Category Archives: Polling

“Trumping” North Carolina; Grayson In

July 10, 2015 — Public Policy Polling tested the electorate in their home state of North Carolina (July 2-6; 529 registered North Carolina voters; 288 likely North Carolina Republican primary voters; 286 likely North Carolina Democratic primary voters), a monthly practice for the firm, and detected a new Republican leader moving to the forefront.

Though the GOP candidates are tightly bunched here as polls detect in all key primary states – meaning the 16 tested candidates fall within 16 points from top to bottom – the PPP North Carolina survey finds that businessman Donald Trump has captured first place. This is the first study producing such a result.

Trump attracts 16 percent support from the North Carolina polling respondents with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and current Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker each four points behind at 12 percent. Ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee closely follows with 11 percent, while Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Marco Rubio poll nine percent apiece, and Sen. Rand Paul registers seven percent. The remaining nine candidates fall between 0 and six percent with two contenders, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and ex-New York Gov. George Pataki, each finding no supporters within this North Carolina polling sample.
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LaHood Scores in Illinois;
The Fox News Dubious Debate Plan

July 9, 2015 — As expected, Illinois state Sen. Darin LaHood (R) cruised to an easy special election primary victory Tuesday in the vacant Peoria-anchored congressional district. Rep. Aaron Schock’s (R) March resignation created the vacancy, which is the only unrepresented seat in the entire US House.

LaHood, whose father, Ray LaHood, represented the seat for 14 years before becoming President Obama’s Transportation Secretary, topped 69 percent of the vote against two weak GOP opponents who spent less than $50,000 combined on their campaigns. Democrats officially nominated educator Rob Mellon, an Army Reserve officer who lost his party’s congressional primary in 2014.

LaHood will easily defeat Mellon, but must wait until Sept. 10 for the next vote in what is an unusually long special election cycle. His eventual victory will bring the House party division back to 247R-188D, the spread generated on Election Night 2014.
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Heck Joins Nevada Senate Race;
Stunning New Florida Poll

July 8, 2015 — Nevada Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV-3), after a long consideration period, announced his intention this week to seek the Republican nomination for U. S. Senate. Heck will run for the seat being vacated by retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid who, of course, served prominently as Majority Leader during the 2007-2015 period.

Rep. Heck had always been high on the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s candidate recruitment list, right after Gov. Brian Sandoval (R). After long denying he had an interest in running for the federal post, Gov. Sandoval last month publicly removed himself from consideration, thus opening the way for Heck.

It further appears that the Nevada general election is now set. Both Heck and former Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D) appear to be consensus candidates for their respective parties and both potential Democratic and Republican politicians are now looking more intently at Heck’s open congressional seat rather than the statewide campaign.
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CNN Poll: Hillary Cruising
… Well, Not Really

July 6, 2015 — CNN/Opinion Research Corporation (ORC International) released their new monthly poll just before the Independence Day break, and the data detects major improvements for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but the polling methodology is largely the reason for the gains.

The CNN/ORC polls traditionally begin with surveying all adults, and then drill down to isolate registered voters. This has the effect of reducing the sampling pool well below 1,000 national respondents. They again do so in this poll.

During the period of June 26-28, a group of 1,017 adults from across the US was randomly selected. Of those, 890 were registered voters.
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Surprising Choice in Virginia; Strange Poll in Illinois

June 30, 2015 — Saturday’s meeting of the Virginia Republican State Central Committee (SCC) was thought to be the venue for adopting the convention presidential nominating option, but a surprise secret ballot vote changed the committee’s direction.

Eighty-two SCC members participated in the Staunton, Va. meeting to determine the apportionment system for the state’s 49 Republican presidential delegates. Though a primary was held in 2008, Virginia has typically been known as a convention state. Most of the state Republican nominees have been chosen in this fashion before assemblages usually exceeding 12,000 individuals.

Things started to unravel for the pro-convention contingent when a motion was made to convene in executive session for purposes of considering a measure to allow a secret ballot vote on the question of convention or primary, instead of employing the traditional roll call method. When the vote to adopt a secret ballot procedure passed on a 41-39 vote with two abstentions, it became apparent that the primary forces had a shot at carrying the day. When tabulated, the vote for a primary system was adopted 42-39, with one member abstaining.
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Trump Surges in Polls

June 25, 2015 — Despite universal media condemnation and being the butt of almost every joke on the late night TV circuit after officially launching his presidential campaign last week, international businessman Donald Trump has already moved into second place according to a new poll of New Hampshire Republican voters.

The Suffolk University Political Research Center (June 18-22; 500 highly to moderately likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters) finds Trump jumping from the low single-digits to moving ahead of every opponent but one, and trails former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by just three points.

Obviously, some members of the New Hampshire electorate do find Trump’s brash and blunt style attractive. He has been making appearances throughout the state, and is clearly having at least a modicum of success.

The fact that he could make such a quick move also reveals extreme fluidity within the massive field of Republican candidates. It is important to remember that, among the unwieldy group of almost 20 contenders, no candidate even touches 15 percent. Additionally, even individuals receiving one and zero votes are still within 15 points of topping the field.
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General Election Polls Break Down Dem / GOP Strongholds

June 24, 2015 — This week, Quinnipiac University brings us the general election preferences from 970 to 1,191 respondents who were questioned in the critical Senate states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Earlier, the university pollsters released partisan primary Senate data from their June 4-15 polls in each of those places. The early results favor Democrats in Florida and Ohio, and Republicans in Pennsylvania.

Florida

The Sunshine State poll tested the four most likely 2016 open seat Senate participants: Representatives Ron DeSantis (R-FL-6), Alan Grayson (D-FL-9), Patrick Murphy (D-FL-18), and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (R). In all scenarios, the Democrats perform better. None of the candidates, however, is well known. Of the group, Rep. Grayson is most familiar but 62 percent of the respondents have yet to hear of him. The least known is Rep. DeSantis who only 19% of the polling sample can identify.

The biggest spread, 40-28 percent, belongs to Rep. Murphy over Lt. Gov. Lopez-Cantera. The closest early contests are six-point spreads: Rep. Grayson over the lieutenant governor, and the same Orlando Democrat topping DeSantis by an equal margin.
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The Real Story Behind Strategist Saying Hillary Could Lose Early States

June 23, 2015 — Over the weekend, Democratic strategist Maria Cardona was giving undue credence to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) leftward challenge to Hillary Clinton, all the while claiming to support the latter candidate. She even stated on the ABC This Week program that Sanders could actually upset Clinton in the first two voting states, Iowa and New Hampshire.

The statement tells us a couple of things. First, if Cardona’s comments were part of a defined campaign strategy, they would signal a move typical of Clinton political efforts. The many national Clinton presidential quests have always handled adversity by directly addressing a particular issue or area of weakness, and then creating a spin opposite of conventional perception.

For example, the pre-Clinton campaign leaked months ago that the former Secretary of State and First Lady’s brain trust believe that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would be the strongest candidate the Republicans could field against Hillary Clinton. They site his fundraising ability and universal name identification as the reasons. Translation: Bush is exactly who the Clinton strategists want to run against. In a race about the past, early polling suggests that the Clinton era beats the Bush era, especially during the period of President George W. Bush. In fact, the Jeb Bush profile is one with which the Clinton people are very comfortable in painting contrast.
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Trump In; Sanders Scoring

June 18, 2015 — As promised, international businessman Donald Trump, claiming his personal wealth will reach $10 billion, announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination before what he claimed were thousands of people at his palatial Trump Towers in New York City. The media estimated the in-room audience to be less than 1,000. The Trump spokesperson claimed others were listening throughout the building and watching the television presentation on the streets below.

Trump is not expected to be particularly competitive. Consistently, his favorability numbers are the worst of any Republican candidate by a large margin; in some polls his negatives triple his positive rating.

Trump saying that he will be “ … the greatest jobs president that God ever created,” and that he doesn’t “…need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money. I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich, I’ll show you that in a second. And by the way, I’m not even saying that in a braggadocio … that’s the kind that’s the kind of thinking you need for this country.”
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A Lot of Noes

June 16, 2015 — We witnessed a great many political “noes” this weekend, as Iowa Republicans voted to do away with their famous August straw poll event, and two potential major Senate candidates announced they would not run next year.

President

The Iowa Republican Party began the straw poll event in August of 1979, as a way to showcase their first-in-the nation caucus contest. Over the years, the event attracted major media attention and was generally viewed as the first official contest of the respective presidential campaign cycle. In the most recent years, it became the Iowa GOP’s top fundraising event for their entire election season. But, over this past weekend, the Iowa Republican Party Executive Committee voted 17-0 to end the famous informal poll.

Several reasons exist for the event’s elimination, which previously drew thousands to Iowa State University in Ames, the traditional event venue. First, the straw poll was never a good predictor as to who would win the Caucus event. For example, then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN-6) placed first in the 2011 straw poll, which proved to be the high point of her campaign. Basically she was not heard from in a serious way after that. In fact, of the six straw poll events, only once did the outright August vote correctly foretell the actual Caucus winner (George W. Bush in 2000).
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