As bad as things are for Democrats right now voters still prefer Barack Obama to any of the leading Republicans in the country.
After trailing in one of the hypothetical match ups on our monthly 2012 poll for the first timein January, Obama is back ahead of all the potential 2012 hopefuls. He's up 45-43 on Mitt Romney, 46-43 on Mike Huckabee, 50-43 on Sarah Palin, and 46-28 on John Thune.
For Romney this is his first time flying solo as the closest Republican to Obama. In the previous ten polls Huckabee was the closest nine times and the tenth was a tie between Huckabee and Romney. The former Massachusetts Governor fares the best of the GOP contenders among independents, leading Obama 43-38.
Huckabee falls back behind Obama after leading by a point a month ago. He's the most well liked (maybe least disliked is a better term) of the Republican field among Democrats at a 16/40 spread.
Palin continues to be the weakest of the leading trio of Republicans. Where Romney and Huckabee hold small leads with independents she trails by 10 points. She also loses 14% of the Republican vote to Obama compared to only 10% for Romney and 11% for Huckabee.
Thune is, not surprisingly, little known. Only 16% of respondents offered an opinion of him, far less even than Tim Pawlenty who 36% of voters on our December poll claimed to have a take on. He trails by more than the rest mostly because 37% of Republicans say they would be undecided if he was the nominee.
As for Obama, his approval rating is back in positive territory for the first time in our polling since early December at 48/47. That's largely thanks to 48% approval from independents, up from 43% in mid-January.
Full results here
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5 comments:
So, Obama tops out at 50, down from 53 in 2008. Obama trails with independents after winning independents in 2008.
Obama 2012 is likely to underperform Obama 2008. The Republican is not likely to underperform McCain.
And Obama topping out at 50 meets the criteria of a vulnerable incumbent, especially when his approval is even lower than 50.
Rather than waste resources polling relatively unknown potential GOP candidates like John Thune and Tim Pawlenty (or Mitch Daniels or Haley Barbour for that matter), it would be more useful to gauge voters' support for household names like Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney.
Obama still winning even in this bad enviornment means he is likely to be pretty safe in 2012.
Since the Republican ticket in 2012 will most likely be Brown-Palin, I suggest you try Brown in your next trial heats. Just because all the Republican candidates trail Obama, in the end the Republicans will go for Brown because he has proven that he can win in the bluest state in the union.
It won't matter that he does not have enough seasoning because neither did Obama. That makes seasoning and qualifications a non-starter in 2012. Sorry to tell you this but whoever gets elected President is the winner of a popularity contest, that and nothing else. If I ever doubted that, 2008 convinced me.
Sean, the current political climate is an extremely good environment relative to what the Democrats will face in 2010 and 2012. The current economic-cultural environment is one of excessive optimism. People still think there is a "recovery" but stocks and housing are going much lower. People still get impressed when jobless claims take a break for a week, when there has been zero private sector job creation. The private sector is being cannibalized by the federal government. Obama's numbers are a ceiling. Obama is already vulnerable and his numbers will only go lower (if the Democrats are dumb enough to renominate him). 2012 is likely to turn out like 1980 (when Kennedy wisely saw that Carter was vulnerable) or 1968 (when Johnson knew better than to even try and run). Obama is a LAME DUCK. STICK A FORK IN HIM, HE'S DONE.
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