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March 30, 2008 - April 5, 2008

April 4, 2008

"Outliers" for April 4

Mark Penn meets with the Columbia's U.S. ambassador to discuss a free trade agreement then admits to an "error in judgement," drawing comment across the blogosphere.

Annette John-Hall (of the Philadelphia Inquirer) considers "those crazy polls" in Pennsylvania.

David Leonhardt sees evidence in the NY Times/CBS poll that Obama supporters are more optimistic about the future than Clinton supporters.

Frank Newport notes that Republicans oppose a federal government bailout to "to help prevent people from losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgage."

David Sirota plots Barack Obama's support in the primary states against the rank of each state's black population and sees evidence that "racism is a powerful force" in the Democratic contest.

[And Bob Somerby points out that the middle states in Sirota's chart held caucuses, not primaries (via comment by Pollster reader kingsbridge77)].

Brendan Nyhan finds problems with Sirota's graphs and puts forward nine more of his own (both items via TPM).

Michael McDonald (PDF) finds that a mail-only revote in Florida would "cause disproportionate problems with the delivery of mail ballots to African-Americans" (via John Sides).

PPP gets a call from "Barack Obama."

By Mark Blumenthal on April 4, 2008 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

More on the Diageo-Hotline Poll

By Mark Blumenthal

My colleague Matthew Gottlieb, polling editor of The Hotline, has posted a more in-depth analysis of the Diageo-Hotline poll (data, release) that we linked to earlier today. Some highlights:

Meanwhile in a McCain-Obama matchup, McCain leads 46%-44% – within the margin of error but a shift from Obama’s 48-40% lead in Feb. Since the previous poll, McCain’s support among Dems has nearly doubled from 8% to 15%; at the same time, Obama’s lead among Dems has dropped from 76% to 53%. McCain also bests Obama by 12% among Inds, although no trend data is available for this group.

Interestingly, in a general-election matchup with McCain, Obama performs better than Clinton among women – he leads McCain by 5%, while McCain and Clinton break even, 45%-45%. Additionally, in a McCain-Obama matchup, Obama carries 94% of black votes, but in a McCain-Clinton matchup, just 74% vote Clinton. What happens to this 20% of blacks? At least 9% defect to McCain, and 6% remain undecided. Another 6% refuse to answer – perhaps they plan to stay home in the event Obama is not on the ballot in Nov.

Speaking of these “revenge voters” – the potential calamities of the divisive Dem primary – the Diageo/Hotline poll offers further evidence they exist. In the McCain-Clinton Nov. matchup, 19% of Obama primary voters opt for McCain, versus 14% of Dems overall. The damage is even more pronounced in a McCain-Obama matchup, 29% of Clinton voters select McCain, compared to 15% of Dems overall.

He also notes a drop in the favorable ratings of both Clintons:

One of the most remarkable statistics in the latest poll is the drop in favorability suffered by both Hillary and Bill Clinton. Both the Senator and ex-POTUS now have net unfavorable ratings among RVs. He moved from a fav/unfav of 55%/41% in Feb. to 45%/51% now, while Hillary dropped from 54%/40% to 43%/53% over the same period.

I checked the favorable ratings among the 44% of registered voters that self-identify as Democratic primary voters (say they "typically vote in primary elections for national, state and local office [for] the Democratic Party candidates" - Q16).

Since January, Hillary Clinton's favorable rating among Democratic primary voters dropped from 88% to 70%, while her unfavorable rating increased from 12% to 26%. From January to March, her "strongly favorable" rating declined from 50% to 30%.

Over the same period, Barack Obama's ratings among Democratic primary voters remained roughly constant: 76% favorable, 18% unfavorable in January, 77% favorable, 17% unfavorable now. His very favorable rating has also changed little from January (42%) though March (44%).

See Gottlieb's Hotline OnCall analysis for much more.

By Mark Blumenthal on April 4, 2008 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

POLL: Democracy Corps National

By Eric Dienstfrey

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D)

Generic Pres Ballot
Dem 53, Rep 41

Generic House Ballot
Dem 53, Rep 40
Dem Incumbent: Dem 69, Rep 26
Rep Incumbent: Rep 53, Dem 38

Full results here.

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Diageo/Hotline National

By Eric Dienstfrey

Diageo / Hotline
(release, data)

National end date 3/31 (2/17)
Obama 50, Clinton 38 (was Clinton 45, Obama 43)
McCain 46, Obama 44 (was Obama 48, McCain 40)
McCain 50, Clinton 41 (was McCain 48, Clinton 40)

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: The Daily Rasmussen

By Eric Dienstfrey

Rasmussen Reports

National
Obama 48, Clinton 42
McCain 47, Obama 44... McCain 47, Clinton 42

Favorable / Unfavorable
McCain: 56 / 41
Clinton: 45 / 52
Obama: 52 / 46

Maine
Obama 49, McCain 39... Clinton 47, McCain 42

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: The Daily Gallup

By Eric Dienstfrey

Gallup Poll

National
Obama 49, Clinton 44
McCain 46, Obama 45... McCain 46, Clinton 45

Also
No Consensus Favorite Among Republicans for McCain VP; Video
Six in 10 Oppose Wall Street Bailouts
"Poor" Ratings of Economy Going Up

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Harris Cell Phone Usage

By Eric Dienstfrey

Harris Interactive

National
79% of adults have a land line connected to their residence (81% in 2006).
14% of adults only use a cell phone at their residence (11% in 2006).

Full analysis here.

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: ARG Indiana Dems

By Eric Dienstfrey

American Research Group

Indiana
Clinton 53, Obama 44

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: CBS/Times National

By Eric Dienstfrey

CBS News/New York Times
(CBS story, economy, campaign, race relations;
Times story, results)

National
Obama 46, Clinton 43
Obama 47, McCain 42... Clinton 48, McCain 43

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Muhlenberg Pennsylvania Dems

By Eric Dienstfrey

Muhlenberg College

Pennsylvania
Clinton 51, Obama 41

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 4, 2008 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

April 3, 2008

POLL: Research 2000 Indiana Dems

By Eric Dienstfrey

Research 2000

Indiana
Clinton 49, Obama 46

By Eric Dienstfrey on April 3, 2008 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Update: PA by Race and Education

By Mark Blumenthal

I am posting the data in the following table partly because Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, was kind enough to share it, and partly because it tends to confirm a point I made two weeks ago about the state of play in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary race. I wrote that Barack Obama had dropped among college educated white voters there (in a survey conducted just before and after the Jeremiah Wright controversy emerged, but before Obama's speech) and had room to rebound:

How [Obama] ultimately fares among Pennsylvania's college-educated Democrats could well determine whether he loses Pennsylvania narrowly (as his campaign forecast in early February) or by a double-digit margin. If, hypothetically, Obama wins his usual overwhelming majority among Pennsylvania's black Democrats, and Clinton racks up the same 40-point margin among non-college whites that she did in Ohio, Obama can still run within10 points overall if he can best Clinton by at least 4 points among college-educated white voters.

As it turns out, that seems to be what has happened, at least on the latest Quinnipiac poll, which shows the biggest net shift occurring among college educated white voters. Although the change appears to be just shy of statistical significance, Obama now holds a 5-point advantage (49% to 44%) over Hillary Clinton among college educated white voters, an improvement since March but roughly the same margin on their two February surveys. That shift was just large enough to reduce Clinton's overall lead to nine points.

Meanwhile, the preferences of non-college white voters have shown little or no change since February in the Quinnipiac surveys, a finding that illustrates the strength of Clinton's position in Pennsylvania and the difficulty Obama will have in further narrowing her lead.

Of course, the Quinnipiac survey was fielded over eight days, mostly last week (March 24-31). As Pollster readers know, three new automated surveys have fielded this week (fielding for one or two days each) that show a closer race. A fourth poll, conducted by SurveyUSA this past weekend, showed Clinton leading by 12 points. None of these surveys provide crosstabulations by education, but all (that have polled previously in Pennsylvania) show some narrowing of the race.

By Mark Blumenthal on April 3, 2008 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)