Posted on 12/10/2009 9:40:50 AM PST by yongin
With Barack Obama's approval rating hitting new lows in most polling it should come as no surprise that his leads over potential 2012 Republican opponents are as well. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Tim Pawlenty all have their best performances relative to Obama in this month's poll and Mitt Romney matches his strongest standing yet.
Huckabee comes the closest, trailing Obama 46-45. It's interesting to note that Huckabee's share of the Democratic vote is up from 11% a month ago to now 16%, but his share of the Republican vote is down from 87% to 83%. There's a similar trend in his favorability numbers. Although they're pretty much unchanged overall from 36/37 a month ago to 35/35 now, he's dropped from 65% of Republicans seeing him positively to 57% but has increased from 13% to 17% with Democrats. We'll want to see if this trend continues before making any definitive conclusions, but it appears there's some possibility the publicity about his commutation of Maurice Clemmons brought a side of Huckabee out in the national spotlight that made him more popular across party lines but less popular within his own.
Mitt Romney comes next closest to Obama, trailing 47-42, matching his five point deficit from a month ago. His biggest problem continues to be lagging popularity with Republicans- 51% of them view him favorably, well behind Huckabee and Sarah Palin. That's a trend that's existed in our polling for most of the year and could spell trouble when it comes to Romney's prospects of winning the nomination.
Palin has her top showing against Obama, trailing 50-44. That's quite an improvement from March when we first tested the Obama-Palin contest and found her trailing 55-35. What's interesting is that there's been almost no change in her favorability numbers over the course of the year. She was at 39/50 then and she's at 41/50 now. That's a pretty clear sign the tightening has had little to do with her and almost everything to do with Obama's declining popularity.
Finally Tim Pawlenty, who 64% of voters have no opinion about, trails 48-35.
The importance of these numbers 35 months before Obama has to stand for reelection is obviously limited but it does seem pretty clear that his electoral position is weaker than it was a year ago at this time, given that his margins against Huckabee, Romney, and Palin are less than what he won by against John McCain. The most immediate implications of this relate to how effective he'll be as a candidate surrogate in the 2010 elections- will folks in tough races want Obama to come appear for them or not?
I wish they would drop Romney from the list. I will never vote for him, I don’t care what letter is behind his name. Never...
While Huckabee’s numbers among Republicans have declined, his numbers among Democrats have risen.
I wish they wouldn’t include the Huckster, because I won’t vote for the man.
I wish they wouldn’t include ANY candidates except Palin, because she’s the only one that should be considered...
PPP (D) is so full of crap when it comes to Sarah Palin polls. They are simply doing push polling to push a Democratic Party anti-Plain agenda.
That PPP’s “Hoffman will win by 17%” poll just before the NY23 elections, doesn't exactly inspire too much confidence in these guys does it?
PPP’s poll is in direct contrast to other recent Palin polls.
[Governor] Sarah Palin just as popular as Barack Obama? Polls say you betcha
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/gop/2403350/posts?page=1
[Governor] Sarah Palin rises in polls as Obama slips, new surveys show
“As for Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, 46 percent of Americans have a favorable view of her and 46 percent have an unfavorable view, according to a new poll by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. Those figures represent progress for Ms. Palin: When she resigned as Alaska’s governor in July, her favorability rating in CNN’s poll dropped to 39 percent”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402340/posts
Even that partisan CNN polls have Plain at an even 46% favorable and 46% unfavorable ratings right now, which is about the same as 0bama’s poll numbers.
Obama and the democrats are the best recruiters for the GOP. NOW it is up the GOP to cull out its RINOS and quit actively supporting them, they are not needed you can win with a conservative. so bye bye,Romney,guiliani,newt,hucksterbee, grahamn ect.
This is hilarious. It shows at least that some Republicans are able to use their heads while some RATS are impressed with Huck commuting the sentence of the cop killer. Makes perfect sense. I'm not surprised.
IMO, Huck, Pawlenty and Romney are pretty much non-starters for conservatives in 2012. Palin is the only clear choice for conservatives, but the DBM won’t admit it.
The bigger issue, IMO, is where are the conservatives that will replace the House and 1/3 of the Senate NEXT year???? THAT’S what we need to focus on!!!
Huck has said he’s leaning towards not running in 2012, and I don’t think he will. Huck is looking fat and happy there at FOX. He’d have to start getting into better shape, then give up his show, he’s been having a lot of trouble raising money for his PAC, raising enough money to be competative would be a big problem. It would be interesting if someone would do a poll leaving Huck out of the mix to see where his voters would go, my bet is that the majority would go to Palin.
They had Doug Hoffman ahead by 19 points two days before the election in NY-23.
This is all meaningless, none of these three will likely even be a factor in the 2011 Presidential elections.
Huckabee?
pahleeze, this is just the country club NYC types picking another RINO for us.
I want to see the RINO vs Republican/Conservative breakdown.
The breakdowns are in the link. What is interesting is the Conservative unfavorables about even with Huck at 14 and both Palin and Romney at 16. Still a lot of undecided so that’s what a campaign is about.
Arkansas dems should like them in particular. He made them stronger. The only downballot Republican he ever tried to help was his wife, with disastrous results.
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