Category Archives: Polling

Conflicting Signals

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 27, 2016 — As the presidential candidates debated last evening, other political news is also is bubbling to the surface. In three House races, recent conflicting polling data in two and the respective party operatives seeing things much differently in a third yield contradictory analyses.

NH-1

As we’ve reported many times before, the NH-1 race this year represents the fourth consecutive campaign between Rep. Frank Guinta (R-Manchester) and former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D). Guinta won in 2010 and 2014, Shea-Porter in 2012. This year promises to be close again in the New Hampshire district that has defeated more incumbents during the last 10 years than any other congressional seat.

Guinta became vulnerable virtually from the point of his winning the seat back in 2014. A Federal Election Commission violation proved to be a major setback for him in the off-year, but he rebounded to the point of barely winning his primary on Sept. 13 (a 629-vote margin). Democrats rate NH-1 as one of their best conversion opportunities in the nation.

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New State Data

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 26, 2016 — While the national polls continue to yield a basic tie between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the state totals are the real determining factor and we have significant new data from key targets this week.

To re-cap, if the election were today it appears Clinton would win possibly with as few as 272 Electoral Votes as compared to Trump’s 266. The latter’s coalition would include the states of Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada along with the 2nd Congressional District of Maine all converting from the 2012 electoral map. Most polls suggest that Trump is currently leading or has a strong chance of winning these entities on Election Day.

Florida, arguably the most important swing state, reported two very different polls this past week. The latest, from Suffolk University (Sept. 19-21; 500 likely Florida voters), finds Trump leading by a single point, 44-43 percent. But, earlier in the week, Florida’s St. Leo University released a survey (Sept. 10-15; 502 Florida adults) that projects Clinton holding a significant 49-44 percent Sunshine State advantage.

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Reuters: Trump Up In
Electoral College

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 20, 2016 — The Reuters/Ipsos “States of the Nation” project finds Donald Trump taking a surprising 243-242 electoral vote lead over Hillary Clinton, but are the individual state projections reliable? Many news sources covered the weekend story, yet it appears that the R/I numbers leave much to be desired. In fact, they show several states going for a candidate either for the first time in this election cycle, or in a manner that other data fails to substantiate.

Reuters/Ipsos is using a huge pool of almost 16,000 respondents, which allows them to segment results for most states. They are also casting several turnout models, and then calculating various Electoral College scenarios based upon the percentage of individual voter groups expected to participate in the November election.

The model forecasting the one-vote Trump advantage features an overall 60 percent turnout ratio among eligible voters, 43 percent for all minority groups, 59 percent African-American participation, and 69 percent from Anglo males. Even with his Electoral College edge, the Reuters/Ipsos results still find Trump trailing Clinton in the national popular vote by a 40-45 percent margin, however.

Questionable conclusions occur in several states. First, addressing the entities where Reuters/Ipsos did not have a large enough respondent sample to determine a trend, several have a clear and decided voting history. Adding Democratic Rhode Island and the District of Columbia’s electoral votes to Clinton’s total would increase her share to 249. For Trump, all other polling data supported by a long vote history would yield both Alaska and Wyoming to him. This would add another six votes to the Republican’s national total, thus leading the adjusted national split to a 249-249 tie.

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Senate: Critical States, Critical Polls

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 13, 2016 — New polls were just released in states that will define which party controls the Senate in the next Congress.

Five polls, four from Quinnipiac University, are now in the public domain from Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. If these latest polls prove correct, the Senate majority would be decided in Nevada and New Hampshire, two toss-up states that were not included in the released data.

Florida

The first Q-Poll gives further evidence that Sen. Marco Rubio (R) is expanding his slight lead over Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Jupiter). According to the data from Quinnipiac’s September Florida statewide poll (Aug. 31-Sept. 7; 601 likely Florida voters), Sen. Rubio has extended beyond the polling margin of error and now records a 50-43 percent advantage.

Any problem he had with Republicans based upon his poor Florida performance against Donald Trump in the March 15 presidential primary appears to be resolved. This Q-Poll finds him attracting 89 percent of Republicans as opposed to losing just six percent of them. This brings him to partisan parity with Rep. Murphy, who captures the Democratic vote with a similar 91-7 percent. Rubio is doing very well among Independents, taking this group 53-37 percent.

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The States Tighten

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 12, 2016 — As the national popular vote pulls into a virtual dead heat, polls released yesterday in the critical swing states suggest that a similar pattern is occurring in the individual voting entities, too.

To re-cap the Electoral College map, in order to win the national campaign Donald Trump must keep the 24 states Mitt Romney claimed in 2012, including key swing North Carolina, and then win Florida and Ohio. President Obama won both of these latter states in each of his national campaigns. For her victory configuration, Hillary Clinton need only preserve 80 percent of the states that Obama won twice.

Once Trump secures the Romney coalition plus Florida and Ohio, he then must take at least one more state totaling more than 16 Electoral Votes, to reach the minimum victory threshold of 270 Electoral Votes. Adding Pennsylvania, for example, would award Trump the presidency.

Quinnipiac University publicized four state polls yesterday, covering each key swing entity. In Florida and Ohio, the Q-Poll finds Trump returning to parity with Hillary Clinton. He trails in North Carolina, however. Though still behind in Pennsylvania, the research projects him pulling back to within five points of her and halving the deficit he faced in the August Pennsylvania Quinnipiac survey.

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The September Reset

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 6, 2016 — Labor Day is always viewed as the traditional general election initiation benchmark for presidential campaigns, so it is important to see where the candidates stand now that we have reached this point in time.

During the Aug. 24-30 period, five national polling entities surveyed the national electorate. The five: USA Today/Suffolk University, Rasmussen Reports, Fox News, Reuters/Ipsos, and The Economist/YouGov find a margin range of Hillary Clinton topping Donald Trump by seven percentage points (USA/Suffolk: Aug. 24-29, 1,000 US likely voters, 42-35-7-4 percent, including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein) to the Republican going up by a single point (Rasmussen Reports; Aug. 29-30: 1,000 US likely voters, 40-39-7-3 percent).

Together, the five polls produce a net average Clinton edge of 3.0 percentage points with neither candidate exceeding 42 percent support nor dropping below 35 percent.

Turning to a historical comparison, where have other presidential campaigns stood on Sept. 1, and how can previous patterns help us project what may happen in this current election?

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The Historical Perspective

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 31, 2016 — Everyday we see new polls that measure Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s national standing and their status in some states, but how does the 2016 race compare to the others from the past 40 years during this same time point in the election cycle?

The Gallup organization is the only consistent national pollster from the mid-20th Century through the 2012 election. After missing the final result four years ago in which they predicted a Mitt Romney popular vote victory, Gallup now confines their research work to issues and not head-to-head ballot test questions. Therefore, they are not polling the Clinton-Trump race.

Since Aug. 20, seven polls from a combination of professional national pollsters, media outlets, and universities have been publicly released. Six of the seven find Clinton holding the lead. One, the Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California’s continual panel-back tracking program, says Trump is carrying a two-point advantage. Factoring in these recent seven results, Clinton’s average advantage is 3.4 percentage points, usually in the span of 42-38 percent.

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Primary Preview – Part II

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 30, 2016 — Today, we cover the second half of the competitive Florida campaigns, with just a word about Arizona. The Washington Post ran an article yesterday chronicling Sen. John McCain as being “in the fight of his life.” It does not appear that McCain is in any danger of losing the primary today, and his general election polling puts him in his strongest position of this election cycle. Therefore, the Post story seems ill timed.

Also in Arizona, and not covered yesterday, despite a moderate independent expenditure leveled against Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Prescott), the congressman is also expected to easily survive his primary challenge. Gosar’s opponent, former local official Ray Strauss (R), has attracted just over $100,000 in support of his own campaign, far less than the independent expenditure. The general election will not be competitive.

Florida

• FL-9: The new 9th District, which stretches from east Orlando south through Kissimmee, west to Winter Park and then east to the Yeehaw Junction, is a few points less Democratic than the seat Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) currently represents. His departure to the Senate race makes this one of seven open Florida congressional districts. While Alan Grayson will not represent this district in the next Congress, another Grayson may. A poll released last week found the congressman’s new wife, physician Dena Grayson, leads the Democratic primary field, thus making her at least a slight favorite. Former congressional aide Susannah Randolph and state Sen. Darren Soto are the other viable candidates in the Democratic field. Today’s Dem primary victor will win the seat in November. Safe Democratic

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Primary Preview – Part I

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 29, 2016 — Arizona and Florida voters go to the polls tomorrow in what has become the most important of the late summer primaries.

Today, we cover Arizona and half of the competitive Florida campaigns. Tomorrow, the remaining Sunshine State races will be updated. Resulting from the court-ordered mid-decade redistricting changes and an unusually large number of open seats, competition is developing in no less than 17 of the state’s 27 congressional districts. Both states also host critical Senate contests.

Arizona

• Senate: Sen. John McCain (R) is seeking a sixth term after originally winning in 1986, four years after his initial election to the House. What was thought to be a potentially competitive Republican primary at the outset seemingly fizzled when McCain drew a lesser primary opponent. For a time, it appeared that either Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Mesa) or Rep. David Schweikert (R-Fountain Hills/Scottsdale) might enter the statewide contest, but neither chose to do so. In fact, Rep. Salmon would later decide to retire altogether.

Former state Senator Kelli Ward, who resigned her position in order to spend her full energies in challenging McCain, has raised about $1.5 million, but it would likely require more in the way of resources and outside support to deny the veteran incumbent and former Republican presidential nominee a re-nomination victory. Expect Sen. McCain to do better than his 56 percent Republican primary performance in 2010.

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Senate Trends

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 15, 2016 — A plethora of new swing state Senate polls have been conducted and already released in August, and both parties are getting some good news in specific races.

The two states ripe for electing a senator from a different party are Illinois and Wisconsin. Such has been known for the better part of a year, and the latest polls are no exception to the developing trends.

Illinois Senate Democratic nominee Tammy Duckworth (D-IL-8) released her internal Normington Petts research firm poll (Aug. 1-4; 800 likely Illinois general election voters) projecting a 44-37 percent Duckworth lead over Sen. Mark Kirk (R). Marquette University Law School, again polling the Wisconsin electorate (Aug. 4-7; 805 registered Wisconsin voters) as they have done regularly since the 2012 election, finds former Sen. Russ Feingold (D) topping incumbent Ron Johnson (R), 53-42 percent. This result swings a net of six points in Feingold’s favor when compared to the institution’s July survey. At that time, Feingold led 49-44 percent.

All the key Republican defense battleground states reported new August numbers. The good news for Democrats comes in Pennsylvania where challenger Katie McGinty (D) made a significant gain on Sen. Pat Toomey (R), to the point where several polls find her building a small lead.

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