Category Archives: Polling

Dueling Congressmen

By Jim Ellis

July 24, 2017 — Next year’s Indiana Senate race is expected to be one of the nation’s top wire-to-wire campaigns. Even the Republican primary, which will only produce a challenger nominee, is beginning in toss-up fashion.

A new OnMessage consulting firm poll (July 10-12; 400 likely Indiana GOP primary voters) finds a pair of Republican congressmen, unannounced for the Senate but both headed for the statewide race, already in a dead heat contest. According to the data, Reps. Todd Rokita (R-Brownsburg/Lafayette) and Luke Messer (R-Greensburg/Muncie) are tied at 23 percent in the new GOP primary preference poll. The eventual winner will challenge Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who will be seeking his first re-election.

Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) and state Rep. Mike Braun (R-Jasper) are also thought to be considering their own Senate candidacies. They polled just four and two percent, respectively, in the OnMessage poll, however.

The two GOP House members are also virtually tied in the resource game. Both have been raising money at a strong clip: Rokita bringing in just over $1.3 million for the first half of 2017 and showing $2.35 million cash-on-hand, while Messer has attracted just under $1.3 million and possesses $2.027 million. For his part, Sen. Donnelly has brought in $5.47 million for the year and has $3.7 million in his campaign account.

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Fox Poll: A Mixed Bag

By Jim Ellis

July 21, 2017 — Fox News this week released the results of their regular benchmark poll (Anderson Robbins Research and Shaw & Company Research; July 16-18; 1,020 US registered voters) and find President Trump to be showing some weakness, but not to the degree that the Democrats and media would think and hope.

The polling sample tilts Democratic, and badly under polls Independents. This particular sample features 44 percent Democratic respondents, 37 percent Republican, with just 19 percent self-identifying as politically independent. According to the latest Gallup national party affiliation survey (July 5-9), 28 percent consider themselves Democrats, 25 percent Republican, with 45 percent declaring as Independents.

Overall, the president’s job approval rating is 41:53 percent favorable to unfavorable, which is a little lower than during most of his short tenure in office but still better than the 35:63 percent ratio Trump scored on the Fox pre-election poll (Oct. 10-12; 1,006 US registered voters). Therefore, his favorability index, though seriously upside down, is actually better today than when he won the 2016 election.

While his overall job approval is low, his management of various issue areas is better. In terms of handling the economy, 45 percent approve and 46 percent disapprove. This result represents a slight dip from Fox’s March, April, and June surveys. His best ratio during that time was 48:43 percent (June).

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Nevada Senate: The Race is On

By Jim Ellis

June 29, 2017 — Last week, freshman Nevada Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Henderson) informally declared her intention to run for the Senate – promising an actual announcement for sometime this week or next – and now we already see the first poll for the impending race.

First-term Sen. Dean Heller is clearly the Republicans most vulnerable incumbent in an election year where Democratic opportunities are few and far between. In this particular cycle, Democrats must defend 25 of the 33 Senate campaigns to come before their respective voters versus the Republicans’ mere eight; and, realistically, only two of the latter group are in the competitive realm.

Republican in-cycle Sens. Orrin Hatch (UT), John Barrasso (WY), Deb Fischer (NE), Bob Corker (TN), Ted Cruz (TX), and Roger Wicker (MS) all come from secure Republican states, and none are in serious danger for re-election. Sen. Jeff Flake finds himself in an iffy Arizona situation, but he has time to right his political ship. Therefore, the Nevada seat becomes possibly the Democrats’ lone conversion focal point for the coming election.

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New Virginia Polling

By Jim Ellis

June 26, 2017 — Despite the vast majority of survey research firms again failing to predict the correct outcome for a recent political campaign — this time the GA-6 special election — we do have new data to analyze for the Virginia governor’s race.

While it is too early to tell whether the pollsters are correctly projecting the turnout model and whether they are using the proper formula to pull a representative sample, it is still worthwhile to look at all the published polls in order to establish a moving trend.

As was reported immediately after the Virginia primary concluded, Harper Polling went into the field the day after Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie won their respective party nominations for governor. According to their results (June 14-16; 500 registered Virginia voters), both Northam and Gillespie were tied at 46 percent. The conclusion was even a bit better for Gillespie because within the eight percent group who reported themselves as undecided, 19 percent indicated a preference for the Republican, while seven percent said they were leaning toward Northam, the new Democratic candidate.

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GA-6 – Dead Even

By Jim Ellis

June 15, 2017 — The long Georgia special election cycle is mercifully almost over, as this most expensive-ever congressional race draws to a close next Tuesday. Looking at the aggregate spending, this one House campaign will easily exceed $40 million in combined expenditures, probably topping $25 million for Democrat Jon Ossoff’s campaign committee alone when the financial books close at the reporting cycle’s end.

The polls have forecast a close race between Ossoff and former Secretary of State Karen Handel (R) immediately upon both advancing from the April 18 jungle primary. The most recent study, from Survey USA polling for WXIA-TV in Atlanta (June 7-11, 700 registered GA-6 voters; 503 either likely June 20 participants or those who have voted early), finds the two again tied at 47 percent. This is a marked improvement for Handel in comparison to both S-USA’s previous poll and last week’s Abt Associates survey for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, both of which found Ossoff holding a 51-44 percent advantage.

All three of these polls, however, are apparently understating Republican strength. In party segmentation, the GOP/lean GOP cell has only small advantages over the Democrat/Lean Democrat grouping. This is largely due to over-emphasizing the close 2016 presidential race when constructing the respondent pool. Since Georgia does not register voters by political party affiliation, it becomes more difficult to determine an accurate party sample for polling purposes.

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Another House Opening;
Puerto Rico Vote

By Jim Ellis

June 13, 2017 — Colorado Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder) announced his campaign for governor Sunday, making the open seat Democratic primary even more crowded. Polis’ move sets up a major primary confrontation with fellow Colorado congressional colleague Ed Perlmutter (D-Golden), who announced his own candidacy in early April. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is ineligible to seek a third term.

Rep. Polis becomes the ninth Democrat to enter the governor’s race, but clearly he and Perlmutter are the heavyweight candidates. Former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy, ex-state Sen. Mike Johnston (D-Denver), and plastics company CEO Noel Ginsburg are also substantial players. Seven Republicans are in the race, the most prominent of whom is George Brauchler, the Aurora County District Attorney who prosecuted James Holmes, known as the “Joker”, a mass murderer who killed a dozen people and wounded 70 more in a rampage outside a local movie theatre in July of 2012.

The Colorado governor’s race will be one of the most interesting and competitive of the 2018 election cycle. Democrats will be favored to claim the statewide race, but a strong Republican effort could position the GOP candidate for an upset victory, similar to how Sen. Cory Gardner (R) won here in 2014.

The Democratic primary here will likely yield another example of how the party is becoming at odds within itself. Rep. Polis may be in strong position to attract the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren most liberal faction, while Perlmutter is likely to be the establishment wing’s preferred contender. With at least seven other Democrats vying for the nomination in varying degrees of strength, this June 2018 Dem primary will be among the most hard fought, and potentially divisive in the nation.

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Virginia Primary Today

By Jim Ellis

June 13, 2017 — The Virginia governor’s campaign is becoming a national race in relation to prognosticating political trends, and we will be able to glean some partial answers this evening.

Initially, the eventual Virginia general election winner earns the redistricting veto pen for the 2021 redraw, and becomes the first newly elected governor to have such authority. All other states where redistricting is handled through the normal legislative process will elect their commensurate governors in 2018, 2019, and/or 2020.

Second, the Commonwealth’s Democratic primary race has evolved into an early microcosm of what Democrats may be experiencing throughout the country this year and next, and quite possibly beyond.

The split between the party’s more extreme Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren faction and the traditional liberal Hillary Clinton segment is portrayed in the Tom Perriello/Ralph Northam gubernatorial primary. Though former US Rep. Perriello is wrapping himself in the Sanders/Warren mantra, going so far as having them star in his ads along with film clips of President Obama extolling his virtue when he was a member of the House, Perriello’s initiative has driven Lt. Gov. Northam to adopt more leftward ideological positions, as well.

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