PPP: Best Combined Democratic Numbers in Ohio and Texas

It looks like all the numbers are in. PPP was one of seven companies that polled for the Democratic primaries in both Texas and Ohio in the last week before the election. We missed Ohio by one point (we had her winning by 9, she won by 10) and Texas by two points (we had her winning by 6, she won by 4.) That gives us a total error of three, and that means we had the top combined numbers last night:

Company	Ohio Error	Texas Error	Total Error
PPP	1	2	3
Survey USA	0	5	5
ARG	4	1	5
Fox News	2	7	9
Rasmussen	4	5	9
Zogby	10	1	11
Mason Dixon	8	5	13

Update: Survey USA's pollster scorecard also shows that PPP had the most accurate poll for the Texas Republican primary by all eight different measures they use. Check it out here

Internships

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Republican Tracking Poll: the Other Stuff

Lieutenant Governor:

Greg Dority 15
Jim Snyder 12
Robert Pittenger 12
Timothy Cook 5

Here's the deal with the Republican race for Lieutenant Governor. Pittenger has all the money. So he's likely to win the race when he spends it over the next two months. The only way he wouldn't is if he had a huge name recognition gap because Snyder and Cook have run for the office before that his money couldn't take care of. This poll shows that Cook is in last and that Snyder, despite having run for the Senate in 2002 and having been the Republican nominee for this office in 2004, is at only 12%. So Pittenger is in good shape.

Beyond that it's a regional contest. Pittenger leads Charlotte where he's from, Snyder leads the Triad where he's from, and Dority leads eastern North Carolina where he's from. Dority is winning the other three regions which is why he has the overall lead but I imagine that's a pretty tenuous edge.

Superintendent:

Richard Morgan 16
Joe Johnson 12
Eric Smith 8

The former House Speaker starts off with a small lead. It's probably telling that he does best in the Triangle where his name would have been in the paper the most during his time in power. He also does well in southeastern North Carolina where he lives. Beyond those regions the contest is pretty much tied.

This race seems likely to come down to whether Art Pope cares enough about who the GOP sacrificial lamb for Superintendent is to try to run a negative campaign against Moore in the primary. If he does, he'll probably take Morgan down just like he put him out of his House seat in 2006. If he doesn't, Morgan may be able to slide by based on name recognition and his political network from earlier in his career.

Full results here

Republican Tracking Poll: Federal Stuff

John McCain 56
Mike Huckabee 33
Ron Paul 5

Huckabee probably won't even be in the race by the time the North Carolina primary comes around. Not that it matters either way. Folks have coalesced around McCain.

Elizabeth Dole 82
Pete DiLauro 12

In case anyone was wondering what percentage of Republicans are unhappy enough with Dole's performance that they would vote for any random joe (or in this case Pete) who put himself on the ballot, it's 12%.

Full results here

Republican Tracking Poll: Governor

Pat McCrory 26
Fred Smith 23
Bill Graham 14
Bob Orr 6
Elbie Powers 1

It's becoming increasingly clear this is going to be a two person race between McCrory and Smith. A runoff is looking more and more likely as well. If the undecideds break in the same proportions as the decided voters it would give McCrory a 37-33 lead, short of the 40% needed for the nomination.

McCrory continues to do well largely on the strength of his Charlotte base, where he leads Smith 67-7. Smith leads every other region of the state by margins ranging from 3 points in the Mountains to 28 points in northeastern North Carolina.

There's not much here to provide hope for Graham or Orr. They're pretty much treading water in the polls while McCrory and Smith's levels of support increase.

Full results here

North Carolina Polling Landscape

John Hood had a good take on the North Carolina polling landscape in his daily column yesterday. Check it out here.

Previewing the Tracking Poll

If the technology Gods cooperate I'll get this month's North Carolina tracking poll done tonight with Republicans released tomorrow and Democrats released Wednesday.

Here's what I'll be watching for:

-Civitas showed Richard Moore getting a lot closer to Bev Perdue and Fred Smith getting a lot closer to Pat McCrory last week. Outlier or trend?

-Jim Neal has only been polling at single digits in our poll the last few months but Survey USA had him within a point of Kay Hagan three weeks ago and Neal has been running a much more active campaign than Hagan. Will he pull closer in our poll?

-Wayne Goodwin in the Insurance Commissioner race and John Brooks in the Labor Commissioner race have each run statewide before. Will that give them the advantage in our first poll of their races?

-Elizabeth Dole has a relatively anonymous primary challenger. How many Republicans out there are frustrated enough with her to support a no name?

-There are two new Republican candidates for Lieutenant Governor, both of whom ran last time. Will name recognition vault them over Robert Pittenger and Greg Dority?

-Richard Morgan is certainly the most well known of the Republican candidates for Superintendent but in many Republican circles that is not a good thing. Will he start out with a lead?

-And will the percentage of undecideds in the Democratic Lieutenant Governor race ever go below 60%?

Stay tuned for answers to these questions and more in the next couple days.

The nuts are out

I've gotten several pretty bizarre phone calls about today's polls.

Two of them asked me if we were on the take for the Clinton campaign. Ironic because two weeks ago I saw accusations the other way around when we showed Obama up by much more than other pollsters in Wisconsin.

I tried to reason with them and one of them seemed to be convinced but the other just kept going until I finally had to tell him he was a nutcase and hang up on him.

I appreciate the passion that each candidate's supporters are showing in this election season but folks taking it a little too seriously are hurting those they are trying to help in my opinion.

I also got a call from someone purporting to be calling on behalf of the Bush administration about the poll!

I think I'm letting my phone go to voice mail the rest of the day and I'll call back people who actually need to be called back.

Texas Poll Results

Hillary Clinton 50
Barack Obama 44

The Hispanic vote saved Hillary Clinton in California, and now it looks like it might do the same in Texas. She is getting almost as much of the Hispanic vote as Obama is of the black vote and that's propelled her to the lead in the state.

Obama has worked hard to court Hispanic voters in the state, but Clinton still leads 67-30 among them. Clinton has also taken a strong (58-37) lead among white voters after our poll last week showed Obama with the edge there.

Obama particularly has a white male problem. PPP's poll last week showed Obama leading 58-37 with that group. Clinton has flipped that around to a 54-41 advantage.

Like in Ohio, Obama is not seeing the same success with young voters in Texas that he has had in a lot of early primary states. He leads just 50-47 with voters aged 18-29 and 49-43 with folks 30-45.

John McCain 50
Mike Huckabee 38
Ron Paul 6

Huckabee has reduced McCain's lead 4 points from a poll last week but McCain should still win easily.

Full results here

Ohio Poll Results

Hillary Clinton 51
Barack Obama 42

Clinton has expanded her lead in the state since last week, when she held a four point lead over Obama.

Her major gains came with white voters and with Republicans intending to vote in the Democratic primary. Last week Obama led 80-13 with self identified GOP voters intending to cross over. Now Clinton has a small 46-45 edge with that group. While Clinton's African American support has actually declined in the last week, her lead among white voters has expanded from 18 points to 25.

A major problem for Obama in Ohio is that he is not dominating the votes of young people the way he has in a lot of states where he's had success. He leads just 49-46 among voters 18-29 and Clinton actually leads 48-44 among those voters aged 30-45.

The Clintons have always had success with their backs against the wall. It looks like the same trend may be holding in Ohio.

John McCain 50
Mike Huckabee 33
Ron Paul 10

McCain's lead has dropped eight points from the poll last week but he's still in position for a comfortable victory.

Full results here