For the second month in a row we found Sarah Palin as the most popular of the leading 2012 GOP hopefuls among moderate Republicans. 64% have a positive opinion of her compared to 57% for Newt Gingrich, 53% for Mike Huckabee, and 45% for Mitt Romney.
Those numbers are pretty low across the board though. By comparison, 82% of moderate Democrats approve of Barack Obama's job performance.
There aren't that many moderate Republicans left- just 27% of the party's voters and about 10% of the overall electorate- but there's no doubt their votes are going to be needed to have any chance of reclaiming the White House in 2012. The big question then becomes whether one of these four can get to the point where their popularity is 80+ with the moderate wing of the party, or whether it would take one of the dark horses to get to that point- and whether such a person could retain enough popularity with conservatives to win the nomination.
Jensen,
ReplyDeleteThat's the wrong comparison my friend.
The comparison is really between Obama's support with conservative Democrats and the Republican's support with moderate Republicans. After all, the percentage of moderate Democrats + liberal Democrats equals the percentage of conservative Republicans according to your data.
Also,
ReplyDeleteI hope Obama fails.
It looks like Sarah Palin is locked for the GOP nomination at least. With over 80% of Republican and conservative support, she might even win 10 of the first 8 primaries.
ReplyDelete