Social Issues: Not That Important Anymore?

Looking over yesterday’s Washington Post poll, a few numbers stuck out. First, of all the issues surveyed, only one issue was below 40% in terms of importance to voters, that is social issues at 39%. *

Moreover, Obama is trusted more to handle social issues by a wide margin: 56% to 32%.

The poll found that a strong majority of people felt that Obama shared their values, 56% for to 39% against. By contrast, 47% found that McCain shared their values to 49% that McCain did not share their values. (Obviously, this included a number of conservatives who are doing the “holding their nose to vote for McCain” routine.)

These numbers beg a question: is the era of social issues being a strong influence in elections over? Or is it just on pause because of economic problems and two wars overseas? I’d say the economic problems have a stronger influence than foreign policy problems, but after the high voltage campaigning in 2004 over social issues with little payoff for either conservatives or liberals, people seem to have just shrugged it off and moved on. Moreover, it’s clear that the next generation of voters is a lot more liberal/libertarian on these social issues than the previous one.

I think it’s possible that we’ve reached a tipping point where a lot of social issues mean a lot less. The one exception I would note is abortion: I doubt that will ever really go away as an issue; it will just fade in an out as a top issue.

(The only other issue one under 50% was VP choices; clearly the people understand how to ignore that, even if the media does not. And the third least important issue is gun control, right at 50%. A strong amount of people know that Heller has really settled that issue in most significant ways. Just noting that the wisdom of the people often surpasses that of the media.)

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Massive Bounce for Obama in Ohio

March 19, PPP Ohio Poll: McCain 49, Obama 41

June 16, PPP Ohio Poll: Obama 50, McCain 39.

The crosstabs seem about the same in both. This is just a massive bounce, in three short months. I have a feeling it might be Obama’s high water mark in Ohio though.

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Not-So-Shocking Development: Obama-McCain Demographics Differ From Obama-Clinton Ones

First Read today (my emphasis):

There was a growing consensus during the Democratic primary season that Obama was going to struggle with Latino voters — due to the exit polls, his race, and McCain’s immigration stance. In fact, in that now-famous conference call in which Hillary Clinton indicated that she would be open to serving as Obama’s running mate, that response was spurred by concern by New York Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D) that Obama was going to have trouble with Latinos. But it looks like that CW — at least right now — was wrong. In addition to our recent NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Hispanics breaking for Obama 62%-28%, a new survey of 800 Latino voters from 21 states finds that 60% of them plan to vote for Obama versus 23% for McCain. That is down considerably from the 40%-plus Bush received in 2004. It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does.

This should not be a surprise. We’ve talked about this in our podcast before, and I alluded to it a few months ago. The key point is that the Obama and Clinton race revealed sharp preferences within the party, but not necessarilly sharp problems.

For instance, Hillary Clinton did not have a general election problem with black voters. (Bill on the other hand…). Obama did not have a general election problem with Hispanics.

On the other hand, Clinton did have a problem in the northwest. It’s almost certain the Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, and Iowa would be hurt comparably to Obama if Clinton was the nominee. On ther other hand, Obama has real problems in Appalachia. Arkansas would have been at least a swing state if Clinton was nominated; now it is a long shot at best.

That said, there’s an infinite number of ways to divide the electorate, and many show preferences. Women understandably favored Clinton generally in the primary; Now, they’re favoring Obama, because the alternative is McCain. This is not rocket science.

If you can’t decide between a red truck and a blue truck, you don’t arbitrarily decide to buy a white station wagon. It’s only the people who feel strongly about the color red and the color blue that matter. And despite a lengthy, lengthy, lengthy primary, the research into that was somehow so scarce that the best analyst in the news is shocked that Obama is doing well with Hispanics?

Come on now.

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Surprising Alaska Senate Poll Numbers

A lot of people thought Sen. Ted Stevens would be vulnerable in this election, both because of corruption charges and a sharp spike in his craziness in recent years. Still, seeing a new poll having Anchorage mayor Mark Begich beating Stevens by 7 points (51-44) is pretty shocking.

Given that Democrats are also favored in the House race, this should also be seen as a positive sign for Barrack Obama, and perhaps a sign that McCain and Governor Sarah Palin have work to do.

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On Polls, Bitterness, and Clinging…

TNR’s Isaac Chotiner:

Yes, yes, we should not get carried away with overnight tracking polls, but today Obama is up 11 points in Gallup (his biggest lead ever) and 9 points in Rasmussen. Since Saturday–which was the first night that included any post-bittergate data–Obama has moved up 10 points in Rasmussen and 4 points in Gallup.

There are two possible conclusions: The first is that polls are meaningless. The second is that the Democratic electorate is completely reactionary. I vote for option 2! Tell Hillary to leave the race…and her polls go up. Attack Barack over Reverend Wright…and his polls go up. Perhaps Clinton’s only hope is a monumental scandal…about her!

I’m voting for option 1. These tracking polls really are showing nothing.

If anything, it’s a sign that scandals take time to permeate, especially ones driven by the media, without supporting video. (And especially when the only audio sounds like whales copulating.)

Brief thoughts on this scandal: It’s a typical Obama scandal. The words themselves are confusing and maybe meaningless, but there are very positive and negative ways to spin them. And you can’t spin all one way without looking like an idiot. (For instance, there’s definitely some bitterness about the economy, and no matter what Obama says, he probably did not mean religion in a positive way).

I’m taking it light, because there’s just not that much happening right now. Luckily, once Pennsylvania votes in a couple weeks, this long break will be over and the campaign will probably be over within a month.

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UPDATED: General Election And Democratic Primary Polls

Our polls section has been updated to include the latest national Democratic Primary polls and we’ve also added polls for general election match-ups (McCain vs. Obama and McCain vs. Clinton).

Polling data will expanded in the coming weeks.

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Russert: ‘In A Survey, 11 People Referred To Hillary As A Bitch, So We Have To Talk About It’

This morning on Meet The Press, Tim Russert reached a new degree in sexism and shoddy analysis with a tortured segment on a recent Pew Survey.

Russert’s introduction to the segment:

MR. RUSSERT: [...]

Then Pew said, “Give us a word that you think best describes these candidates.” The first one was McCain. Old was the first word people threw out. Honest, experienced, patriot, conservative, hero, liberal.

Then they asked, OK, Obama. Inexperienced, charismatic, intelligent, change, inspirational, young, new.

Clinton. Experienced, strong, untrustworthy, intelligent, smart, determined, rhymes with rich. That’s what the poll said. They used a different word. But it’s a family poll, and this is a family program. What does that tell you, James?

I’ll spare you the agonizing discussion that followed, but Read more

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Stop Reading Exit Polls

They’re rarely if ever accurate, and under represent the type of people who vote late in the day. We’ve never blogged about them on election days and will not start today.

For instance, look at this. Take a hard look. The exit poll numbers are simply absurd; there’s absolutely not way Kerry could reasonably expect that level of support. (And none of the conspiracy theorists suppose there may be reasons why exit polls are wrong instead of machines.)

Also, it’s clear that certain types of candidates do better in exit polls most of the time. Generally, that’s a liberal candidate, opr the one with stauncher supporters.

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Death to Exit Polls

We didn’t blog about them. Don’t listen to them.

Yglesias nails it:

One thing to say about last night’s results is that I hope we can someday put to rest this business of misusing and over-interpreting early exit polls. At this point, it’s very well established that these polls have a marked tendency to oversample young voters and thus produce erroneously optimistic forecasts about Democrats running against Republicans or about Obama running against Clinton. Nevertheless, media circles are constantly awash in this information and if you have it in front of you, you can watch it influencing the live coverage on the TV networks as the hosts find themselves surprised when the polls turn out to be wrong.

It’s dumb. It’s not even that the methodology behind exit polling doesn’t work. Rather, part of the methodology involves taking some time, getting further data, doing some re-weighting and so forth, etc. There’s no excuse for perpetually acting shocked that the early exit polls don’t forecast the outcome.

They can be accurate… but they probably are not.

Nevertheless, I’m sure we’ll see headlines “DEVELOPING” in November on Drudge and elsewhere.

(One other thing about polls … does someone from Zogby want to comment on California?)

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Obama Has Major Movement in Polls; Axelrod predicts close Feb. 5

Over the weekend, Barack Obama saw major movement in the polls; A Cook political survey conducted Thursday through Saturday shows him up 43 - 37 nationally. CNN and Zogby polls also show major momentum and a statistical tie at least.

David Axelrod is winded by this support and says that Feb. 5 will probably be a statistical tie in terms of delegates:

Certainly, Axelrod thinks they’re making headway – today he predicted that Obama and HRC would finish within 100 electoral votes of one another – hardly lowering expectations: 100 electoral votes is less than a half a percent difference of the 2,000+ electoral votes up for grabs tomorrow.

Mark Blumenthal notes flaws with the Feb. 5 polls. Moreover, we’ve seen repeatedly the failure of almost every poll at some time this election. Especially with California, where there’s been a lot of absentee voting. On the other hand, Obama’s ground game may help him make up some of that ground.

The Republican side is not that interesting right now, the last minute shuffle of both McCain and Romney back to California notwithstanding. On the other hand, the Democratic race looks like there’s no end in sight.

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Super Tuesday: State And Delegate Overview (Democratic Primaries/Caucuses)

With the upcoming wave of primaries and caucuses on February 5 (also known as Super Tuesday), I figured it would be helpful to provide an overview of these states, talk about what’s at stake and offer other useful information (delegate counts, winner take all or proportional, open or closed primary, etc..).

[Complete Primary/Caucus Calendar]
[Republican Super Tuesday State And Delegate Overview] (coming soon)

A few key terms…

• Open Primary: Voters, regardless of party registration, may vote in either primary.
• Semi-Open: Voters, regardless of party registration, may vote in either primary; however, they must declare which primary they’ll be voting in prior to entering the voting booth.
• Closed: Voters may only vote in the primary for the party that they are affiliated with. Independents/non-affiliated voters are not allowed to participate.
• Semi-Closed: Registered voters many only vote in the primary for the party that they are affiliated with. Independents/non-affiliated voters may participate in the primary of their choosing (in some states these people have to publicly declare which primary they’ll be participating in prior to going into the voting booth, in some states they do not).
• Winner-Take-All: Candidate with the most votes wins all the delegates for that state.
• Proportional Delegate Awarding: The breakdown for this gets a bit complicated and in most circumstances it’s really not necessary to know the specifics. All you really need to know is that the winner of the state doesn’t receive all the delegates, rather, delegates are apportioned based on percentage of vote statewide and within districts.
• Superdelegate: Delegates to nominating convention that are not determined or bound by the results of the states primary/caucus. In short, they can support whom they choose.

California:

• Semi-Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 441
  • Proportional By District: 241
  • Proportional By State Total: 129
  • Superdelegates: 71
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton - 41.3%
  • Barack Obama - 38.8%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $17,250,689
  • Barack Obama: $15,101,099

New York:

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 281
  • Proportional By District: 151
  • Proportional By State Total: 81
  • Superdelegates: 49
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton - 53.8%
  • Barack Obama - 33.5%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $22,361,239
  • Barack Obama: $9,732,384

Illinois:

• Open Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 185
  • Proportional By District: 100
  • Proportional By State Total: 53
  • Superdelegates: 32
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Barack Obama: 55.3%
  • Hillary Clinton: 23.3%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $11,012,161
  • Hillary Clinton: 3,813,380

New Jersey:

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 127
  • Proportional By District: 70
  • Proportional By State Total: 37
  • Superdelegates: 20
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 46.8%
  • Barack Obama: 38.8%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $4,639,464
  • Barack Obama: $2,202,974

Massachusetts:

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 121
  • Proportional By District: 61
  • Proportional By State Total: 32
  • Superdelegates: 26
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 45.0%
  • Barack Obama: 27.5%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $3,766,766
  • Hillary Clinton:$2,762,204

Georgia:

• Open Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 103
  • Proportional By District: 57
  • Proportional By State Total: 30
  • Superdelegates: 16
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Barack Obama: 49.8%
  • Hillary Clinton: 35.5%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $1,320,995
  • Hillary Clinton:$1,024,637

Missouri:

• Open Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 88
  • Proportional By District: 47
  • Proportional By State Total: 25
  • Superdelegates: 16
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 46.3%
  • Barack Obama: 42.7%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $781,746
  • Hillary Clinton:$728,682

Minnesota:

• Open Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 88
  • Proportional By District: 47
  • Proportional By State Total: 25
  • Superdelegates: 16
• RCP Poll Data: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $630,361
  • Barack Obama: $613,069

Tennessee:

• Open Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 85
  • Proportional By District: 44
  • Proportional By State Total: 24
  • Superdelegates: 17
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 48.0%
  • Barack Obama: 30.7%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $309,440
  • Hillary Clinton:$265,354

Colorado:

• Closed Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 71
  • Proportional (but complex): 55
  • Superdelegates: 16
• RCP Poll Data: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $1,454,303
  • Hillary Clinton: $994,543

Arizona

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 67
  • Proportional By District (not congressional): 37
  • Proportional By State Total: 19
  • Superdelegates: 11
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 41.7%
  • Barack Obama: 35.7%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $683,222
  • Barack Obama: $352,587

Connecticut

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 60
  • Proportional By District: 31
  • Proportional By State Total: 17
  • Superdelegates: 12
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 41.7%
  • Barack Obama: 38.3%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $1,970,875
  • Hillary Clinton:$1,838,960

Alabama

• Open Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 60
  • Proportional By District: 34
  • Proportional By State Total: 18
  • Superdelegates: 8
• RCP Poll Average:
  • Hillary Clinton: 43.5%
  • Barack Obama: 42.0%
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $301,177
  • Barack Obama: $212,230

Oklahoma

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 47
  • Proportional By District: 25
  • Proportional By State Total: 13
  • Superdelegates: 9
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $494,879
  • Barack Obama: $398,537

Arkansas

• Open Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 47
  • Proportional By District: 22
  • Proportional By State Total: 13
  • Superdelegates: 12
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $1,005,953
  • Barack Obama: $52,172

Kansas

• Closed Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 41
  • Proportional (but complex): 32
  • Superdelegates: 9
• RCP Poll Data: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $124,724
  • Barack Obama: 130,899

New Mexico

• Closed Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 38
  • Proportional (but complex): 26
  • Superdelegates: 12
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $149,125
  • Hillary Clinton: $106,204

Utah

• Semi-Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 29
  • Proportional By District: 15
  • Proportional By State Total: 8
  • Superdelegates:6
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton:$357,567
  • Barack Obama: $264,749

Idaho

• Closed Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 23
  • Proportional (but complex): 18
  • Superdelegates: 5
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $60,425
  • Barack Obama: $58,681

Delaware

• Closed Primary
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 23
  • Proportional By District: 10
  • Proportional By State Total: 5
  • Superdelegates: 8
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Hillary Clinton: $110,701
  • Barack Obama: $45,149

North Dakota

• Open Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 21
  • Proportional (but complex): 13
  • Superdelegates: 8
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $13,428
  • Hillary Clinton: $3,695

Alaska

• Closed Caucus
• Proportional Delegate Awarding
• Total Delegates: 18
  • Proportional (but complex): 13
  • Superdelegates: 5
• RCP Poll Average: No Average Available/Sparse Poll Data
• Fundraising (Jan 1-Dec 30, 2007):
  • Barack Obama: $36,262
  • Hillary Clinton: $32,417

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Poll Vaulting: Why Do Polls With 500 Participants Make And Shape National News?

The DesMoines Register’s most recent poll was released yesterday and it’s certainly creating a lot of news…

Democrats:

• Barack Obama: 28%
• Hillary Clinton: 25%
• John Edwards: 23%
• Bill Richardson: 9%
• Joe Biden: 6%
• Chris Dodd: 1%
• Dennis Kucinich: 1%
• Not Sure/Uncommitted: 7%

Republicans:

• Mike Huckabee: 29%
• Mitt Romney: 24%
• Rudy Giuliani: 13%
• Fred Thompson: 9%
• John McCain: 7%
• Ron Paul: 7%
• Tom Tancredo: 6%
• Not Sure/Uncommitted: 4%

Relevant information about the poll:

• Sample Size: 500 likely Democratic and 500 likely Republican caucus goers
• Dates polled: November 25 - 28
• Margin of error: 4.4%

I am truly astounded as to how influential this poll has been. It’s being talked about all over and it’s being used by some campaigns to adjust their strategy. Both myself and JW consistently warn about the problems with polls whenever we report on them, but this recent example just goes above and beyond.

How is it that a poll with a sample size of 500 people is considered reflective of voters? I mean, Huckabee’s bump is likely the result of the amount of attention he’s been getting in the press the past few weeks. This attention has not been focused on his policies (or lackthereof of specific, in depth policies) nor has the attention been focused on his record. Rather, what we’ve heard about the past few weeks is that Huckabee is on the move. And sure enough, after a few weeks of hearing that a poll comes out and supposedly demonstrates it. Additionally, all we’ve heard about the past few weeks is how vulnerable Hillary is. We haven’t seen in depth coverage of what has changed about her from August until now. All we’ve really heard is that she’s on a downward spiral. And sure enough, this poll is used by those in the press to “demonstrate” it. Couldn’t it simply be the case that people hear something discussed so much that they just think that’s the case and thus their responses to polls are reflective of it?

Aside from the small sample size, am I the only one concerned about how good that sample really could have been given that the poll was conducted just after the Thanksgiving holiday, when the food coma is just ending and diets and holiday preparations are at the forefront of people’s minds?

I’m not suggesting that the poll is “wrong,” I’m merely stating that it’s being seriously overstated by the media and accordingly will only feed into the current trend that they are on. Think about it, assuming no margin of error (even though there is one), only 15 votes would separate Obama from Clinton and only 25 votes would separate Huckabee from Romney. This of course, neglects any other realities like: who’s going to show up and who these voters’ second choices are. In short, this poll really doesn’t tell us anything other than the election in Iowa is close and that polls don’t really tell us anything.

Recently, a smart friend of mine opened about the majority of election coverage by saying that the press is no longer reporting, they’re simply creating stories. I am inclined to agree and only wish I had the time to cover this election the way that I used to. The good news: finals ends in mid December and then I have nice long break right before and during the early primaries to devote my full attention to the election.

[Photo  Credit: Cartoonstock.com]

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Poll Vaulting: Good News For Clinton, Worse For Giuliani: New Poll Finds Clinton Would Crush Giuliani in National Election

Politico has the story, and it’s worth a read.

Here’s the crux:

In a hypothetical matchup between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, bloc after bloc of traditionally Republican voters break for Clinton:

She wins the South.

She polls evenly with voters who attend church at least once a week.

She splits families with a household income above $100,000.

She loses rural voters and men — but only by a narrow margin.

All are constituencies Republicans have dominated for decades; George W. Bush won each by double-digit margins.

The findings from The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press remain preliminary, considering even the primaries are still two months off.

But Pew questioned an unusually large number of voters to try to paint the most accurate picture possible of where the presidential contest stands today.

Should the race continue down its current trajectory, the poll finds Clinton defeating Giuliani by eight percentage points.

First, on Giuliani. This is pretty damaging, as his main claim to the Republican mantle has been his electability, and this poll severely undermines that. The specter of not even carrying the South against Clinton could prove to be a major turning point in the Republican primary. It should also be noted that this news comes on the heels of the attack on Giuliani by Biden last night; the Giuliani campaign has resorted to attacking Biden back, but frankly that’s too easy a target, and not the real issue. All the retorts back by Giuliani and his supporters have been at Biden, and not on what he said, which actually got a big laugh. As pointed out earlier, it seems clear that Giuliani recognizes this himself. In fact, a little humor by him himself might go a long way towards capitalizing on it. The worse news is that with this bit fresh in everyone’s mind, now this poll comes out: suddenly, Giuliani’s two biggest pillars of his campaign - his performance on 9/11 and his electability - are both undermined. That’s not an easy problem to overcome, as normally Giuliani could focus on the other when pressed on one. But given his demeanor, he’s not going to back down, and I expect him to go to work immediately on a campaign to mitigate the poll number (although it’s large sample size may make that difficult) and salvage his reputation. But if Giuliani doesn’t win the nomination, I’d recommend looking back to this week, as these events and his response are going to be crucial.

As for Clinton, after the disappointing night she had last night (to put it mildly), this is really welcome news for her campaign. It underscores her electability compared to both Obama (who might have bigger problems in the South) and Edwards (who certainly could not be any better).

Now, I’ve gone on record as saying I don’t like national polls. I still don’t. But that doesn’t change the very real political impact that a poll like this will have.

Also, it should be noted that given their relative notoriety and that they’re running national campaigns, a poll like this is slightly more reliable.

But it should be still taken with a giant pail of salt. Right, Michael?

 Update: Same day, different poll, different results: A Quinnipiac University national poll finds Giuliani ahead 45-43; but there’s no comparable demographic breakdown. Reasonably good news for Giuliani, but the Pew poll should be more influential.

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2008Central.net’s Presidential Election Podcast (10/29/07)

This podcast covers: (1) Poll craziness - Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney; (2) Romney’s speech on faith; (3) Obama ratcheting up pressure on Clinton; (4) Consequences in Florida for DNC; (5) Chris Dodd on Meet The Press; (6) Tom Tancredo is not running for re-election; (7) Kucinich, Richardson and UFOs; (8) Edwards brings the hammer on UNC student reporter; (9) Mike Bloomberg buying Google AdWords; (10) and more…

Feel free to email us questions/suggestions for next week’s podcast (you can also email an audio file of your question and we’ll include it in the podcast).

Subscribe to 2008Central.net’s Presidential Election Podcast

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Poll Vaulting: Hillary Clinton Solidifies Support

A recently published Washington Post/ABC News poll presents an interesting perspective to the oft concluded notion that Hillary Clinton’s high negatives will hurt her in the general election.

The question was: “If [NAME] wins the [Democratic/Republican] nomination for president would you definitely vote for [him/her] in the general election for president in 2008, would you consider voting for [him/her] or would you definitely not vote for [him/her]?”  The date of the poll was September 30, 2007.

Again, our usual caveat regarding the significance of polls applies to this one. However, there are a few things worth noting about it. First and foremost, Hillary’s ‘Definitely would vote for’ would numbers are pretty high for someone that consistently has such high negatives in just about any general election poll. Could it be that despite not liking Hillary people are still willing to vote for her? Moreover, I think it’s also worth noting that Hillary Clinton’s ‘Definitely would not vote for’ numbers are lower than all of the leading Republican contenders and John Edwards’ - only Obama has a lower score than Hillary in this field. The numbers themselves are likely more telling about the overall political climate than anything else. The fact that the Republicans scored such high ‘would not’ numbers only underscores the already well known fact that its going to be a challenging campaign for the GOP nominee because of the Iraq War (specifically) and the Bush Administration (generally).

Here are the results to the same question looked at over a period of time…

Worth noting: Of these candidates, the only one whose ‘definitely would not vote for’ numbers that decreased over time were Hillary Clinton’s.  At the very least, this polls demonstrates that Clinton’s early general election strategy is working with at least some folks.

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Poll Vaulting: A Look at Michigan

Now that the Michigan Senate gave the go-ahead to have the primary on Jan. 15, the bill has to be reconciled with the State House bill that passed before Gov. Granholm signs it. It’s important to note that the bill would not only move the primary up, but it would change the primary from a caucus to an actual primary election. Marc Ambinder has a great post up on what that means:

Party-run caucuses — or “Firehouse primaries,” as they’re called, are enormously beneficial to the state party because they serve as a dress rehearsal for election day get-out-the-vote activities and provide an easy way for the party to enhance its voter lists. They’re also easy to control — and party interest groups, like Michigan’s extremely powerful United Auto Workers union, tend to exert an outsized influence on the outcome. It comes as no surprise that UAW, a union which is said to be on the verge of endorsing Sen. John Edwards, also opposes a state-run primary. (The State Dems, per published reports, are waiting to see what the bill says before they react. The State Republicans are on board with Granholm and the legislature.)

On the other side of this equation is Gov. Granholm, who Edwards factions in the state believe is acting at the beheast of Sen. Hillary Clinton. The theory is that it would be much easier for Clinton to win a primary beauty contest than a caucus, which would require organization — read: labor, read: the UAW. (Actually, labor power in Michigan is concentrated in the UAW and in the National Education Association, which probably won’t endorse.)

The caucus to primary shift, plus the heavy concentration of unions in the state, makes polls fairly useless on the Democratic side. Adding to that fact is that there has only been two polls done in Michigan since May, and in the most recent poll, non-candidate Al Gore actually received the most support. Otherwise, it appears that Clinton has a safe lead on Obama and Edwards, but with a large black vote and a large union vote, both Obama and Edwards could make up ground if the election starts getting more attention in the state.

The Republican polls will probably be slightly more representative, as there are no unions to mass organize or holding a key endorsement as of right now in the state. But a look at the Michigan polls shows essentially a four way race between Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain in the two polls since May, with Newt Gingrich registering significant support in one of the polls.

To cut to the chase, Michigan appears to be wide open right now in both parties. The only person who can even be called a slight favorite in the polls is Hillary Clinton, and even she falls behind Gore when Gore is included.

Republican candidates have little to fear by campaigning in Michigan, but Democrats risk the ire of the DNC, which under Howard Dean is trying to strong-arm states into having the primary schedule that they want. A candidate has a lot to gain and a lot to lose if they start campaigning in Michigan: it’s a state ready to be wooed.

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Poll Vaulting: Barack Obama Says He Can Undo Nixon’s Southern Strategy

Barack Obama didn’t hold much back today while campaigning in Concord, NH:

“I’m probably the only candidate who having won the nomination can actually redraw the political map,” Obama told a Democratic voter skeptical that he could defeat a Republican candidate.

“I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I’m the nominee, goes up 30 percent around the country, minimum,” Obama said. “Young people’s percentage of the vote goes up 25-30 percent. So we’re in a position to put states in play that haven’t been in play since LBJ.”

Lyndon Baines Johnson ran for president in 1964 and won in a landslide. But since then the South has turned into a Republican stronghold.

Obama’s comment came in response to former New Hampshire state Rep. Carol Moore, who told him the candidate to get her vote will be the one she feels has the best chance of winning in the general election because she’s so scared another Republican will replace President Bush. She asked Obama what made him think he could win. Another voter later told Obama because of his lack of experience, “by any stretch of the imagination, it would be a leap of faith to vote for you.”

Obama often rejects the politics of “who’s up, who’s down,” but he showed he was following the polls. He said he fares best among independent voters, that he has lower negative ratings than his Democratic rivals and is leading Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson in head-to-head matchups.

“I would include McCain, but John’s having trouble right now, so that’s not that big of a feat,” Obama said of the Republican senator from Arizona, drawing laughter at the packed house party in the state capital attended by about 70 people.

Hillary Clinton made a big argument in the debate yesterday that ’she knows how to win.’ Obama’s quickly responded by saying that he would get a significantly larger turnout than her or anyone else. I’m not sure what kind of research he has that would prove this point; I certainly can’t think of anything other than asking people if they would go to vote only specifically for Obama; moreover, would that research be credible?

There’s been lots of examples of waiting for non-participatory groups to participate that never show up, notably youth. I don’t want to generalize about groups and inadvertantly say something racist, but I will say that I don’t see any reason why a candidate with a different color skin would dramatically change states like that; if so, there’d be a lot more black governors in the south, if what Obama says holds.

I wonder if Obama is reaching in this example… I’m just not seeing what he says. Especially considering he is 20 points behind Clinton in the latest Alabama poll.

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Poll Vaulting: Obama Only 4 Points Ahead in Illinois

I’m not sure why this has not gotten more press, but a American Research Group poll yesterday had Barack Obama only 4 points ahead of Hillary Clinton in Illinois. This is basically no change from the January ARG poll in the state, which had Obama up 36-30 before he even declared.

One would imagine that for a candidate on the rise that Obama would be doing better in his home state. Like John Edwards, that appears not to be the case.

Of course, standard disclaimers about polls. (Basically, look at them as a popularity contest - I criticized the use of polls are current predictors in previous posts, I never said they had no value whatsoever.) When voters DO know about both candidates - as they do with Obama and Clinton - polls are far more revealing. These cannot be great numbers for the Obama campaign.

Related at 2008 Central:

• Poll Vaulting: Edwards Behind Clinton and Obama … in North Carolina?
• Cautionary Tales About Polls

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