Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Obama and Independents

The thing I found most surprising in our Florida poll had nothing to do with Charlie Crist- it was Barack Obama's positive 54/42 approval spread with independents. Out of the 20 different states we've polled in the last six months that makes it just the fourth where he's been on positive ground with independents, joining South Dakota, Delaware, and Arizona. And it's the first one of those states where he's been above 50%. I suppose if he had to pick a state to do better with those folks Florida might be it.

Obama's average approval with independents across the last 20 states we've polled is 38/53. There doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to where he's doing well. The states where he has the worst numbers are southern states where he lost by wide margins in 2008- Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas. Perhaps more worrisome is that he's at 35% or worse in three of the states that he flipped last time- Virginia, Nevada, and New Mexico- as well as Missouri where he came the closest without winning.

Here's the full data:

State

Obama Approval w/ Independents

Florida

54/42

Arizona

50/42

Delaware

48/45

Connecticut

47/47

South Dakota

45/44

Maine

45/45

Alaska

43/49

Wisconsin

42/50

South Carolina

41/51

North Carolina

40/53

New Jersey

40/48

Georgia

36/59

Nevada

35/61

Massachusetts

33/52

Virginia

32/57

Missouri

32/59

Arkansas

28/68

New Mexico

27/64

Kentucky

23/67

Texas

19/70

4 comments:

  1. Looks like you got an unrepresentative sample of independents. That's what's skewing your FL Senate polling, too.

    That can happen pretty frequently with a relatively small subgroup, which is probably why the results look odd in several states.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, it could be that Obama's approval rating is moving into much more positive territory now. Health care reform is also picking up more support per pollster.com. Since the FL poll is the latest poll you have on Independents and Obama, it could be that the data on the other states is already old in political time. Poll the other states now and see if there's movement one way or the other.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can explain Arizona, Florida, though not Delaware or South Dakota.

    The Republicans who became indies in 2008 were the ones most likely to dislike their GOP options or think the GOP was too far right wing. So now that Obama is moving left, those right-leaning, once-Obama-supporting indies are disapproving.

    McCain was a great GOP option for the moderate Republicans in Arizona. A native son, or the early favorite of the popular Governor Crist. So today's indies are less right-leaning, because there are more Republicans who stayed Republicans in 2008. The indies that remain are left-center moderates.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Right

    Like Independents in Florida with a huge older population who hate Obamacare are going to like him right now?

    no way! You poll right their is debunked

    ReplyDelete