Tag Archives: Public Policy Polling

A Trio of Incumbents in Jeopardy

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the PRIsm Information Network. Our Updates will resume on Monday morning, Dec. 2.

Developments occurring this week continue to suggest that three office holders are in serious trouble as they look toward re-election next year – two governors and a congressman:

Pennsylvania

Probably the most vulnerable governor in the country is Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett (R). Public Policy Polling just released a new survey of the Keystone State electorate (Nov. 22-25; 693 registered Pennsylvania voters; 436 Democratic Pennsylvania primary voters) and finds the governor with a terrible 24:65 percent favorable to unfavorable job approval rating. By contrast, President Obama’s approval index is also upside down but only to a 43:53% extent. The PPP job approval scores always Continue reading >

NC Senate Race Suddenly Tightens; A VA AG 164-Vote Winner

A new North Carolina Public Policy Polling survey (Nov. 8-11; 701 registered North Carolina voters) shows that, despite still being viewed as generally weak and for months viewed as a 2014 Republican candidate recruiting disappointment, the current challengers are pulling into a virtual tie with first-term Sen. Kay Hagan (D).

According to the results, Sen. Hagan actually trails physician Greg Brannon, heavily backed by Tea Party supporters, 43-44 percent. She leads state House Speaker Thom Tillis, the national Republican political committees’ favored candidate, by only 42-40 percent, and scores just a 43-41 percent edge over senior Baptist minister Mark Harris. Against virtually unknown nurse and Army veteran Heather Grant, the senator’s advantage is a mere 43-40 percent.

The new data provides evidence that Sen. Hagan’s political position weakening. In PPP’s October 4-6 poll (746 registered North Carolina voters), the incumbent held a 47-40 percent lead over Speaker Tillis, and similar spreads over Brannon (46-40 Continue reading >

Three Key Governor’s Races Narrowing

Now that the 2013 election is complete, the pollsters are back surveying races in states other than New Jersey and Virginia. Today, we cover some interesting numbers being returned in three competitive governors’ races.

Ohio

After seeing strong numbers come from Quinnipiac University in June (June 18-23; 941 registered Ohio voters) for Gov. John Kasich (R), the new Public Policy Polling data brings the race back to earth. Four and one-half months ago, the Q-Poll posted Gov. Kasich to a 47-33 percent lead over Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald (D). The latest PPP survey (Nov. 5-6; 595 registered Ohio voters) paints a different picture. According to this poll, Kasich and FitzGerald are tied at 41 percent apiece.

The latter data, which is much closer to normal Ohio voting patterns than the earlier Q-Poll, may suggest the pro-Kasich data is an anomaly or simply that the climate has changed during the lagging interval. Most probably, the time scenario is the more accurate.
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Another House Member Set to Retire; A New Political Carter in Georgia

Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC-6), who has represented the Greensboro, N.C. area since his first “landslide” election in 1984 that featured a victory margin of less than 100 votes, announced that he will retire at the end of the current Congress. Coble, now 82 and dealing with health challenges, will close out 30 consecutive years of congressional service when his final term in office comes to an end at the beginning of 2015.

Though the 6th District is safely Republican and should not cause the national party any trouble in the replacement campaign, the Coble announcement yields the third such new open seat just this week. The grand total of 2014 open districts has now increases to 23, 16 of which are Republican held.

We can expect a spirited Republican primary, which is often the case when a region has not been open at the congressional level for a long period of time. Possibly the leading contender, and an individual who appears poised to run, is Continue reading >

Crist Announces, Scott Pounces

Just a day before the odd-numbered year election, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced his political comeback attempt. Crist, who previously was elected as a state senator, attorney general, and governor when a member of the Republican Party before losing a race for US Senate as an Independent, now as a Democrat, is attempting to re-claim the office he left in 2010.

The toughest thing for any party-switcher is winning the first nominating election before the candidate’s new partisan electorate. Crist is off to a fast start in locking down the key Democratic leaders and, so far, faces only state Sen. Nan Rich as an active Democratic opponent though four others have also announced their candidacies for the nomination.

Crist made his official announcement yesterday in his home county of Pinellas, and several Democratic officials including former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, an ex-US congressman, several mayors, and party county chairmen were on hand to support his entry into the race. But the party support is not universal, as Sen. Rich vowed to continue her campaign.

Crist struck the theme that he will be “the people’s governor,” and referred to GOP Gov. Rick Scott, who he said came to the office as an outsider but has since strayed from his original intent. “He went from taking over Tallahassee to becoming the example of what’s wrong with the place,” Crist said about Gov. Scott in comments from his announcement address as reported in the Miami Herald newspaper.
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Senate Conservatives Tackle McConnell

http://youtu.be/VKBTQhTTUnY

It didn’t take long for at least one conservative organization to begin launching an air attack against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) for his role in failing to stop the funding mechanism for the Affordable Care Act, now commonly referred to as “Obamacare.” The Senate Conservatives Fund, through its Senate Conservatives Action issue organization, originally founded by then-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), has launched a $300,000 Kentucky television ad buy to claim that the five-term senator has “let us (Kentuckians) down” (above). The context directly relates to the healthcare issue.

The message is clearly intended to rile the Kentucky conservative base against Sen. McConnell to an even greater degree than previously noted. Already, investment executive Matt Bevin is actively pursuing a primary challenge against the Republican leader, a candidacy that the Senate Conservatives Fund has endorsed. Early polls show McConnell to be holding an overwhelming lead over Bevin, but data posted for the general election tells a different story.

The Kentucky Senate campaign is shaping up to be one of the 2014 bellwether races, and one of two key Republican must-holds (Georgia is the other) if the party is to have any chance of gaining the majority for the next Congress.

In the general election, Democrats have Continue reading >

Battleground Michigan

There’s a great deal of news affecting Michigan politics this week.

First, Republican senatorial nominee Terri Lynn Land announcing that she will report more than $2 million raised in the quarter ending Sept. 30 is clearly a positive sign for her campaign. Irrespective of the fact that $1 million of the money came as a self-funding donation, the aggregate figure suggests that her campaign is off the ground in a significant way. This, coupled with relatively recent polling data projecting that she and Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI-14), the consensus Democratic candidate, are virtually tied, is making the GOP leaders’ case that the open Michigan Senate race will become a highly competitive national campaign.

At the end of the previous quarter, Rep. Peters had already banked more than $1.7 million. His third quarter entry is expected to top $3 million in aggregate dollars raised. The combined Democrat and Republican monetary amounts is beginning to boost this race into the top national tier.

Second, earlier in the week Public Policy Polling, surveying for the MoveOn.org PAC, examined 24 Republican congressional districts in order to test GOP incumbents against the charge that they are solely responsible for shutting down the government. Though the timing of the polling and slanted questionnaires skews the data, some tangible information did come forth. Of the 24 tested Republican House members, seven found themselves trailing a generic Democratic placebo by nine points or more. Three of the seven hail from Michigan.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI-7), who scored a strong but not overwhelming 53-43 percent win last November in his post-redistricting 7th CD, trailed the generic Democrat 42-51 percent.

Freshman Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI-11), who is already facing a strong Republican primary challenger, placed 15 points behind the generic D, 39-54 percent.

The member faring the worst of all 24 tested, sophomore Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI-1), drops behind a Democratic placebo by 22 full points, 35-57 percent. While these numbers come from polls Continue reading >

Wendy Davis to Announce in Texas

Later today, as expected, state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) will announce her campaign for governor. With incumbent Rick Perry (R) retiring after four terms, Texas voters will witness an open governor’s campaign for the first time since 1990, when Democrat Ann Richards defeated Republican businessman Clayton Williams.

The 2014 general election looks to match Sen. Davis and three-term Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott who, for years, has been waiting in the wings to run for the state’s top office. Davis attained notoriety over the summer by filibustering a bill that increased abortion restrictions and succeeded in delaying its passage for several weeks.

The GOP has dominated Texas politics ever since George W. Bush unseated Gov. Richards in 1994. Of the 29 statewide offices, Republicans continue to control all of them, in addition to the two US Senate positions, a majority in the congressional delegation, and both houses of the state legislature. Since the Bush gubernatorial re-election effort in 1998, the GOP has typically won the major statewide offices by margins between 12 and 16 points.

But, will the string continue in 2014? With an ever-growing populace – remember, Texas gained four seats in the last reapportionment – and a Hispanic population reaching 37.6 percent of the state’s total population, Lone Star State Democrats claim that the demographic changes are making them more competitive.

Two polls have been conducted, both showing similar patterns. The most recent, the Texas Lyceum Poll (Sept. 6-20; 800 registered Texas voters), gives Abbott only a 29-21 percent lead with a whopping 50 percent undecided/don’t know factor. In early summer, Public Policy Polling (June 28-July 1; 500 registered Texas voters), even before Gov. Perry announced his retirement, tested several candidates against one another. At that time, Abbott led Davis 48-40 percent, holding the same eight-point edge as the Lyceum poll projects, but one where 38 percent more respondents believed they knew enough about the candidates to make a decision.

The fact that the Lyceum poll has a very long sampling window, over two weeks, and Continue reading >

Jousting in New Hampshire

In April, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) surprisingly admitted that he was considering moving to New Hampshire to challenge first-term Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D). Brown followed his statement by spending time in the Granite State, meeting with the party faithful and explaining that he truly does have New Hampshire bona fides.

After initial polling showed large Shaheen leads, talk of an impending Brown move seemed to dissipate. The political focus surrounding him shifted to whether he would run for governor of Massachusetts, a prospective race in which polling posted him well ahead of every potential candidate from both parties. Then, a show trip to Iowa immediately preceded his announcement declining a run for governor, but his verbiage certainly left the door wide open for a 2016 presidential run.

Now, however, the talk surrounding Brown’s next political move is returning to New Hampshire and even Sen. Shaheen, herself, is participating.

First, in a look back to last week, Public Policy Polling (Sept. 13-16; 1,038 registered New Hampshire voters) released a poll showing Brown just four points behind Sen. Shaheen, 48-44 percent, hardly an insurmountable deficit and a net seven-point gain in his direction from PPP’s April poll.

Apparently Sen. Shaheen is not taking the survey nor the potential Brown move to her state lightly; or, she is simply using the potential threat as a fundraising ploy. In the past few days the senator began sending communications to supporters repeating a WMUR television report that Brown is selling his home in Massachusetts, while asking for “$5,780 in six hours” to make her arbitrary campaign finance deadline goal.

The Democrats and media’s talk of Brown now moving to New Hampshire in order to challenge Shaheen may be much ado about nothing, or it could have substance. The idea is certainly attractive to the national Republicans because they are desperate to expand the Senate playing field in order to maximize the number of opportunities necessary to convert the six Democratic seats they need to capture the majority.

While Scott Brown would certainly begin the campaign as an underdog to Sen. Shaheen, it is unlikely the Republicans could recruit a Continue reading >

Trust in Government Falls; Capuano Backs Out – Again – in Mass.

The Gallup research organization just completed a study about people’s level of trust in the various branches of government. The poll, conducted Sept. 5-8 of 1,510 adults but released just yesterday, reveals that governmental trust levels have fallen across the board since 2009, and are well under the levels found at the beginning of 2003.

According to the study, remembering that the sampling universe is simply of adults who are not necessarily registered voters, trust in the Judiciary, the highest rated governmental entity, is off 14 points from 2009. Sixty-two percent of the respondents say they trust the Judiciary as compared to 76 percent who did four years ago.

The Executive branch is also down during the same interval, in this case 10 points, from 61 percent who expressed trust to 51 percent. Finally, the Legislative branch, which has been pilloried in opinion polls for the past several years, again finishes as the least trusted governmental segment at 34 percent. This represents a decline of 11 points from our benchmark year of 2009, but the result actually ticks upward from 30 percent at a point in 2011.

The fact that all levels of government are down significantly suggests a negative trend about Americans’ confidence in their governmental entities’ ability to implement their responsibilities.

The same sample also believes that the government has too much power. A full 60 percent of the polling sample (81 percent of Republicans; 68 percent of Independents; 38 percent of Democrats) believe government’s role in society is too vast. Thirty-two percent say the level of governmental authority is “about right”, and 7 percent say the government has too little power. Interestingly, the 7 percent “too little power” response has varied only one point during the past 10 years.

Predictably, Democrats have the highest levels of trust in government almost across the board; Independents next; and Republicans the least. The only entity rated higher among Republicans than any other partisan segment is, unsurprisingly, the Legislative branch.

Interestingly, the parties switch their views when questioned about state and local government. It is the Republicans who have Continue reading >