Palin State by State June Update

Since Sarah Palin has been in the news a lot recently it seems like a good time to review her state by state favorability numbers.

We have now polled on Palin's favorability in 31 states. Voters in all 31 of those states have a negative opinion of her.

-12 of the states where we've polled on Palin went for John McCain in 2008. Her average favorability in those GOP friendly states is 38/54.

-8 of the states where we've polled are ones that George W. Bush won in 2004 and Barack Obama won in 2008- obviously the ones that will be most important to Republican prospects of taking back the White House. Her average favorability in those vital swing states is 32/61.

-There's been a lot of recent buzz that Palin is moving to Arizona. She will be getting away from a state where she is unpopular (33/58 favorability in Alaska), but she is moving to one where she's even more unpopular (32/62 favorability in Arizona.)

I'm sure there is some state where Sarah Palin is popular...but I'm not sure we'll ever get around to polling the Oklahomas or Idahos or Utahs of the world. Here are Palin's state by state numbers:

State	Palin Favorability	Spread
West Virginia	41/47	-6
Montana	44/50	-6
Mississippi	42/50	-8
Nebraska	42/50	-8
Texas	42/53	-11
Tennessee	39/51	-12
South Dakota	37/55	-18
Georgia	35/56	-21
Missouri	33/56	-23
Ohio	34/58	-24
South Carolina	34/58	-24
Minnesota	35/60	-25
Alaska	33/58	-25
Michigan	34/60	-26
North Carolina	32/59	-27
Nevada	34/61	-27
Florida	32/60	-28
Pennsylvania	33/61	-28
Colorado	32/62	-30
Arizona	32/62	-30
Wisconsin	32/63	-31
Virginia	31/62	-32
Maine	31/64	-33
New Mexico	31/64	-33
Iowa	29/63	-34
Washington	29/65	-36
New Jersey	27/65	-38
California	28/67	-39
New Hampshire	28/67	-39
Massachusetts	27/68	-41
Rhode Island	24/69	-45

Sherrod Brown in good shape

Sherrod Brown's looking more and more like he might have a pretty easy path to reelection. With decent approval numbers and a potential pool of opponents that range from unpopular to obscure, he leads all of the Republicans we tested him against by anywhere from 17 to 21 points.

39% of voters approve of the job Brown's doing to 28% who disapprove. He's one of the more unknown Senators in the country with 33% expressing no opinion about him even after almost a full term in office. The key to his numbers being on positive ground is that while 63% of Democrats approve of the job he's doing, only 43% of Republicans disapprove. He's just not that much of a turn off to voters across party lines.

Brown leads Josh Mandel by 17 points at 48-31, Ken Blackwell by 18 points at 51-33, Jim Jordan by 18 points at 49-31, Mary Taylor by 19 points at 50-31, and Kevin Coughlin by 21 points at 51-30.

Part of the reason Brown does well in these match ups is his decent popularity but maybe even more important is the weakness of his potential opponents. Blackwell is the only one known to more than 50% of voters in the state but they don't like him. Just 21% have a favorable opinion to 34% who rate him negatively. None of the others can crack 36% name recognition. That's Taylor who voters are split on with 18% holding a positive opinion of her and 18% a negative one. Everyone else has a negative favorability number- it's 15/18 for Mandel, 10/17 for Jordan, and 4/16 for Coughlin.

What's interesting about Brown's situation is that six months ago it did look like he would be in a lot of trouble for reelection. When we polled Ohio in December he only led Taylor by 2 points and he had just an 8 point advantage on Jordan. John Kasich is probably the best thing that ever happened to Brown's reelection prospects. It wasn't long after Kasich took office that Ohio voters started moving strongly back toward the Democratic column and Brown, along with Barack Obama, may be the biggest beneficiary of Kasich's fall from grace.

Brown's approval numbers aren't stellar and there are a lot more undecided Republicans than Democrats in all of these match ups so they'll likely tighten up over time. But this is looking at best like a second tier Republican pick up opportunity and it's bordering on third tier.

Full results here

Minnesota Miscellaneous

-Voters in Minnesota are not terribly into home state politicians Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann running for President next year. Only 28% think Pawlenty should seek the White House to 17% who think he should run for the Senate and 45% who think he shouldn't run for anything. There's even less interest in a Bachmann Presidential run- 14% think she should seek that office to 23% who think she should run for the Senate, 10% who think she should run for reelection to her House seat, and 47% who just want her to go away.

Pawlenty at least has some level of interest in his running for President from the party base- 57% of Republicans think he should run. GOP voters though would much rather Bachmann ran for the Senate (43% think she should do that) than President (which only 26% think she should aim for.) We'll have numbers looking at how Pawlenty and Bachmann would do when matched against Amy Klobuchar and Barack Obama in the state over the next two days.

-The buyer's remorse about the results of last year's Gubernatorial elections that we've found in midwestern states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania appears to be a Republican only phenomenon. Mark Dayton has a very solid 51/38 approval rating with more GOP voters (12%) happy with the job he's doing than Democrats (6%) who are unhappy. Independents think he's doing a good job by a 48/39 spread as well. In a hypothetical rematch he would defeat Tom Emmer 48-36, quite a contrast to his less than 1 point victory last fall.

Voters are siding with Dayton in his battle with legislative Republicans over raising taxes on the wealthy. Only 32% of voters want a 'cuts only' solution to balancing the budget compared to 63% who support increased taxes on the wealthiest 2% of voters in the state.

-Speaking of that Republican legislature it might be a short lived phenomenon. GOP legislators have a remarkably bad 29/58 favorability spread. The DFL folks aren't popular either at a 39/45 favorability, but they still lead the Republicans 49-40 on the generic legislative ballot.

-Voters in the state are about as evenly divided as they could be on gay marriage. 46% support a constitutional amendment to ban it, 47% are opposed to amending the constitution in that manner. As usual the generational divide on the issue is staggering- seniors support a ban by a 57/34 margin while every other age group opposes it. There aren't a lot of policy issues I would say this about but public opinion on gay marriage is shifting so quickly that it wouldn't be surprise me if opposition to this amendment grows by 5 or 6 points in the 17 months between now and next November's election. My guess is that an anti-gay ballot initiative that polls as a tie in May 2011 fails in November 2012.

Full results here

Romney leads in Iowa, Cain surging

Mitt Romney has the lead in PPP's first Iowa poll since Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump exited the race, but with six different candidates polling in double digits it's clear this thing is wide open.

Romney polls at 21%. Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are tied for second at 15%. Newt Gingrich is 4th with 12%, Michele Bachmann 5th with 11%, Tim Pawlenty 6th with 10%, Ron Paul 7th with 8%, and Jon Huntsman 8th with 0% (only one respondent to the poll picked him.) 8% said they supported someone else or were undecided.

Cain and Palin have been the biggest beneficiaries in Iowa of Huckabee and Trump's decisions not to run. Cain is at 15% now despite not even having been included on our last poll. Palin's gained 7 points in the six weeks since our last poll compared to 5 point gains for Romney, Pawlenty, and Bachmann, a 3 point gain for Gingrich, and a 2 point bump for Paul.

Romney's leading in Iowa based on his strength with centrist and center right Republican voters. With moderates he's at 34% to 16% for Palin, 13% for Paul, and 11% for Gingrich. With 'somewhat conservative' voters he's at 24% to 15% for Pawlenty, 13% for Palin, and 12% for Gingrich and Cain. His strength with those two groups outweighs his continuing weakness with the furthest right group of voters in the state, which constitute the largest segment of the Republican electorate at 41%. With those 'very conservative' folks Romney can muster only a fourth place finish at 13%. Cain and Palin tie for the lead with that group of voters at 19% followed by Bachmann at 15%.

There's been a lot of speculation that the Republican race could eventually come down to Romney and a single more conservative alternative. Although this will likely not be the case when the voting in Iowa happens we tested several head to head match ups between Romney and other GOP contenders to see how they would come out. Pawlenty may actually be the strongest contender to become the 'anti-Romney' as he ties him at 41%. Otherwise Romney leads- 48-41 over Palin, 46-38 over Bachmann, and 48-34 over Cain.

Pawlenty doesn't poll the strongest head to head among Romney among 'very conservative' voters- he leads by 17 compared to a 21 point lead for Palin and a 24 point advantage for Bachmann with that group. But with center right voters- those calling themselves 'somewhat conservative'- Romney leads Pawlenty by just a single point while he has a 19 point advantage over Palin and a 22 point lead over Bachmann with that group. What that says to me is that many Republicans are looking for someone more conservative than Romney but someone who isn't bound to get creamed in the general election the way Palin, Bachmann, and Cain probably would. That's very good news for Pawlenty if it ever plays itself out in real life.

We asked favorabilities for a laundry list of potential Republican candidates in Iowa, even if they weren't included in the horse race questions. Here's how they stack up sorted by net favorability:

Candidate	Favorability	Spread	Change from April Poll
Michele Bachmann	53/16	+37	+1 (+36 at 49/13)
Jeb Bush	51/20	+31	Not Included
Chris Christie	42/12	+30	Not Included
Tim Pawlenty	48/18	+30	-2 (+32 at 41/9)
Sarah Palin	59/31	+28	-1 (+29 at 58/29)
Paul Ryan	42/14	+28	Not Included
Rudy Giuliani	49/31	+18	-5 (+23 at 48/25)
Mitt Romney	51/34	+17	-13 (+30 at 55/25)
Herman Cain	38/24	+14	+8 (+6 at 15/9)
Ron Paul	42/29	+13	-25 (+38 at 55/17)
Rick Santorum	29/18	+11	-5 (+16 at 27/11)
Rick Perry	21/16	+5	Not Included
Newt Gingrich	39/41	-2	-23 (+21 at 47/26)
Gary Johnson	4/18	-14	-8 (-6 at 2/8)
Fred Karger	2/17	-15	Not Included
Jon Huntsman	7/23	-16	-13 (-3 at 5/8)
Buddy Roemer	4/21	-17	-9 (-8 at 2/10)
Donald Trump	28/56	-28	-29 (+1 at 41/40)

Observations on these numbers:

-No one is really becoming more popular with Iowa Republicans as they become better known except Herman Cain. His net favorability is up 8 points, no one else's is up more than a point.

-There's definitely room for a late entry by Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, or Paul Ryan. They're all a lot more popular than most of the actual candidates.

-Bachmann, Pawlenty, and Palin have all basically stayed in place for the last six weeks and that's good news for them given that Paul's down by 25 points, Gingrich is down by 23, and Huntsman and Romney are both down by 13. At least they're not headed in the wrong direction like a lot of their counterparts.

Full results here