The economy's hit Michigan harder than most places and Democrats in the state were defeated badly in last month's election. Nevertheless Barack Obama leads all of his top prospective Republican opponents for reelection in the state and with the exception of Mitt Romney, the margins are all in double digits.
Obama has decent approval numbers in Michigan with 50% of voters giving him good marks to 45% who are unhappy with his job performance. Democrats are pretty universally still happy with him, with 90% expressing approval. Republicans strongly disapprove of Obama but not quite to the extent that Democrats like him- 85% of them give the President bad marks. Independents split slightly in favor of Obama, approving of him by a 47/44 margin.
Compared to the Republican field Obama's numbers look stratospheric. Only Romney is viewed favorably by a plurality of voters in the state, with 39% holding a favorable opinion to 37% with an unfavorable one. Beyond him the GOP field ranges from slightly unpopular (Mike Huckabee's 37/40 favorability) to very unpopular (Newt Gingrich's 28/50), to extremely unpopular (Sarah Palin's 34/60). What might be most striking for the Republicans beyond Romney is their numbers with independents. Huckabee's net favorability with them is -14 (29/43), Gingrich's is -39 (20/59), and Palin's is -40 (28/68).
At this point it looks like Michigan would be a swing state in 2012 only if Romney secured the nomination. He trails Obama 47-43 in a hypothetical contest. Obama crushes the rest of the Republican field by margins pretty comparable to what he received against John McCain in the state in 2008- it's 12 points over Huckabee at 51-39, 15 over Gingrich at 52-37, and 21 over Palin at 56-35.
There's not a lot of variability across the four match ups with Democratic voters- Obama gets 87-91% of his own party's voter regardless of the Republican. There are major differences with independents though. Obama leads Romney by just a single point with them but that margin expands to 21 points over Huckabee, 27 over Gingrich, and 36 over Palin.
PPP's final Michigan poll in 2008 found 8% more Democrats than Republicans. This poll finds the number of voters in the state identifying themselves with each party as equal. That fact, combined with Obama's large leads with independents, suggests that a fair number of Michigan Democrats have left the party over the last couple years and are now identifying as independents. However they're still voting Democratic, even if they no longer consider themselves to be members of the party.
One final note- just as a what the heck we tested Governor elect Rick Snyder in a head to head with Obama. Voters in the state strongly like their new Governor, giving him a 48/26 favorability rating. Talk of the White House might be a little premature though- Obama leads him 49-38 in a hypothetical contest.
Full results here
Palin is 34/60, not 28/68.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to remember about Michigan is that we have non-partisan registration and open primary voting. So a lot of functionally Democratic voters identifying themselves as independents is just a statistical tic you see ever few years when we invariably switch the party that controls the statehouse with clockwork precision, especially since a lot of them chose to vote in the Republican primaries, where most of the real action was, and the logical outgrowth of that is to consider yourself an independent.
ReplyDeleteI must say for a 35/35 split, I'm pretty surprised that Obama is shown beating Mitt Romney. I'll wait other polling before I buy into that. It's well within the MOE, and personally, I believe somewhat a fluke.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, over the weekend, we were told that PPP would have the Massachusetts GOP primary out Monday (yesterday). Will it be out later today, or when?
I'm waiting for the first matchup poll that has Gingrich or Palin doing better than Romney. Maybe we'll see that in Missouri.
ReplyDeleteWe released Missouri last week, and as usual, Palin and Gingrich were doing worse than Romney and Huckabee. Even in Montana, Huckabee and Romney were beating Obama by 10 or 11 but Palin and Gingrich beating him by only 2. Similarly in Virginia, Palin and Gingrich were getting BEATEN by 11, but Romney and Huckabee by only 5.
ReplyDeleteSay what??? You just released a MO 2008 Rep nomination poll the other day with Huckabee (27%) and Palin (26%) crushing Romney at 15%. I know you guys work for DailyKOS but good grief: Are you that biased against Gov Palin that you would even contradict the numbers you put out the other day to demonstrate that she is not doing well.
ReplyDeleteObama is going to lose nationally. Polls at this juncture when the electorate is still under the spell of irrational exuberance (still believing in a "recovery") are not valid representations of the economic climate Obama will be running in.
ReplyDelete2011-2012 will be dominated by the economic crash on Obama's watch. The electorate will awaken to the disaster that Congressional Democrats have caused and Obama has worsened and prolonged.
"whatever you think of Obama and the supposed deal on extending tax cuts, the overall picture is that Obama is trying to play the moderate, while legislators of both parties are trying to appeal to true believers. moderates' time to shine is in upward trending cycles, while true believers prevail in downward trending cycles. since our EW analysis predicts that 2011-12 will be a downward primary wave 3 of downward cycle degree C of downward supercycle degree A, it is likely that Obama will not successfully endear himself to the electorate as a moderate.
that Obama would attempt this strategy is socionomically understandable as the upward primary degree 2 reaches its climax. but contrary analysts understand that the trend will not continue. and a strong downward wave, favoring confrontation over moderation, will reassert itself from now until his (failed) reelection attempt."
http://dchrist81.blogspot.com/2010/12/delaying-tax-vote-could-crash-stock.html
overall, the data still supports the prediction that Republicans will increase their majority in the House, win the majority in the Senate, and defeat Obama.
ReplyDeleteThe individual who will be inaugurated President in 2013 will be nominated in Tampa. That's a stone cold lead pipe lock!!
It's unfortunate how Ron Paul is not on any of these. He is the only person who could beat Obama in a debate. Not because he's a better talker but because he's smarter. Plus, his track record speaks for itself. I hope he runs in 2012.
ReplyDeleteJust as a a "what the heck"?
ReplyDeleteYou poll a guy who has yet to even take office - and it will be the first office he ever holds?
Why do you waste our time, and yours with stuff like this?
I wrote:
ReplyDelete"a strong downward wave, favoring confrontation over moderation, will reassert itself from now until his (failed) reelection attempt."
And just as I predicted, the Old Gray Lady, the supposed "paper of record", is ridiculing Obama for being a moderating pushover.
Obama cannot win by moving to the center. And Obama cannot win by moving to the left. Obama has been exposed. Obama simply cannot win reelection at all.
I'm sure "overwhelmingly popular" "stone cold lead pipe lock" senators O'Donnell, Angle, Miller, Tancredo, and McMahon will all be leading the charge for Sarah Palin's Presidential campaign.
ReplyDeleteWhen Republicans are fresh off their biggest electoral advantage in history, but have no candidates competitive in the Upper Midwest, are losing in Virginia and South Carolina, and lost big in Colorado (again), it takes some extreme leaps of faith to come up with a scenario in which any Republican can win the electoral college. Bush scraped through by the skin of his teeth, and he had to run the table on swing states to do so.
If, as Governor Hickenlooper and the polling in Virginia show, CO and VA are in the blue column, then the only way for a Republican candidate to win is to pick off a couple of blue states - and there's no way through the Republican primaries without showing enough fealty to the Radical Right as to be unpalatable to the moderate middle. The growth of NoVa and Denver have left both states with modest but growing urban, Democratic majorities.
Republicans are in a deep mathematical trap at the Presidential level, and praying to their imaginary friend in the sky for lopsided turnout is not a particularly viable strategy in years with high interest (like, say, Presidential years).
These new numbers are somewhat perplexing to me. Without digging deep into the weeds, did you revert back to an ALL VOTERS model rather than the models used prior to the 2010 November election? I ask because it seems like Obama's numbers are now much stronger than they were just 1 month ago in places polled. I'm just trying to figure out the "uptick" even though nothing has changed how people feel about him.
ReplyDelete"Say what??? You just released a MO 2008 Rep nomination poll the other day with Huckabee (27%) and Palin (26%) crushing Romney at 15%. I know you guys work for DailyKOS but good grief: Are you that biased against Gov Palin that you would even contradict the numbers you put out the other day to demonstrate that she is not doing well."
ReplyDeleteI was clearly talking about the general election, as was Steve. We are in a comment thread about a general-election post. Reading comprehension is clearly not one of your skills.
I forgot we already had a matchup poll from Missouri. Will there ever be a state poll where Palin or Gingrich polls better than Romney or Huckabee in a general election matchup?
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to polling on RichRod?
ReplyDeleteTom Jensen, I presume you authored this article. Spell check is a wonderful feature in today's word proccessing software. Try using that tool in the future! Not to be picky, but you are a writer???
ReplyDeleteWhere is something spelled wrong? I see somewhere I should have said 'voters' instead of 'voter' but that's it.
ReplyDeleteThe Rich Rod numbers will be out Thursday.
"Without digging deep into the weeds, did you revert back to an ALL VOTERS model rather than the models used prior to the 2010 November election?"
ReplyDeleteOf course we're only polling registered voters now (those who've voted in at least one of the last three elections). There's no point in screening for likely voters two years out from an election when no one can predict whether they'll vote or not. We only started an LV screen in August this year, which is about as early as you want to do it. So come back in August of 2012 if you want to know how Obama is doing in Michigan with likely voters.
Just curious....where did you do your polling...Detroit? LOL
ReplyDeleteJust for the record..in my other blog, when I said Detroit...I simply meant it is mostly democrat country...LOL
ReplyDelete