Thursday, May 21, 2009

Obama looking strong for 2012

PPP's monthly look at how Barack Obama fares nationally against some potential 2012 rivals again shows him in solid position, with Mike Huckabee coming the closest for the second time in a row.

Obama leads Huckabee 52-39, Newt Gingrich 53-36, Mitt Romney 53-35, and Sarah Palin 56-37. Any of these match ups, at this point in time, would give him a margin of victory far exceeding what he won against John McCain last November.

Although that's certainly somewhat attributable to Obama's popularity it's also an indication that the GOP- like the Democrats last year- might end up better off if a fresher candidate emerges than the ones currently most well known and discussed.

Huckabee has the best favorability rating of the GOP quartet, at 44/32. That's followed by Romney at 40/36, Palin at 42/50, and Gingrich at 30/47.

Palin is actually the most popular among Republicans with 76% viewing her favorably, compared to 67% for Romney, 64% for Huckabee, and 57% for Gingrich. But she also has the weakest numbers among Democrats and independents, with 74% and 58% respectively viewing her negatively. All The GOP contenders get unfavorable reviews from independents with the exception of Huckabee, who manages a positive 44/36 spread.

Palin is also the best known of the group with fewer than 10% of the respondents having no opinion of her. About a quarter didn't know enough to take a stance on the other three.

Obama's approval rating is at 55%, a finding pretty consistent with where he was in April (53%) and March (55%). His reviews continue to be very polarized along partisan lines (84% approval from Democrats but just 19% from Republicans) and he's at a solid 55% with independents.

Full results here.

4 comments:

Josh said...

It appears that it doesn't really matter who the Republican nominee (among these) is -- the support varies 2 points from 37 percent, and Obama is over 50 percent against all of them. And that's with the Republicans' individual popularities varying widely.

It would seem the GOP base is three-eighths of the country. Unless they find another eighth, Obama is already reelected.

Ian Lazaran said...

How are Obama, Palin, Newt, Romney, and Huckabee polling with moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans. I'm assuming you'll have a breakdown later on?

Brandon K said...

Are you going to try polling other people as well against Obama?

Also, maybe you could include "Generic R", so we can see some type of baseline that Obama is starting with?

Tbone said...

Polling against sitting Presidents 5 months into their term is dumb. Obama can be beaten in 2012 if the economy doesn't get better. Obama is more popular than his policies.

 
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