Sarah Palin's biggest obstacle to the White House may not be her remarkable level of unpopularity with Democrats and independents. Her more immediate problem is that she simply doesn't have much support in the vital early Republican states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Florida.
Palin does well in national polls on the GOP nomination contest, including a first place finish on our most recent one. But if those sorts of polls determined the nominee Hillary Clinton would most likely be in the White House now. The momentum or lack thereof that candidates get out of the early contests is often what causes their bids to succeed or fail and right now she looks quite weak in those places.
In Iowa two different polls this week found that Palin is a distant third in Iowa. We found her 15 points behind Mike Huckabee with 15% support and Neighborhood Research found her 13 points behind Huckabee with only 11% support. In New Hampshire our most recent poll found her in a tie for third place at 10% with Newt Gingrich, 30 points behind Mitt Romney. A Magellan Strategies poll last week found her with a similarly larger deficit, in second place at 16%, 23 points behind Romney. In Nevada she's been in second place in one of our recent surveys and in third place in another, but at any rate she's running double digits behind Romney. And in Florida our most recent poll found her in a distant fourth place at only 13%, 10 points behind Huckabee, 8 behind Romney, and 5 behind Gingrich.
Now certainly the history of Presidential campaigns is full of people who started well back in the polling gaining momentum and rising to the top in the end. But those tend to be folks who start out with very low name recognition and gain more and more ground as they become better known. Palin's already maxed out on name recognition and it's kind of hard to imagine her winning over very many folks who don't already support her.
If Mike Huckabee doesn't run that will definitely help Palin in these early states but regardless of that she has a lot of work to do in them if she really ends up making a bid for the White House.
Do we get to see a Palin vs Obama matchup from ur Wyoming poll????
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention South Carolina. It's also a very early primary state and if Palin can win it decisively, it may push her towards victory.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I'd like to see a new South Carolina poll.
Do you plan to poll the state anytime soon ?
I'd also like to see how Obama does in the general election.
And if Palin don't make a bid, who wins his supporters? Huckabee?
ReplyDelete1) We didn't do Presidential match ups in Wyoming. I am sure Palin would be leading Obama by 30 points or more.
ReplyDelete2) I'm sure we'll do South Carolina in the next couple months
3) Yes Palin's supporters' second choice is Huckabee.
Politically she is a genius and comes accross as such to her followers which is narrowing down to mostly Tea Partiers these days. To the rest of us, she just doesn't seem too bright. To know her more is to like her less. Fortunately for the Republicans she has peaked. It would be great to see her get the nomination but that just will never happen.
ReplyDeleteFrost as victim of the DeLay Gerrymander redistricting would be very interesting in a year of new redistricting.
ReplyDeleteTerrific, Another Palin "Poll" from DailyKOS/PPP. Any outfit affiliated with DailyKOS conducting polls on Gov Palin should be taken with a grain on salt - until verified by other comparable state polls and after a thorough scrutinization of your demographic numbers. For all we know, you could pad your polls with Dems, and skew your samples to get the results your primary benefactors and audience prefer.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, DailyKOS was the first to push the "Palin Has Blood on Her Hands" for Tucson, and any polling organization affiliated with such an entity needs to be viewed through a Liberal prism. It is in your financial interest, after all, to come upwith numbers that make those vulgar people happy.
To be sure, there are "GOP" anti-Palin lemmings such as the bloggers at GOP12 that will buy your numbers without caution or analysis as I just posted on that blog. I'm also sure that the Palin Haters at MS NBC and the other usual Lib suspects in the media will buy your numbers without hesitation as well.
However, most fair minded observers know what you guys are up to: Carrying the mail for your sponsors.
Man... this does look terrible. I think that bit you mentioned at the end about Huckabee not running is her best shot. Palin really needs Huckabee out so she can take his support and do well enough in these early states to have some kind of momentum.
ReplyDelete(to be clear I hate Sarah Palin with a passion - but I want her to win the GOP nomination so she can destroy the Republican Party)
60% of registered Wyoming voters are Republicans. To make Wyoming competitive, any Democrat would have to win 100% of Democratic and independent votes and still would need 17% of the Republicans to cross party lines, and even that just barely crosses the 50% overall mark. Or have some bizarrely lopsided turnout model.
ReplyDeleteIf Wyoming was anywhere remotely near the radar screen, Obama would be up by sixty in Ohio and seventy in New Jersey. It'd be about as likely to provide a shocker as Hawaii.
You're right Smooth Jazz- Soros dropped by the office this morning and gave me $20 to write this post.
ReplyDeleteI knew it! It's all a big left-wing conspiracy to take down Goddess Sarah!!!!!!! THE EARTH IS FLAT!!1111! OBAMA ORDERED LOUGHNER TO ASSASSINATE GIFFORDS!!1111!ONE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!11!11 I'M SO PARANOID AND DELOUSIONALLLLLLLLLLkajsdpaudf09ua0e9r
ReplyDelete"Terrific, Another Palin "Poll" from DailyKOS/PPP."
ReplyDeleteFirst off, this wasn't a single poll. We have polled IA, NH, NV, and FL individually since the election. And notice that Tom backed our results up with the right-wing Magellan's results, among others.
"a thorough scrutinization of your demographic numbers"
You can scrutinize all you want. All our demographic info is right there on this blog and our website for every poll, unlike most pollsters.
"It is in your financial interest, after all, to come upwith numbers that make those vulgar people happy."
Actually, no, it's in our financial interest to be right, which is why we're doing so well.
Right or wrong Democrats desperately want to run against Palin. So how does it serve them to say she has no chance to win? Palin supporters don't seem to understand that there are many people in the Republican Party who may like her, but don't think she's the best nominee.
ReplyDeleteI think you understate the importance of national polling. National polling frames the narrative for more than state-by-state polling.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to comprehend though why she would be doing better nationally than she would be doing in Iowa. It makes sense with New Hampshire but again, the national polling supports the idea of her leading or even in a close race with Huckabee.
How could states act so differently from national polling?
dream on you libtards and RINO establishment types. Palin will wipe-out the field, the day she announces her candidacy.
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin's career would be over in half an hour in a jumble of word salad gibberish were she ever to appear on "Meet the Press", "Face the Nation" or "This Week."
ReplyDeletePalin also doesn't have enough palms and Sharpies to appear in that press conference she's never had since her 2008 nomination.
"Fox News: Sarah Palin is an idiot "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5BXMv64EfU
"How could states act so differently from national polling?"
ReplyDeleteBecause the early-state voters tend to be more informed than voters nationwide, and you've got a lot of people in the great middle of the country who aren't going to be having a big say in the race who are just going on name recognition.
But your polls do not show a significant disparity between the name rec for Palin and the name rec for romney and huckabee among republican primary voters.
ReplyDeleteSo if Palin's standing among national republicans is due to name rec, then Huckabee and romney would face the same issues as their name rec is almost as high as hers?
I don't think it's accurate to claim that an Iowa Republican voter is more "informed" than a voter in Ohio.
Interesting analysis, but...
ReplyDelete"Republican states of Iowa,[etc]"
Though Iowa swung Republican in this last election, it did so from an almost uniformly Democratic statehouse. Most local pundits think of Iowa as very much a swing state. The Caucuses, especially on the Republican side, tend to not attract the moderates in their respective parties. I think maybe you meant "Republicans in Iowa". Then your statement is true.
"But your polls do not show a significant disparity between the name rec for Palin and the name rec for romney and huckabee among republican primary voters."
ReplyDeleteIt's not just about name rec. Everywhere we poll, Palin is the best known, and you're right that it's not usually by a large margin. All four are pretty well known with Republican voters. But everywhere we poll, Huckabee or Palin is invariably the best liked (except I think in MA, MI, and NV, where Romney does really well), but only Huckabee does a good job at turning strong personal favor into votes. Republicans like Palin, but they're not showing a strong willingness to give her the nomination in most states. And I would say IA and NH voters, in particular, are usually more informed. Maybe not quite at this stage, but because they get to meet the candidates face-to-face many times over the course of 9 months or more, they get to really know them at a level voters in most states never get to.
Last anon: Tom was saying EARLY Republican states, as in the states who have early caucuses and primaries that will begin to choose the GOP nominee. Thought that was pretty clear. None of those states is truly Republican in the general election. They're all swing states that voted for Obama. If anything, IA might be the bluest among them. It's gone blue in every presidential election from 1988 to 2008 except 2004, when Bush narrowly took it from Kerry.
It will be very important which of these are open primaries, which are closed primaries, and which are caucuses. Palin will overperform in caucuses and closed primaries. Also arent all of the early states going to proportional distribution even on the Republican side?
ReplyDeleteAlso you cannot knock out someone with Palin's name id and national support that quickly. It will be just like the Dems in 2008... it will be a horserace thru super tuesday... with Palin dominating the caucuses.
The Republican party is terrified that she will pull it off... they need to be taking her down now... but they do not know how to do it.
They have created a monster with the Teaparty.
I'm not sold on the "Palin will win caucuses" meme. She has strong tea party support, but Romney won every caucus he competed in 2008 except Iowa and West Virginia. Huckabee was strong in caucuses also. Does Palin's grassroots support translate into strong local organizations to win caucuses? She's never done anything like that.
ReplyDeleteThe grassroots tea parties were great at helping no name candidates beat clueless establishment types. Romney and Huckabee aren't clueless. These guys know how to get boots on the ground and win elections.
"but only Huckabee does a good job at turning strong personal favor into votes."
ReplyDeleteHuckabee has led in exactly one more state than she has led in according to your polling. So how is it that "only Huckabee is doing a good job."
I know that Palin s interesting. I like her personally, I was furious with the left's blaming her for the Tucson shooting, and I think her "blood libel" comment -- whether pure luck or a stroke of genius -- completely reversed the narrative. However, I think that she is NOT going to run. So, if we take Palin out of the mix, how do the polls look?
ReplyDeleteThis topic is simply matchless :), it is very interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to know what the debate would look like between Palin/Obama ~ Ck out the cspan below of the Oct. 2, 2008 between Palin/Biden.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats think that if they vote for Dems and Libs that it's good for the poor and middle class.
I hate to bust your bubble but not true.
Just this Mon. Gov Jerry Brown in Calif. signed a bill giving illegals the "Dream Act" ~ Don't thinik he did it out of the goodness of his heart, he did it because he made deals with the Hispanics
.
It takes money to fund it so he cuts the pymt to the poorest of the poor, the people on SSI....These people are not just poor but many are disabled...(Libs, nice people, eh?)...
Jerry Brown is about as far Left as you can get and he also cut Medical to the poor.
No cuts to public employee unions, no freeze on wages, nothing because he needs the union money and votes
Give me someone like Sarah Palin that is HONEST ~ she don't play that sh*t.
Go see the movie "Undefeated" and you will see how she worked with Dems and Rep.
She turned in crooks like Obama in her own party. Some went to jail.
At one point in time she had an approval rating of 89% ~ that is a record.
She set a record for the most watched debate ever, 85 milion including PBS. (Palin/Biden) Oct.2, 2008..
~ ... http://www.c-spanvideo.org/pro...
She was the first Republican women VP candidate.
She was the first female Gov. of Alaska.
She is the first female to command a min. of 100,000 for speaking. Only two others get that, Bill Clinton and Bush but Sarah gets most of the jobs.
She just got back from India as the keynote speaker with a one hour Q&A session afterwards.
It was a sold out evet with all the heads of country and industry... (160,000.for that)
Same thing in Hong Kong as keynote speaker for the Association of Business Leaders with a Q&A answer session..(160,000.)
Three months ago she was the keynote speaker on Long Island for the Association of Business Leaders of New York. That also had a one hour Q&A session.
After the events was over, everyone said she was fantastic.
Two months ago she was in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu invited her to a formal State dinner and she said no thank you.... She said yes to a private dinner with the Prime Minister and his wife. She really just went to visit and pray at the wall on her way back from India.
This year Huckabee, Romney and Glen Beck were in Israel and was not invited to see the Prime Minister.
Palin is the only one that can beat Obama, believe me when I tell you.
Interesting what the General had to say about Sarah Palin.
Alaska has the biggest National Guard in the country, first defense.
Proof that you can not get the truth from NY Times and the like.
It's no wonder that Fox is number one ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Maj Gen Craig E Campbell Talks About Sarah Palin
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/pro...
Jan 17, 2007