Tag Archives: OH Predictive Insights

Cortez Masto Rebounds in New Poll

By Jim Ellis

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D)

Feb. 4, 2022 — Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D), who trailed in the most recent published statewide poll (Trafalgar Group; Nov. 24-29; 1,034 likely Nevada general election voters; Adam Laxalt (R) 44 percent, Cortez Masto (D) 41 percent) has rebounded to regain the lead according to a new OH Predictive Insights survey, but warning signs persist for the first-term incumbent.

The OHPI poll commissioned for the Nevada Independent news site (Jan. 19-26; 755 likely Nevada registered voters, online) finds Sen. Cortez Masto topping former state Attorney General Laxalt (R) in a general election ballot test by a 44-35 percent margin. While the spread is relatively strong in her favor, posting a 44 percent support number is low for any incumbent.

For example, the same poll tested Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, and found his preference figure reaching 52 percent if Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo were his Republican opponent, and 54 percent if former US Sen. Dean Heller were to become the Republican gubernatorial nominee. Because OHPI forced preference answers, meaning no recorded undecided responses for the governor’s ballot test, the Sisolak support numbers are high. It is unlikely, however, that a traditional preference question would find him dropping to the senator’s current support level.

The OHPI pollster isolated Sen. Cortez Masto’s most significant problem as her being tied to President Biden’s low approval ratings. According to this study, the president only posts a 41:53 percent favorable to unfavorable job approval index, and 33 percent, which is the poll’s top issue response, said that the economy and jobs are most important to them. Isolating Biden’s score on his handling of the economy, the president’s disapproval rose to 55 percent, darkening the political climate for the senator even further.

Laxalt’s low support number (35 percent) is likely due to him recording only a 76 percent preference factor among Republicans. This is likely due to the fact that challenger Sam Brown, a businessman and disabled Afghan War veteran, is becoming a significant contender for the Republican nomination.

Though the GOP sample segment is low in the OHPI survey – only 230 respondents and well below the 300 that becomes statistically significant in a state the size of Nevada – we still see only 37 percent of the Republican base supporting Laxalt while 14 percent names Brown as their preferred candidate. This means that 49 percent of those Republicans polled say they are undecided about whom to support in the GOP Senate primary. Despite having a short sample, the results suggest that Laxalt still has work to do in securing the nomination.

Another changing element that could affect this race, but in a heretofore unknown way, are the party registration changes occurring throughout 2021. Comparing the partisan breakdown in the state from January of 2021 through December of last year, both the Democrats and Republicans lost patrons. Democratic registration dropped 2.9 percent, while Republicans were down 2.5 percent. This meant that those registering Non-Partisan and “Other” were up substantially.

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Nebraska Redistricting Map Set; Surprises in Arizona Senate Polling

Nebraska’s new three-district congressional map

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 4, 2021 — The Cornhusker State of Nebraska has joined Oregon and Colorado in completing its redistricting process as Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) late last week signed into law the new three-district congressional map.

The new map is similar to the previous plan. It slightly improves Rep. Don Bacon’s (R-Papillon/Omaha) 2nd District while keeping the Omaha metro area together as a complete unit. The 2nd will remain competitive, though Rep. Bacon will be in stronger position to seek a fourth term. He was re-elected last November with a 51-46 percent margin in defeating Democrat Kara Eastman for the second time and defending himself against a $4.5 million opposition campaign.

Rep. Adrian Smith’s (R-Gering) 3rd District again stretches the width of the state, from Colorado and Wyoming all the way to Iowa and the northwestern corner of Missouri. This time the 3rd even goes so far as to border Omaha’s Douglas County.

It is likely the new Nebraska map will continue to send three Republicans to the House, though Democrats will undoubtedly return to target Rep. Bacon in District 2.

Arizona Senate

Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights tested the Arizona electorate as they regularly do (released Sept. 29 & Sept. 7-12; 882 registered Arizona voters, online opt-in panel) and finds freshman Sen. Mark Kelly (D) leading all potential Republican general election opponents, but with percentages well below majority support in all tested instances.

As you will remember, Sen. Kelly, after a difficult and expensive 2020 campaign in which he raised an incredible $101 million to defeat appointed Martha McSally (R), won the special election, 51-49 percent, to fill the remainder of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) final term. He now returns to the campaign trail in order to win a full six-year term in 2022.

At this point, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, venture capitalist Blake Masters, solar energy company Jim Lamon, and retired Arizona National Guard Adjutant General Mick McGuire comprise the top tier of the Republican field. OHPI tested each man individually opposite Sen. Kelly.

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Arizona Sen. Kelly’s Latest Polling

By Jim Ellis

Sen. Mark Kelly (D) won the special election in November to fill the balance of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) final term in office. He again comes before the voters in this election cycle to stand for a full six-year term.

May 17, 2021 — Arizona pollster OH Predictive Insights went into the field to test the Grand Canyon State’s early electorate as it relates to freshman Sen. Mark Kelly (D). As we remember, Kelly won the 2020 special election to fill the unexpired portion of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) final term, and next year he stands for a full six-year term.

OHPI surveyed the sampling universe of 935 Arizona registered voters as part of an online opt-in panel during the May 3-5 period. The sample was weighted to properly reflect the partisan division within the state along with gender, age, education, region, and ethnicity segmentation.

The questionnaire first tested the job approval ratings of Arizona’s two Democratic senators, Kelly, and Kyrsten Sinema. Then, seven potential prominent Republicans were individually paired with Sen. Kelly to test his strength against each, one of whom is likely to be his 2022 general election opponent.

Regarding the approval ratings, Sen. Sinema scored a 44:36 percent positive to negative ratio with 10 percent landing in the very favorable category and 15 percent in the very unfavorable classification. Sen. Kelly posted a similar, but slightly worse, 45:38 percent ratio. Like Sen. Sinema, more respondents rated him very unfavorable (23 percent) than very favorable (18 percent). The upside-down extreme ratio suggests an underlying weakness since the very unfavorable outweighs the very favorable for both individuals.

Here’s how potential opponents matched up against Sen. Kelly:

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	45%
Kimberly Yee (R)	35%

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	43%
Jack McCain (R)	29%

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	46%
Karl Lake (R)	35%

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	47%
Kelli Ward (R)	36%

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	47%
Andy Biggs (R)	36%

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	44%
Michael McGuire (R)	35%

CANDIDATE	PERCENT
Sen. Mark Kelly (D)	46%
Mark Brnovich (R)	36%

Yee is Arizona’s state treasurer. McCain is the son of the late Sen. McCain. Karl Lake is a former news anchor for one of the major network Phoenix television stations. Ward is the Arizona Republican Party chair who has previously served in the state legislature and run for the US Senate. Andy Biggs is the US congressman from the Maricopa County-anchored 5th District. Michael McGuire is a retired major general who headed the Arizona National Guard. Brnovich is the state’s attorney general.

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Is Biden Under-Performing?

By Jim Ellis

Former vice president and current 2020 presidential candidate, Joe Biden (D)

May 28, 2020 — Currently, former vice president Joe Biden is leading in virtually every battleground state poll that has been released into the public domain; but do the survey numbers tell the whole story? Other available data, that derived from actual votes being cast, suggest there may be cracks forming in his political armor.

In terms of battleground states, a new Arizona poll was released Tuesday, in what could become the most important must-win domain for the Trump campaign. There, the Phoenix-based HighGround Public Affairs consulting firm publicized their latest Arizona statewide poll (May 18-22; 400 likely Arizona general election voters), and the ballot test projects Biden holding a tighter 47.0 – 45.3 percent edge over President Trump.

Though Biden leads, the trend is a clear improvement for Trump since the OH Predictive Insights poll (May 9-11; 600 likely Arizona voters) became public during mid-May and posted the former vice president to a 50-43 percent advantage. Redfield & Wilton Strategies followed with their survey release (May 10-14; 946 likely Arizona voters) that yielded a closer 45-41 percent Biden lead.

Tuesday’s HighGround survey also published some interesting secondary questions. In answering whether the respondents felt President Trump job performance was excellent, very good, or OK, the combined positive calculated to 49.5 percent. Among those believing the president’s job performance is poor or failing, the negative totaled to 49.0 percent.

Accordingly, 29.3 percent of the Arizona respondent sample believes President Trump is to blame for the spread of the coronavirus, while 20.3 percent pin the responsibility on China. All other responses: the people, federal government, Democrats, or other unnamed sources each registered less than 10 percentage points. A total of 25.3 percent say they either don’t know or believe no single source is to blame.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, the state of Hawaii hosted its Democratic presidential primary. The unique format is interesting in that there were two votes the participants cast: the first included choosing among all of the names who originally qualified for the Hawaii presidential nomination ballot. The second isolated only Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Just under 35,000 people cast mail votes in the stand-alone presidential primary.

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Biden Poised to Have Potentially Defining Day in Today’s Primaries

Former VP Joe Biden

By Jim Ellis

March 10, 2020 — During the early prognostication phase regarding the Democratic presidential nomination campaign, the two most important primary dates appeared to be March 3, Super Tuesday, and March 17. The latter date is important because more than 60 percent of the first ballot would be locked into place once St. Patrick’s Day voting ends.

That actually may not now be the case, however. Rather, the clinching primaries may be today.

The March 10 elections, featuring six states, haven’t attracted much attention, but the half-dozen results tonight could be the defining moment for coalescing around a new nominee.

Looking at today’s voting in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) looks to have his back up against the wall. It would be hard to see him continuing in viable fashion if he fails to win all of the day’s northern states, and particularly Michigan, which has 125 first-ballot bound delegates.

Late polling, however, is suggesting that former vice president Joe Biden may sweep the six states, and that might be what he needs to at least unofficially clinch the party nomination.

Three late Michigan surveys, from a place where Sen. Sanders held the lead over the Democratic field and slipped past Hillary Clinton in 2016, 50-48 percent, suggest the electorate is now turning toward Biden in a big way. In fact, the Target Insyght poll taken on Sunday, typically not a good polling day, through an automated voice response system (March 8; 600 likely Michigan Democratic primary voters) finds Biden outpacing Sen. Sanders by 41 percentage points, a breathtaking turnaround from pre-Super Tuesday research studies. The TI result finds the Biden split over Sanders at 65-24 percent.

Others don’t show this level of separation, but they are projecting Biden to be developing a substantial advantage. YouGov (March 6-8; sample size not disclosed) finds the Biden margin to be 54-42 percent. Monmouth University (March 5-8; 411 likely Michigan Democratic primary voters) sees a 15-point Biden advantage, 51-36 percent. Michigan-based pollster EPIC-MRA (March 4-6; 400 likely Michigan Democratic primary voters) finds a similar 51-27 percent. All suggest a big Wolverine State night for Biden, the exact opposite of what Sen. Sanders needs to rebound.

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Impeachment: First Political Clues

By Jim Ellis

President Donald Trump | whitehouse.gov

Dec. 16, 2019 — As we move toward the impeachment vote in the full House and the impending Senate trial to determine whether President Trump should be removed from office, a great deal of speculation exists about how voters will respond to this situation. A series of early December polls from the most critical swing states gives us a clue.

Firehouse Strategies/Optimus commissioned simultaneous polls within the Dec. 3-5 period in the top swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. As we remember, all of these places gave Trump a small victory margin in 2016. Phoenix-based pollster OH Predictive Insights conducted a poll of the Arizona electorate during the same period. Firehouse found sampling groups numbering between 551 and 610 respondents in the three states. OH used a slightly larger 628 person sample cell in the Grand Canyon State.

Both pollsters tested President Trump in each targeted state against former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and ex-New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

In all instances President Trump led his prospective opponent when individually paired. Since he had been trailing in similar ballot test responses from several previous polls in the Great Lakes States and was about even in Arizona, the change at the height of the impeachment proceedings suggests that he is seeing a net positive early return from the legal attack.

Of course, much could change before the process concludes, but this first data does provide us an interesting political snapshot as it relates to impeachment perceptions. As a rule, general election polling before the parties nominate their presidential candidates is usually irrelevant but, considering the present impeachment overlay, these numbers appear to be significant and particularly so because they are originating from critically important states.

For President Trump to win re-election, he must carry all five of the states in his 2016 coalition that typically vote Republican but have been trending closer to the Democrats since the last presidential election. Those are: Arizona, Georgia, and Texas. Florida and North Carolina are always swing states in virtually every election and will be again in 2020. To win, the president must first carry all of these aforementioned states. If so, he then would need to win just one of the Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin trio in order to yield a bare Electoral College majority.

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9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Could Force Arizona’s Hand

By Jim Ellis

Appointed Arizona Sen. (and former representative) Martha McSally (R)

Aug. 13, 2019 — Soon after Republican Congress-woman Martha McSally was appointed to the Senate, a group of Arizona voters — two Democrats, a Repub-lican, a Libertarian, and an Independent — challenged the length of time that she could serve without going to election. Now the case awaits a ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that could force the state to hold an early special election.

Sen. John McCain (R), who was re-elected in 2018, passed away in late August almost a year ago, on the 25th. Gov. Doug Ducey (R) then appointed former Sen. Jon Kyl (R) to serve until the 2020 election, but Kyl only pledged to stay through 2018. He then resigned before the new Congress took office at the beginning of this year. Gov. Ducey responded by appointing then-Rep. McSally (R-Tucson), who had just lost the 2018 open seat US Senate election to then-Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix).

Because Sen. McCain died so early into his term, there would be an appointment followed by a special election. The appointment would extend to the next general election in 2020, with the winner serving the balance of the term. Therefore, whoever wins next November’s special election wouldn’t be eligible to run for a full six-year term until 2024.

Under Arizona law, which is similar to succession laws in 35 other states, the governor appoints an interim senator who serves until the next regular election. In 14 states, which have systems similar to what the plaintiffs are demanding, a special election is scheduled at the earliest possible date according to the individual state law.

In Sen. McSally’s case her interim term would stretch to 27 months, which the group of plaintiffs argues is too long a time to not give the voters a say. The federal district court judge rejected the argument, but the plaintiffs appealed to the 9th Circuit. Late last week, the appellate court agreed to hear the case, and will do so in an expedited manner.

The 2020 Arizona special election promises to be one of the most hard-fought campaigns during the cycle. Even at this early date it is already clear that the two major party nominees will be Sen. McSally and retired astronaut Mark Kelly (D), who is the husband of former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Tucson).

The contest is already almost at fever pitch. In fact, Kelly raised more money in the 2nd Quarter than any other US Senate candidate, $4.24 million, but he was closely followed by Sen. McSally who raised the second-most of any federal candidate in the country, $3.4 million. Kelly had $5.9 million cash-on-hand at the end of June while Sen. McSally had $4.4 million.

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