Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Moderate Republicans/Conservative Democrats

Here's an interesting finding from our national poll last week: even with the President in a bit of a rough patch he's still more popular with conservative Democrats than any of his potential opponents for 2012 are with moderate Republicans.

69% of conservative Democrats approve of how Obama's doing compared to 17% disapproving.

The best any of the GOP hopefuls do with the moderate wing of their party is Mike Huckabee's 54% favorability rating with 17% viewing him unfavorably. He's followed by Sarah Palin at 53/30, Mitt Romney at 45/20, and Newt Gingrich at 44/29.

It's a similar story with the horse race numbers. The Republicans get 57-63% with their party's moderates with Obama pulling anywhere from 24% against Huckabee to 32% against Palin. Obama gets 67-73% with his party's conservatives while losing anywhere from 17% against Romney to 25% against Huckabee.

If Obama does better with conservative Democrats in 2012 than his eventual opponent does with moderate Republicans, there's very little chance he loses.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"69% of conservative Democrats approve of how Obama's doing compared to 17% disapproving. "

What the heck does a 'conservative Democrat' believe? The Democrat party is hostile and opposed to anything and everything conservative, they excoriate real conservatives, attack conservative values and people, and advance an agenda that destroys everything conservatives believe in.

So how can a conservative Democrat even exist let alone support Obama?

what does it even mean? Polling would help. eg. are they pro-gun-rights, pro-lower-taxes, pro-smaller-govt, pro-health-care-freedom, pro-life, pro-US-military, anti-affirmative-action-quotas, anti-socialism???

Venu said...

First to Freedom's Truth,

The Democratic Party has not always been a predominately liberal party. the 1950's and 60's saw a shift of the Democrats into the left. The point is conservative/liberal is an ideology while Democrat/Republican doesn't impact ideology.

Also to Tom,

Is it really useful to compare "favorable" numbers to "approval" numbers? They are two different measurements. It is entirely possible to like Obama but not think he's doing a good job and also possible to give him good marks but still not like him.

 
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