So here's a surprise from the national poll we did on Sarah Palin last week: she's more popular with Republican voters in the northeast than in the south or midwest.
When you look at the ideological composition of Republican voters by region though it's less startling: 74% of Republicans voters in the NE describe themselves as conservatives, not all that different from the 75% in the midwest, 79% in the south, and 73% in the west. It's safe to say the days of Rockefeller Republicans are long gone- of course this same survey showed that only 19% of moderates nationally identify with the GOP so that's no great shock.
Palin is viewed favorably by 89% of western Republicans, 86% in the northeast, 76% in the south, and 71% in the midwest. I wouldn't extrapolate these numbers too far, but it might be an indication she could do better in New Hampshire than Iowa. That might be particularly true if Tim Pawlenty gets a next door bonus like Dick Gephardt did in 1988 and Barack Obama did last year.
The southern numbers aren't that surprising to me. I think she will have a hard time there in the primaries if Mike Huckabee or Newt Gingrich is in the race.
It's hard to believe we're already less than two and a half years away from the beginning of the nomination contests!
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3 comments:
Did you find any differences among her support in the different age groups among Republicans? Rasmussen found her doing better with the 18-29 Republicans. I wonder if you found the same thing.
Question: how do Obama's numbers among Democrats breakdown among regions?
Tom, your suggestion that Palin could do better in NH than Iowa misses the mark badly because you fail to remember that Iowa has a closed caucus with only very loyal base voters (more conservative than what one would find in a primary without the time commitment of a caucus) actually participating, while NH is a primary open to registered independents. That automatically makes the Iowa electorate far more conservative than New Hampshire, as illustrated by Huckabee's and McCain's respective performances in those states last year.
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