Friday, August 20, 2010

Popularity Contest!

We added a question to our Pennsylvania and Illinois polls this week that we'll probably get around to asking on most of our state polls for the rest of the cycle- between your state's Governor and two Senators who's your favorite politician in the state?

It's no contest in either of these states with Bob Casey the winner by a large margin in Pennsylvania and Dick Durbin coming out well ahead in Illinois.

Casey's the choice of 31% followed by Ed Rendell at 14% and Arlen Specter at 11%. 44% don't state a preference, likely a reflection of their being no Republican politicians to choose from. Casey is easily the top choice of Democrats, 36-20 over Rendell, and Republicans, 29-7 over both Specter and Rendell.

Specter polling at only 7% with Republicans even though Rendell and Casey have been major figures in Democratic politics in the state forever while Specter was a Republican until a year ago certainly shows how much animosity remains about his decision to switch parties. And on the topic of Specter even if Joe Sestak's not doing great against Pat Toomey right now there's no doubt Democrats got their stronger candidate- we found Specter's approval rating this week to be 27% with 57% of voters disapproving of him. If he had won the nomination with those numbers this seat might be approaching write off stage already analogous to the situations in North Dakota and Arkansas.

In Illinois Durbin is the favorite politician of 41% of voters in the state, followed by Pat Quinn at 10%, and Roland Burris at 6%. Like Pennsylvania the lack of Republicans in major offices in Illinois leaves 42% of voters saying no opinion. Durbin's tops among Democrats, 60-11 over Quinn, independents, 40-8 over Quinn, and Republicans, 17-12 over Quinn.

Full numbers from this exercise here

7 comments:

Christian Liberty said...

PA and IL both have a Dem gov and 2 Dem senators. Big surprise that a Democrat had the biggest name id/popularity. In both cases, it was the senator who was not up for election, not subjected to a campaign that defined him as the extremist that he really is.


And there's no doubt that Pat Toomey is the much stronger candidate for senate. There is no doubt that Toomey is the mainstream candidate. No doubt at all.

Anonymous said...

Christian Liberty, proof?

Dustin Ingalls said...

Proof or substantiated claims aren't in CL's vocabulary. You should know that by now, Anon.

Christian Liberty said...

"on the topic of Specter even if Joe Sestak's not doing great against Pat Toomey right now there's no doubt Democrats got their stronger candidate"

As bad as Toomey is mauling Joe nutjob Sestak, Specter would be losing even worse.

The proof is all around you. Republicans will have a historically massive landslide victory. You just try to PRETEND to not see it. I really pity you.

Christian Liberty said...

Pat Toomey is IN EVERY WAY the mainstream candidate... and Joe Sestak is IN EVERY WAY the radical extremist.

Anonymous said...

Christian Liberty, let's examine how "your" candidates are doing, shall we?

Colorado: Buck +0.7
Nevada: Reid +1.5
Wisconsin: Feingold +1.0
Kentucky: Paul +5.5

Those are the main tea party candidates. I apologize if I missed anyone.

Only one candidate really leads.

So what the hell are you talking about? What massive landslide are Republicans going to have?

Did you even bother to investigate the races? Toomey has been advertising for months. Sestak will wait until the last month and do a scorch-the-earth advertising, mailing, voter get out operations etc, that he did when he won his primary against Specter. Angle's campaign is being run by losers, and Nevada obviously repudiated Angle's tactics when her lead dropped from 10 to Reid up by 5. The Kentucky race is narrowing after Paul made the idiotic comment about drug dealers in Eastern KY. A poll now shows the Democrat up by one.

So you are obviously uninformed on polls. That's all I can say.

Anonymous said...

Rasmussen reported that 45% of Pennsylvania's likely voters consider Sestak as liberal, with 37% seeing his views as extreme. On the other hand Toomey is thought to be conservative by 66% of those being polled, while 27% considered his views as being extreme.

Given the fact that your own/PPP's polling numbers show that 44% of Pennsylvania voters describe themselves as conservative, with 16% liberal and 39% moderate, it would certainly appear (at least to me) that Toomey is seen by most as being far more (relatively speaking) mainstream than what Sestak is.

As for Bob Casey; he is considered by most as being moderate, if not conservative (as Democrats go). His popularity, as such, will have little, if any affect on the Toomey vs Sestak race.

Proof enough?

 
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