Almost a year after his election as President, Barack Obama continues to lead his most likely 2012 rivals in hypothetical contests for reelection.
Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and Tim Pawlenty 50-30.
This is the seventh time PPP has conducted this poll and the seventh time Huckabee has polled closest to Obama. Speaking to the weakness of the field of potential Republican candidates he's the only with a positive favorability rating and even then it's only 33/29.
Huckabee's doing well because he connects better than the other GOP hopefuls with voters in the Midwest and South. For instance while Romney, Palin, and Pawlenty trail by 9, 17, and 18 points respectively in the Midwest Huckabee is down by just 3, something that could be a good omen for his prospects of again winning the Iowa primary as he did in 2008.
Romney is actually the most popular of the Republican candidates with independents, sporting a 38/28 favorability rating with them and holding Obama to just a 41-40 lead. One thing he'll probably have to contend with to a greater extent if he gets the 2012 nomination is his religion- 34% of respondents say they have an unfavorable opinion of it to 21% who look on it positively.
Palin's numbers have been somewhat mystifying over the last four months. Immediately after her resignation they actually improved to a positive 47/45 favorability rating. Since then though they've plummeted even with her largely out of the public eye and only 36% of voters have a favorable view of her with 51% holding a negative one. She has by far the worst numbers with both Democrats and independents.
Somewhat counterintuitively the best news in this poll might be for Tim Pawlenty. Only 27% of respondents have an opinion of him and it breaks down negatively, 16/11. He trails Obama by the widest margin. But with all of the better known Republican candidates looking pretty weak the door is really open for someone like him to step in and have a big impact on this race. No one expected Barack Obama to be the Democrats' 2008 nominee at this time four years ago, and the best hope for Republicans in 2012 may be to move beyond the Huckabee/Palin/Romney trio that all has the loser stench from last year.
Full results here
Palin's fav/unfav ratings are not surprising. Right after her resignation, most folks thought she did the country a favor by torpedoing her own political future, and so gave her high marks.
ReplyDeleteNow that time has passed, we return to normal...
Any guesses as to why your GOP favorables for Romney and Huckabee are so different than Rasmussen's GOP favorables for the two men?
ReplyDeleteRasmussen has them both at 78% with Republicans while you have them at 56 and 54%. Just strange.
Good luck on relying on pools. I get a better idea of how things really are by reading the newspapers of the states,the blogs,opinions,comments to articles. The bama is hated and he will never be re elected. Keep dreaming though if that works for you.
ReplyDeleteObama has done nothing after one year people when we need to move and get support to our military in Afghanistan and people back to work. Anything more important outside of these two dynamics is folly. Good luck America you're going to need it.
ReplyDeleteI give you one word people, one word that we were all aware of before electing this buffoon…..and that word was “PRESENT” which is exactly what we are getting from him now that he is our Commander in Chief. The very thought of this makes me sick.
Huckabee crushes Obama. The same evangelicals who got Bush elected will rally FOR Huckabee and AGAINST Obama. Huckabee connects with people like Obama but will have the ammunition of 1000 Obama lies and broken promises to bludgeon him with. Debates? Not good for Obama.
ReplyDeleteJust another misleading poll not disclosing the people they polled.
ReplyDeletelikely like that other nonsensical of WaPo that had much too high number of people polled say they were democrats and much less number say they were republicans
wonder if this will get through the "moderator" aka censor on this website
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteAs a conservative I left the Republican Party during Bush's term. Those that you site here are as bad as we currently have. Nope, we need to take the bleach and scrub down DC. By the way libs, when you cite the Republican Party as bananas we do too. And what I mean by we is that huge block of once Republican voters that have re registered Independent or Libertarian yet no one speaks about this mammoth switch in party affiliation. Shhhhh, no problem...
Huckubee,believe in globe warming,he want a cardon tax, he want to make all the illegal, legal,we need someone like Sarin Palin.
ReplyDeleteAbout the only two figures I can see that would have good general appeal for the 2012 election are John Thune and General Petraeus.
ReplyDeleteI belive any of the GOP names mentioned could defeat obama in 2012, providing we don't self destruct as a party before then.
ReplyDeleteRommey, Huckabee, and Palin all have strengths and weakness. Although at this point I pefer Rommey, I would have no problem voting for Palin or Huckabee.
Why is this post filled with a bunch of illiterate nonsense from wingnuts?
ReplyDeleteI tend to think that all this poll proves is that Obama is president and Mike Huckabee has a show. It's a contest of name recognition and little else at this point. Remember who had name recognition this far before 2008... she's secretary of state now.
ReplyDeletejack bauer 2012 save the country in 24 hours!
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see Gov. Huckabee is getting his message out to more people.
ReplyDeleteWill Obama be a one term disaster like Carter? If so, Huckabee is smart by using media outlets to take his message straight to "we the people" like Reagan did.
Huckabee 2012!
Could Obama be a one term disaster like Carter? If so, Gov. Huckabee could be following Reagan's footsteps by using the media outlets to take his message straight to "we the people" like Reagan did.
ReplyDeleteHuckabee 2012!
Have any of your seven polls included Ron Paul against Obama?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could include his name among the choices in your next poll.
As an Obama supporter I'm actually somewhat disappointed by these numbers. Only up by 4% against Huckabee?! That's insane. I think Huckabee would have a very hard time once the media spotlight was really on him.
ReplyDeleteHuckabee's views are too fringe to see as threatening. There's a reason Americans are becoming increasingly less religious - because of the religious loons who backed him and forced Bush upon us for 8 years.
ReplyDelete"After a year, Obama has done nothing."
ReplyDeleteHave you checked the Dow-Jones average lately? Have you paid any attention to the legislation that has managed to pass despite unrelenting obstructionism from the GOP and tarring by the right wing "punditry"?
I'm not sure how you expect him to accomplish the things on his agenda when he is thwarted at every turn, no matter how much his proposals are in the best interest of the majority of people who aren't in that top tier of moneyed power brokers; but he took on an economy that was trashed, a world view of the United States that was in the toilet and a very disgruntled populace. And you want miracles in a year? Then help, don't hinder.
It took Bush eight long horrible embarassing years to do this to the country. It isn't going to be fixed in a year, and it certainly isn't going to be fixed if a percentage of the population dig in their heels and determine to stop him at all cost for reasons the rest of us can't begin to grasp.
Anonymous,
ReplyDelete1) Rasmussen ALWAYS polls far, far to the Right. They're in the "we give Republicans numbers they can use" business. That's why they're always mentioned on Right wing blogs and FOX. They are ALWAYS the FAR Right outlier. Check and compare.
2) Accurate polls SHOULD mirror the political Party affiliation of the country. That means only about 20% Republican. Do you think a poll that was 50% Blacks and 50% Whites was accurate? No, because that's not the makeup of the nation. The nation isn't 50% Republican either.
I am hoping that Sarah is the nominee, I can't wait to see Obama kick some big smelly Gooper booty.
ReplyDeletePolls are conducted in order to influence the public perception, by the careful wording of the questions. Small differences in wording can lead to by differences in poll outcomes. I suspect that Huckabee is way ahead of Romney and Palin, but he is not the choice of the establishment.
ReplyDelete