The GOP Senate Contenders

Republicans certainly have the opportunity for a big year in Senate races, but for now most of their candidates aren't exactly lighting the world on fire. Only 1 out of 11 major Republican Senate contenders (Mike Castle) we've polled on since November has been viewed favorably by more than 35% of the voters in their state. And 5 of the 11 have had negative favorability numbers.

The polling success Republicans are having in a lot of these races has a lot more to do with the Democratic candidate(s) being unpopular than it does with the voters liking who the GOP's put forth. If the current political climate holds forth all the way through November that might not matter- the Republicans could win based just on the unpopularity of the Democrats. But if things do shift at all back in a Democratic direction few of the GOP candidates are strong enough to win on their own merits. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out.

Here are the full numbers:

Candidate	Favorability Numbers
Mike Castle (Delaware)	55/28
Charlie Crist (Florida)	35/51
Danny Tarkanian (Nevada)	33/24
John Boozman (Arkansas)	32/25
Marco Rubio (Florida)	31/32
Roy Blunt (Missouri)	30/38
Sue Lowden (Nevada)	29/22
Mark Kirk (Illinois)	27/22
Rob Simmons (Connecticut)	27/24
Linda McMahon (Connecticut)	26/29
Jane Norton (Colorado)	25/35

The Colorado Primaries

We wrap up our Colorado poll today with a look at the primaries:

-In the Democratic Senate contest Michael Bennet leads Andrew Romanoff 40-34. Support in this race may end up having to do more with personalities than ideology, as there's no real divide in support along liberal/moderate lines for now. Bennet's up 42-33 with liberals and 40-36 with moderates. Both candidates are pretty well liked by the party electorate. Bennet's approval is a 57/21 spread with primary voters and Romanoff's favorability comes down at 45/15. The one place where there is a clear division is along racial lines. Bennet's up 42-34 with whites while Romanoff has the 42-31 advantage with Hispanics.

For now this is a real race, but it remains to be seen whether Romanoff can compete with Bennet financially and his ability to do so will have a lot to do with whether he can win over the quarter of voters who are undecided.

-In the Republican Senate race Jane Norton leads with 34% to 17% for Ken Buck, 7% for Tom Wiens, and 10% combined for the rest of the field. There are more Republican primary voters who dislike Norton than there are Democrats who dislike either Bennet or Romanoff. Her favorability stands at 41/26. She leads Buck 39-7 with moderates, but by a much narrower 34-21 with conservatives. Given the quarter of GOP primary voters who dislike Norton and the tepid support for her from some voters on the right is Colorado a state where a Tea Party sort of candidate could become a third major candidate this fall and prove to be a spoiler? That would be interesting.

It's too early to completely write off Buck or Wiens because neither is particularly well known right now. 62% of primary voters have no opinion about Buck and 67% are ambivalent toward Wiens. If they have the resources to become better known their support will improve but 17 points is still a lot to make up.

-The Republican Gubernatorial primary looks like a total yawner. Scott McInnis leads Dan Maes 58-8.

Full results here

Health Care Polling

With a lot of discussion this week about whether health care reform is getting more popular I was particularly interested to see what our numbers would show in Colorado. That's because we'd polled the state in August on it, right as the debate was really kicking off, and now had the passage of seven months to see what impact everything that's happened since has had on public opinion.

The answer? Not much. The numbers are amazingly unchanged from last summer. Then 73% of Democrats supported it. Now 72% do. 8% of Republicans supported it then. Now 9% do. 36% of independents supported it then. 36% of independents support it now. For everything that's happened basically no one's changed their mind.

Colorado's just one state- albeit a very important swing state- and I'll be interested to see where our national polling falls this week. But my sense is that folks made up their minds a long time ago and haven't really changed them. If we do find an uptick on the national level I imagine it will come with Democratic voters. A month ago we found Barack Obama's approval with Democrats at 83% but support for health care with them at 66%. It would not be surprising as he's become more and more vocal on the issue to see some of the Obama supporting/health care ambivalent Democrats become Obama supporting/health care supporting Democrats.

McCollum favored

Neither of the top candidates for Governor of Florida is particularly well known or liked but with the national political winds blowing in a Republican direction Bill McCollum has the solid early lead.

McCollum's currently at 44% to 31% for Alex Sink. He leads her 38-25 with independent voters and is winning 20% of the Democratic vote while holding Sink to just 11% of the Republican vote.

McCollum's advantage is hardly an indication of a Florida electorate in love with him. 50% of voters in the state say they don't know enough about him to have an opinion and among those who do 25% view him favorably with 26% holding an unfavorable opinion. Sink is comparatively anonymous- an identical 50% have no opinion about her with 23% holding a positive one and 27% a negative one.

The high levels of ambivalence may seem unusual given that both hold statewide office and that this is McCollum's fourth statewide run in the last ten years but down ballot state officials don't tend to be very well known, particularly in a state as large as Florida.

If Charlie Crist decided to make another run for Governor and could somehow win the Republican nomination he would be an even bigger favorite over Sink, leading her 47-27. Crist actually gets 33% of the Democratic vote under such a scenario compared to only 45% for Sink. That's a very unusual level of crossover support but unfortunately for Crist the things that make him popular with Democrats have now made him unpopular with Republicans and virtually unelectable in a party primary.

This race could change a lot over the next eight months as the voters become more familiar with the candidates but for now it looks like the Republican hold on the Florida Governor's office will extend to 16 years.

Full results here

Colorado Senate tied

Our first look at the Colorado Senate race since last summer finds that Jane Norton's entry into the race has not helped Republican chances of defeating Michael Bennet- and may have even hurt their prospects. Bennet and Norton tie at 43% apiece. Bennet trailed Bob Beauprez 42-39 in August before Beauprez decided not to make the race.

Bennet continues to be pretty unpopular- but Norton is too. Bennet's approval rating is 32% with 46% of voters unhappy with his job performance. 25% of voters have a favorable opinion of Norton with 35% viewing her negatively.

In their head to head match Norton leads Bennet 44-35 with independents, but Bennet ties it overall because he has his party more unified around him (79% support) than Norton does hers (77% support.)

Andrew Romanoff actually leads Norton 44-39, reflecting other recent polling that has shown him doing better in general election matches than Bennet. I would be cautious about declaring Romanoff to be the more electable candidate based on these early numbers though. Bennet has had all the negatives of incumbency- being associated with an unpopular majority party during a recession- without the positives- defining himself positively to the voters on the airwaves in the context of a statewide campaign. If Romanoff is still doing better than Bennet four or five months from now once the voters have started really paying attention the electability argument might carry more heft.

Bennet and Romanoff both hold solid advantages over the lesser known Republican candidates. Bennet leads Ken Buck 46-40 and Romanoff leads him 44-36. Bennet has a 45-37 advantage over Tom Wiens and for Romanoff it's 45-34.

All three times we've looked at this race over the last year it's come out very close, and I think the Colorado Senate race will prove to be one of the most competitive in the country this year. Neither Bennet nor Norton has made the best first impression on voters in the state and it will be interesting to see if they can turn it around- or if a Romanoff or Buck could pull off an upset in the primary. We'll have numbers looking at that on Monday.

Full results here

Gubernatorial Approval Ratings

For most of last year Bev Perdue was one of the most unpopular Governors in the country, but that's no longer the case. It's not that the voters have warmed up to her- her 30% approval rating is still very poor- but the rest of the Governors have caught up to her in unpopularity.

Our last North Carolina poll found 47% of voters in the state disapproving of Perdue. The average disapproval on 21 Governors we've polled over the last six months is 45%. So there's really not much difference between her unpopularity and that of the average Governor anymore.

There's no doubt it's a tough time to be a Governor. The average approval spread on the ones we've looked at lately is 37/45. Here are some notes on those numbers:

-It's better to be a small state Governor. The three we've found over 50 recently are Sean Parnell in Alaska, Mike Beebe in Arkansas, and Mike Rounds in South Dakota.

-It's really tough to be a big state Governor. Out of the 11 Governors we've looked at in states that have 10 or more electoral votes only Tim Kaine at 46% while he was still in office and Jay Nixon at 42% have positive approval ratings. 7 of the 11 have disapproval numbers over 50.

-The five least popular Governors we've tested are Bill Richardson, Deval Patrick, Jim Doyle, John Baldacci, and Jon Corzine while he was still in office. The only one of those folks running this year is Patrick and I have a really hard time seeing him getting reelected even with three serious candidates in the race.

Here's the full data by approval rating:

Governor	Approval Rating
Mike Beebe (D-Arkansas)	59/22
Sean Parnell (R-Alaska)	58/19
Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota)	55/32
Jodi Rell (R-Connecticut)	49/39
Tim Kaine (D-Virginia)	46/39
Jay Nixon (D-Missouri)	42/25
Jack Markell (D-Delaware)	40/31
Bill Ritter (D-Colorado)	38/50
Steve Beshear (D-Kentucky)	36/39
Mark Sanford (R-South Carolina)	36/51
Charlie Crist (R-Florida)	35/51
Jon Corzine (D-New Jersey)	34/57
Rick Perry (R-Texas)	33/50
Bev Perdue (D-North Carolina)	30/47
Sonny Perdue (R-Georgia)	29/52
Jim Doyle (D-Wisconsin)	29/57
Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico)	28/63
Jan Brewer (R-Arizona)	26/43
Pat Quinn (D-Illinois)	25/55
John Baldacci (D-Maine)	25/57
Deval Patrick (D-Massachusetts)	22/59

More thoughts on Florida

Our polling is continuing to indicate that the biggest threat to Democrats this year is not angry voters going over to the Republicans, but apathy within the party base. The Florida Senate race is a good example of this.

We find that only 8% of people who voted for Barack Obama in Florida are planning to cross over and support Marco Rubio this year. That is actually smaller than the 11% of John McCain voters who Kendrick Meek is winning.

Rubio is ahead anyway for two reasons. First, those polled report having voted for McCain by a margin of 4 points in 2008 when Barack Obama won the state by 3. That 7 point shift in who's planning to vote this year is similar to what we found for the recent elections in New Jersey and Massachusetts (there was a much larger Democratic turnout drop off in Virginia.)

The other reason Rubio's ahead is that McCain voters are more excited about him so far than Obama's voters are about Meek. 23% of Obama voters are undecided compared to 13% of McCain voters. That's really not a problem for Meek at this point more than seven months away from the election- the Crist/Rubio feud has been sucking all the air out of the race and really the best thing for Meek's chances at this point is for the Crist collapse to continue.

Floridians who voted Democratic in 2008 are not abandoning the party, but do need to be reenergized. That's a lot easier said than done and it hasn't happened in the last few major races. But if the electorate that shows up this fall mirrors the folks who came out last time Meek will probably win.

Romney up in Colorado, Florida

Mitt Romney is the early favorite for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination among the party's voters in Colorado and Florida. Romney also led recent polls in New Mexico and Texas, and was second behind Mike Huckabee in both Georgia and North Carolina. Sarah Palin has not had the lead in any of the six states we've polled over the last month.

Florida's the first really important stop on the GOP calendar that we've looked at, and Romney's lead there is overwhelming. He gets 52% to 21% for Huckabee and 18% for Palin. It's closer, but still a double digit advantage, in Colorado. There Romney gets 44% to 25% for Palin and 17% for Huckabee.

In each state Romney has a big advantage with both moderates and conservatives, although he is particularly strong at this point with the center of his party. In Florida he leads Huckabee by 28 with conservatives and has a 36 point advantage over both Huckabee and Palin with moderates. In Colorado he's up 8 on Palin with conservatives, but leads her by 41 with moderates.

One particular source of strength for Romney at this very early stage is that he's doing even better with senior citizens than the overall electorate. In Florida he's up 47 with voters over 65 and in Colorado it's a 21 point margin.

How much does any of this matter at this point? Probably not a whole lot- things will change a ton over the next two years- but it's always better to be doing well in the polls than poorly. The six states we've looked at provide good news for Romney, ok news for Huckabee, and perhaps an indication that while Republican voters like Sarah Palin they aren't too into her as their 2012 nominee.

Full results here

Colorado and Florida Poll Schedule

Here's the release schedule for the rest of our Colorado and Florida polls:

-Tomorrow we'll have GOP 2012 numbers in both states.

-Friday we'll have Governor numbers in Florida and Senate numbers in Colorado

-Monday we'll have Democratic Senate primary and Republican Senate and Gubernatorial primary numbers in Colorado and a look back at Florida's favorite and least favorite Governors of the last 30 years.

Next week is our monthly national poll and North Carolina.

Obama and Independents

The thing I found most surprising in our Florida poll had nothing to do with Charlie Crist- it was Barack Obama's positive 54/42 approval spread with independents. Out of the 20 different states we've polled in the last six months that makes it just the fourth where he's been on positive ground with independents, joining South Dakota, Delaware, and Arizona. And it's the first one of those states where he's been above 50%. I suppose if he had to pick a state to do better with those folks Florida might be it.

Obama's average approval with independents across the last 20 states we've polled is 38/53. There doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to where he's doing well. The states where he has the worst numbers are southern states where he lost by wide margins in 2008- Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas. Perhaps more worrisome is that he's at 35% or worse in three of the states that he flipped last time- Virginia, Nevada, and New Mexico- as well as Missouri where he came the closest without winning.

Here's the full data:

State	Obama Approval w/ Independents
Florida	54/42
Arizona	50/42
Delaware	48/45
Connecticut	47/47
South Dakota	45/44
Maine	45/45
Alaska	43/49
Wisconsin	42/50
South Carolina	41/51
North Carolina	40/53
New Jersey	40/48
Georgia	36/59
Nevada	35/61
Massachusetts	33/52
Virginia	32/57
Missouri	32/59
Arkansas	28/68
New Mexico	27/64
Kentucky	23/67
Texas	19/70