though Obama's approval in the Tar Heel state declined to below 50%, the president has basically held steady at the 49% share of the vote he garnered in November's presidential election against John McCain. With Palin substituted as the GOP standard bearer for 2012, the Republican share of North Carolina drops from 49% (McCain's nearly identical portion of the vote in 2008) to 42%. As Tom Jensen at PPP points out, that would amount to the largest margin for Democrat since the last time a Democratic presidential nominee won the state (Jimmy Carter's 1976 win over Gerald Ford).

There are a couple of interesting points hidden in the cross-tabs:
First, Obama did better among North Carolina women (53-38) while Palin bested the president among men in the state (47-45). Despite a woman representing the GOP at the top of the ticket the gender gap still favrs the Democratic candidate. And in comparison with the 2008 exit polls, the Republican margin among males drops from 12 points to the 2 points in this poll. Meanwhile Obama maintains about the same level of support among women in the state.

Based on party identification, Democrats still overwhelmingly support Obama (79-13), while Republicans strongly favor Palin (83-9). Among independents the split is only advantageous to Obama to the tune of 45-42. These numbers seem to indicate there were more Democrats in the sample than Republicans. [They also seem to indicate that the powers of deduction are strong with FHQ. As AKReport and Jack both point out in the comments below, the party ID splits -- 47% Dem, 33% GOP, 20% Ind. -- are on par with registration in the Old North state.]

As I said earlier in the week, it is nice to have one of these polls emerge from a 2008 swing state. Texas and Minnesota are nice, but may not end up being very swingy in 2012. And even though other prospective candidates being included would have been ideal, it is at least something of a baseline to see where one of the most high-profile Republicans stands relative to the president. Now if only PPP had decided to poll Iowa instead of Louisiana next week, I'd be a happy camper.


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A 2012 Obama v. Palin Poll in North Carolina?

A 2012 Obama v. Palin Poll in North Carolina?

If you didn't catch my tweet earlier, Public Policy Polling is due to begin releasing some numbers from its most recent survey of North Carolinians tomorrow. Included are some questions regarding President Obama's favorable ratings in the state as well as Sarah Palin's. And as I alluded to in the above link, PPP has hinted at the fact that this will include a North Carolina sample on the Obama v. Palin question for 2012. Now, Minnesota and Texas weren't anything to sneeze at -- again, a poll is a poll, especially where 2012 is concerned -- but in North Carolina, you have one of the closest states from the the 2008 presidential election and a real potential barometer of the current (and distant) state of play for 2012. We may not be able to draw anything from this survey, but it will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out in a 2008 swing state.

Here's the link to PPP's blog. FHQ will have something up when and if they post the 2012 numbers. Last week's Minnesota poll came out in two parts, so it could be Wednesday before the 2012 numbers go live and the full results are made available. Stay tuned for that and a couple other little things I've put together for tomorrow.


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A 2012 Minnesota Toss Up, Too?

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A 2012 Minnesota Toss Up, Too?

Eh, not so much.

I couldn't get much more than a tweet out yesterday about the Public Policy Polling [pdf] survey of Minnesota (It was my last day on the beach. What can I say?), but I don't want to let the results go by without comment.

First of all, PPP at least one-upped the Texas poll released a day earlier, by asking the hypothetical 2012 general election question with two candidates (Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin) instead of one (Mitt Romney). It would have been nice if they would have included all of the primary prospective candidates the organization has been polling on the national level. [Speaking of which, be on the lookout Sunday for an updated and long overdue version of the trial-heat graphs I started a while back to account for the changes from June.] But PPP didn't ask the hypothetical, "if the election were held today" question with Gingrich, Huckabee or Romney alongside Obama.

Oh well. I'm not going to get picky. This isn't 2011.

But PPP did provide us with some interesting information about the state of play in Minnesota:

Obama: 51%
Pawlenty: 40%
Not Sure: 8%

Obama: 56%
Palin: 35%
Not Sure: 9%

President Obama, then, is ahead of the state's outgoing (as of 2010) governor by roughly the same margin he bested John McCain by in the North Star state last November and he's leading the soon(er)-to-be outgoing Alaska governor by nearly twice as much. Now, this isn't earth-shattering news here. Minnesota has been a reliably Democratic state throughout much of the last few decades, but has tightened some in recent elections until 2008. As others have pointed out (here and here), the approval numbers for Obama, Pawlenty and Palin may be another number to focus on, but I'll stick with the election question.

What these results tell me is that 2012 is going to be a very difficult year for sitting or recently term limited/"stepping down" governors to do well in the presidential primaries. There is just too much for them to answer for, it appears. Granted, things could turn around on the economic front, but this past few years won't necessarily be kind to governors in the near future. Tim Pawlenty is exhibit one: a Republican governor in a blue state who is trailing the incumbent president in a poll of said state. And the speculation surrounding his decision not to seek a third gubernatorial term places him squarely in the 2012 sweepstakes discussion. It isn't as if John Hoeven was the prospective Republican candidate and the poll was conducted in North Dakota. Pawlenty is at least a legitimate candidate for the GOP in 2012. He may not win the nomination, but he is legitimate. To come up so far behind the president, then, is a bit of an eye-opener. Yes, this is still just one poll, but I do think it speaks to this larger point about governors in the next cycle. The task is going to be a daunting one with all the red ink at the state level these days. And for Pawlenty (and Palin, too), he won't be around to reap any rewards if things start turning around in any noticeable way between now and 2011-12. I mean, we're not talking about George W. Bush in the late 1990s here (popular governor of a populous state during an economic boom).

So let's put this idea on the shelf for the time being and revisit it when the field of candidates starts to take shape. Governors from states that are doing relatively well may have an advantage over those who either are from states that are doing worse or have since left office. Does Haley Barbour fit in the former category? Who else fits in the latter (other than Palin and Pawlenty)?

Thoughts?


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Tale of the Tape: Health Care Polling

NOTE: FHQ doesn't typically wander into the area of policy polling, but I'm in the midst of a unit on sampling and survey research in my summer course political science research class and I'm looking for examples for illustrative purposes. At the moment, the contradictory findings from NY Times/CBS and Resurgent Republic offers the perfect example.

Depending on who you're listening to, the Obama adminstration's efforts to push meaningful (perhaps, "meaningful" as that is certainly in the eye of the beholder) health care reform through Congress is either going swimmingly or is a complete non-starter. [Actually, the sense I get from my view up in the nosebleed section -- definitely not on the sidelines -- is that the obstacles appear more daunting now than they did prior to health care officially being placed on the agenda.] You will find no better example of this than in the divide between the latest New York Times/CBS News and Resurgent Republic* polls (both pdfs) released in the last few days on the matter. Now, these aren't identical polls, but there are a few questions that offer a glimpse into the true contrast here. First, let's focus on question wording on the overlapping questions before we look at the underlying demographics of each poll's sample. For example:

On higher taxes and health care funding...
NYT/CBS:

Would you be willing or not willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans have
health insurance they can't lose, no matter what?

57% Willing, 37% Not willing

RR:
Would you prefer a health care reform plan that raises taxes in order to provide health insurance to all Americans, or a plan that does not provide health insurance to all Americans but keeps taxes at current levels?

RAISE TAXES/HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.....................39%
NO TAX INCREASE/NO HEALTH CARE FOR ALL....52%
DON'T KNOW...................................................................10%

On the federal government versus private health care... (And no, these questions do not necessarily offer an apples to apples comparison.)
NYT/CBS:

Do you think the government would do a better or worse job than private insurance
companies in providing medical coverage?

50% Better, 34% Worse

RR:
Which would you prefer: (ROTATE: a system where most Americans get their health care coverage through the federal government, or a system where most Americans get their health care coverage through a private insurance company)?

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.............................................31%
PRIVATE INSURANCE....................................................60%
DON'T KNOW.....................................................................9%

Now, the first set of questions provides us with a much better direct comparison than the second set, but the nearly diametrically opposed numbers from each poll is eye-catching, to say the least. Question wording in each case, of course, may have a lot to do with this, but let's look at the partisan breakdown just for the heck of it. It wasn't all that long ago -- over this past weekend in fact -- that Nate Silver cautioned that these NYT polls typically trend Democratic in terms of sampling (He further adds that the ten point spread isn't all that extraordinary in the grand polling scheme recently.). And it also may not surprise you that a polling outfit called Resurgent Republic would have a more Republican-leaning sample. But let's have a look under the hood, shall we?

Samples (by party ID)...
NYT/CBS:

GOP: 24%
DEM: 38%
IND: 31%
DK: 8%

RR:

GOP: 32%
DEM: 38%
IND: 26%
DK: 3%

The dispute isn't over the Democrats, where both polls have an equivalent proportion, but among the percentage of Republicans and Independents included. How does this stack up against the national poll average over the last six months (via Pollster)?
That NYT/CBS sample appears to be closer to the current D-R polling gap than the Resurgent Republic sample.** But does that mean health care reform is a done deal? Well, we'll have more polls over the next few weeks and months to tell us whether it is or isn't.

...not to mention some action or inaction on Capitol Hill.


*Incidentally, here is the scoop on Resurgent Republican for those interested.
**It should be pointed out that RR had 1000 cases while NYT had a sample size of 895.


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Not That You're Reading Too Much into the PA Senate Polling, but...

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Not That You're Reading Too Much into the PA Senate Polling, but...

I take issue with some of the "wide lead" talk concerning Arlen Specter's position in the Democratic primary polling relative to Joe Sestak. This isn't a new development: that I have an issue or that the media is talking up the numbers without digging terribly deeply into them. And for the record, Political Wire is technically right. It is a wide lead.

But is that what we should be focused on at this point in the race?

The margin isn't what matters. At this point, Specter's position in the polls relative to the 50% mark is what's important. And the Republican-turned-Democrat is hovering just over that point currently. The other thing to eye is the fluctuation in the level of undecideds in this race. That number is important because of a few things that are likely to keep the number higher [than they would be minus these factors]. First, this race involves a Republican-turned-Democrat. Secondly, Sestak has not "officially" entered the race. And finally, it is very early in the process.

So early in fact, that polling wasn't conducted nearly so soon in the cycle the last time an incumbent Pennsylvania senator was challenged in a primary. And for that information you have to stretch all the way back to 2004 when a political unknown, Arlen Specter, was challenged in the Republican primary by Pat Toomey. What pattern can we glean from that data?

First of all, polling on the Specter/Toomey race did not begin until the fall of 2003 before the April 2004 primary. Polling in May and June of 2009, then, precedes that point in the senate electoral cycle. The starting point is largely the same for the candidates in the polls, though. You can see the trendline here (see "Matchup Poll Graph" on the right side). But what OurCampaign provides is the polling without verification of the sources and without that undecided number. So let's look at the polling data and a better graphic of the trends from the fall of 2003 through primary day in Pennsylvania in late April of 2004.



The thing is that Specter jumped above the 50% mark in a few polls but for the most part was stuck just under 50% throughout. All the movement, not to mention momentum, was with Toomey across the five months of polling in the campaign. The more undecideds decided, the more Toomey gained on Specter among likely (Republican) voters in the closed Pennsylvania primary.

[Click to Enlarge]

If we contrast that with the average Pollster has for the six polls conducted in the last month and a half on this hypothetical Democratic primary race, we see that Sestak has already cut further into Specter's advantage without having even formally announced his intention to run. The 17 point advantage Specter now holds is more than half of what it was in the week after his switch to the Democratic party and all the Sestak talk began (The average of the three polls conducted during the first week in May had Specter up by 41 points.). The kicker is that that is with less than ten points having been cut off the undecideds value (The average undecided mark in those same three polls mentioned above was 21 points with the latest Rasmussen poll showing 13% undecided). In other words, Sestak is taking away from Specter more than he's picking up undecideds.

And it's still early (for polling in this race and for the levelling of wide lead charges).


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Is a Week Old New? 2012 GOP Primary Poll

FHQ is late on this -- about a week late -- but we find it necessary to keep a log of 2012 polls even if it means a delay.

CNN released a second poll on the 2012 GOP primary race; an update from February.

Pollster: CNN/Opinion Research
Date: 5/14-17/2009
Sample: 1010 adults (nationwide phone survey)
Margin of error: +/-4.5 points
Results:
Huckabee -- 22%
Palin -- 21%
Romney -- 21%
Gingrich -- 13%
Other -- 10%
Jeb Bush -- 6%

Not included: Bobby Jindal (in February -- 9%)

This isn't exciting because there aren't many polls, but like the trial heats PPP is doing with Obama, I feel compelled to create a visual for this:
Palin and Huckabee slip some from February, but both are still very much clustered together with Mitt Romney atop the pack still. Much of that could be attributable to Gingrich's inclusion in the second poll. The former Speaker pulled in 13% while Palin and Huckabee lost 12% combined. That conclusion, though, is a leap of faith to some degree. What's interesting is that 10% of Republicans are still planning on supporting "somone else," a result that didn't change with Jindal being dropped and Bush and Gingrich being added. I wonder if that is Ron Paul? Some of it likely is.

But all of this is silly. The 2012 campaign hasn't started yet.

...or has it.

Hat tip: GOP12, which wasn't late with poll commentary on this one.


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Like a Kid in a Candy Store: A 2012 GOP Presidential Preference Poll

From CNN/Opinion Research Corporation:

Palin: 29%
Huckabee: 26%
Romney: 21%
Jindal: 9%

Sample: 429 Republicans (nationally)
MoE: 4.5%
Conducted Wednesday and Thursday of last week (2/18-19)

A couple of thoughts:
1) Palin, Huckabee and Romney are basically tied and Jindal is simply suffering from a lack of name recognition nationally at this point. The poll was done prior to his appearance on Meet the Press last weekend and before his response to Obama's speech to Congress this week. Poor performance or not, I suspect the Louisiana governor would have made it into the low to mid-double digits if the poll had been conducted this week.

2) If these are the candidates, I have to say that this bodes well for Mitt Romney. With Iowa and South Carolina having such conservative Republicans, there's the potential that Huckabee and Palin split the conservative vote (Huckabee's 2008 organization vs. Palin's appeal) and open the door for Romney. The former Massachusetts governor finished second to John McCain in New Hampshire and won the Nevada caucuses in 2008. Granted this is all predicated on both the idea that the calendar remains pretty much the same as it was in 2008 and that Jindal never gets off the ground in his efforts. Neither of those are sure things this far out.

Plus, as Pollster points out: at a similar point four years ago Hillary Clinton led John Kerry 40% - 25% with John Edwards at 18%. Barack Obama? He wasn't included. And we see how that worked out.


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Indiana and 2012

Who You Callin' Underpolled?

Just last month FHQ took a look at the relationship between the competitiveness of a state -- as measured by our weighted average -- and the frequency of polling in that state. The expectation is that the more hotly contested a race is in a particular state, the more apt we are to see a higher number of polls. The regression of this relationship (with the state's number of electoral votes thrown in as a control) explains just under 60% of the variation that we see in the number of polls from state to state. More than that, though, it allows us to predict where a state should be in terms of the number of polls given both its competitiveness and number of electoral votes.

[Click Graph to Enlarge]

In other words, that provides an indication of whether a state has been overpolled -- a concept I don't personally believe in -- and states that are underpolled. Ah, now there is something that is of interest. But there has been an awful lot of polling conducted between last month prior to the conventions and now, at the outset of debate season. The same cast of characters is still there though. Among the toss up states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania are getting polled more than any other state. And that has a lot to do with the head start each had. The advantage each had last month is still there and even augmented now. However, close states like Nevada and Indiana continue to be underpolled in light of how tight they are. New Hampshire, New Mexico and Missouri are also just under where we would expect them to be given their levels of competitiveness.

There's been a lot of talk about why it is that Nevada is underpolled. It has been said that the Silver state is notoriously hard to poll. But why? Well, fortunately FHQ has someone on the inside to help us all understand the polling situation in Nevada. The other day I spoke with David Damore from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Dave has stopped by here on occasion to comment on topics relating to Nevada, especially during primary season. So I put the question to him and here is what he had to say on the matter:

"There are a couple of things going on here. First, there is not an entity akin to say the California Field Poll in the state that consistently polls. Thus, what we get is a hodgepodge of polls done by the two biggest papers in the state (Las Vegas Review Journal and the Reno Gazette Journal) and whatever national firms take an interest (which tends to be pretty sporadic). I do not know much about the RGJ polling process, but from what I can glean from the RJ methods is that they are not good. They typically use small samples, which yield large margins of errors and they over sample rural Nevada intentionally because the rurals tend to have higher voter turnout, but of course vote 4 to 1 in favor of the GOP, so their polls always have about a four or five percent pro-GOP bias. For instance, a couple of days before the 2004 election the RJ had a poll with Bush up around five points. At the time I was on a radio program with the Kerry guy in NV and their polls had the state dead even.

"The second big issue is finding the voters. In particular, Las Vegas is a very transient place and pretty much anyone under 30 is cell phone only. This latter group is not included in any of the sampling frames and given that they lean overwhelmingly Democratic, they are missed. This is my guess as to why the latest NV polls are favoring McCain; a dynamic that is at odds with what is happening on the ground here."

Now, what is Indiana's excuse?


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Nothing to see here, folks.

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The Deal with Those Rasmussen "Leaners" [Update]

Yeah, what is the deal with that switch? On its simplest level, the chart below looks at the difference in the Rasmussen poll margins based on whether leaners were included in the data. That distinction seems to have been instituted following July 4. The polls that started coming out on July 9 began to use the language "with leaners" to describe the alternate numbers to what was in the headline. "With leaners" data gives McCain about a one point bump when we look at how the margin between McCain and Obama is affected based on whether leaners are included. It has been rare that Obama has gained once "leaners" are included with those who directly answer the candidate preference question. Interestingly, the two polls today gave the Illnois senator a boost once leaners are included.

Rasmussen Polls Since w/Leaners Distinction was Added (7/9/08)*
State	w/o Leaners	w/Leaners	Change	Undecideds Drop
Alaska	+5	+5	0	-7
Arkansas	+10	+13	+3	-4
Colorado	+7	+3	+4	-13
Florida	+1	+2	+1	-7
Georgia	+9	+11	+2	+1
Illinois	+13	+11	+2	-6**
Iowa	+10	+10	0	-9
Kansas	+20	+23	+3	-9
Louisiana	+20	+19	+1	-2
Maine	+10	+8	+2	-2
Michigan	+8	+8	0	-5
Minnesota (7/10)	+18	+17	+1	0
Minnesota (7/22)	+12	+13	+1	0
Missouri	+5	+5	0	-10
Nevada	+2	+2	0	-5
New Jersey	+5	+3	+2	-4
North Carolina	+3	+3	0	-5
North Dakota	0	+1	+1	-7**
Ohio	+6	+10	+4	-7
Oregon	+9	+9	0	-5
South Dakota	+4	+4	0	-4
Virginia	0	+1	+1	-6
Washington	+9	+8	+1	-6
Wisconsin	+13	+10	+3	-6
Avg. Change			+1.08	-5.4
*The "with leaners" distinction was added to reports that were released beginning on 7/9/08. The date on which these polls were conducted (The ones that these releases were based on) stretches back to 7/7/08. **Rasmussen has only conducted one poll in these states. Therefore, the difference was taken from between the with and without leaner numbers within the same poll in these cases.

The problem here is not one of the changes in the margins though. It is one of comparison. You can't directly compare the new "leaner" data to past Rasmussen polls that did not include the respondents that meet that description. Obviously if leaners are pushed in any one direction, the number of undecideds decreases. So, if we look at the data concerning undecideds plus those supporting other candidates (not McCain or Obama) in the most recent polls and in the one immediately prior to the inclusion of leaners, we get a better sense of how much the undecided total has dropped. We can look at this within each poll; looking at the with and without leaners numbers, but what we are trying to capture is the problem of comparing the new, with leaners polls with the old, without leaner polls. And what we see is that on average, the percentage of undecideds drops by more than five points per poll when leaners are included in the topline numbers. Now, we expect to see the number of undecideds drop this time of year...naturally. But we don't expect that decrease to be manufactured. And the catch is that everyone (FHQ included) has been using Rasmussen's "with leaners" numbers since the switch. The result is that comparisons and subsequent analyses--whether used for electoral college projections or not--are open to a potential bias.

In our case, here at FHQ, I took the liberty of changing data to reflect the "without leaners" view across all the Rasmussen data. I altered the margins of these 24 polls then, to pull them in line with the pre-switch polling methodology. The effect that had on our state-by-state averages was negligible. The only change was that Ohio slipped back into Obama's column (Due to the new Rasmussen poll in the Buckeye state, Ohio has moved from an Obama toss up to a McCain toss up.). Again though, that isn't the real issue. One poll among many in the average is not all that consequential. However, when we continue to compile "with leaner" polls, they collectively have the potential to skew our examination of the electoral college. And that just so happens to be contrary to what we want to accomplish with this endeavor. So let's just lop off the Rasmussen data and be done with it. Well, that deprives us of a valuable source of data. Since Rasmussen made the switch (post-July 4) there have been 43 new polls. 24 of those polls have been from Rasmussen. That's approaching 60% of the data. I don't then, want to throw Rasmussen out. What we can do is continue what we've begun here: to chart how much of a difference the "with leaners" data has on our electoral college projections. And as we do with the monthly examinations of how the averages have changed from state to state, we can observe these differences periodically as well. After a month or so, we will then be able to see if there is any significant bias attendant to including the leaner data and how large that impact is.


A belated thanks to reader, SarahLawrenceScott, for getting the ball rolling on this examination.


Recent Posts:
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The Electoral College Map (7/20/08) [Update]

The Electoral College Map (7/16/08)