Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Romney, Hoekstra lead Michigan GOP field

Mitt Romney leads the Republican field for President in Michigan...but the numbers suggest a fair amount of slippage from his support in the state in 2008. 26% of GOP primary voters say Romney's their first pick followed by 20% for Mike Huckabee, 15% for Newt Gingrich, 12% for Sarah Palin, 7% for Ron Paul, 5% for Mitch Daniels, and 3% for Tim Pawlenty and Scott Walker.

On the surface Romney's lead is good news for him. But in 2008 he took 39% in the primary in the state while Huckabee got only 16%. So compared to then Romney is down by 13 points while Huckabee's improved by four. That sort of trend in Romney's numbers compared to the support he got in his first bid is becoming common place in our polls.

Romney's weakness continues to be with voters who describe themsevlves as 'very conservative.' With moderates he gets a strong 39% and with 'somewhat conservative' voters he's at a respectable 28%. But with 'very conservative' folks he just ties Huckabee at 20%. More over his favorability with them is only 63% compared to 83% for Palin, 71% for Huckabee, and even 65% for Gingrich. Romney's weak standing with the far right is his greatest hurdle to potentially winning the nomination.

Pete Hoekstra is the clear first choice of Republicans in the state for who they'd like as their nominee to take on Debbie Stabenow next year. 38% say he'd be their pick compared to 18% for Terri Lynn Land. No one else cracks double digits, with Saul Anuzis at 5%, Justin Amash, Randy Hekman, and Tim Walberg at 4%, Chad Dewey at 3%, and Tim Leuliette with the big egg at 0%.

Hoekstra and Land actually have identical 53/10 favorability ratings with GOP voters but there's a much stronger sentiment for Hoekstra to actually be the candidate.

Full results here

4 comments:

  1. What is the margin of error?

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  2. More good news for Obama. The more I see of the GOP field the more I am convinced that Romney is the only Republican who has any chance of beating the President in a general election.

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