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Posted on 01/14/2011 11:44:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Sarah Palin's biggest obstacle to the White House may not be her remarkable level of unpopularity with Democrats and independents. Her more immediate problem is that she simply doesn't have much support in the vital early Republican states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Florida.
Palin does well in national polls on the GOP nomination contest, including a first place finish on our most recent one. But if those sorts of polls determined the nominee Hillary Clinton would most likely be in the White House now. The momentum or lack thereof that candidates get out of the early contests is often what causes their bids to succeed or fail and right now she looks quite weak in those places.
In Iowa two different polls this week found that Palin is a distant third in Iowa. We found her 15 points behind Mike Huckabee with 15% support and Neighborhood Research found her 13 points behind Huckabee with only 11% support. In New Hampshire our most recent poll found her in a tie for third place at 10% with Newt Gingrich, 30 points behind Mitt Romney. A Magellan Strategies poll last week found her with a similarly larger deficit, in second place at 16%, 23 points behind Romney. In Nevada she's been in second place in one of our recent surveys and in third place in another, but at any rate she's running double digits behind Romney. And in Florida our most recent poll found her in a distant fourth place at only 13%, 10 points behind Huckabee, 8 behind Romney, and 5 behind Gingrich.
Now certainly the history of Presidential campaigns is full of people who started well back in the polling gaining momentum and rising to the top in the end. But those tend to be folks who start out with very low name recognition and gain more and more ground as they become better known. Palin's already maxed out on name recognition and it's kind of hard to imagine her winning over very many folks who don't already support her.
If Mike Huckabee doesn't run that will definitely help Palin in these early states but regardless of that she has a lot of work to do in them if she really ends up making a bid for the White House.
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“Palin’s already maxed out on name recognition and it’s kind of hard to imagine her winning over very many folks who don’t already support her.”
This is what I see as her biggest problem. She is so polarizing that people are set on her for the most part and getting her beyond just the folks who support her probably won’t happen.
Why even post any work done by such a worthless, biased and totally unreliable bunch as ppp???????
Could someone explain to me the fascination with Huckabee in Iowa?
love to see a wave started with this guy in Iowa and NH and let him roll on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain
Is it written in stone that Iowa is first, NH second and so on? Why dont they have Texas first, huh huh huh.....?
Didn’t Reagan come on late in the 1976 primaries to almost beat Ford? Iowa and NH are not the end alls they used to be. I cannot imagine her losing many areas except the North East establishment RINO territories.
She hasn’t spent much time in Iowa. She still isn’t spending time in Iowa.
I wonder if she isn’t planning on running.
The religious voters are looking at his divinity background and not his policies.
ML/NJ
Well that tears then.
The media gets to decide who the GOP candidate is.
That makes it so easy.
She’ll do fine.
The media coverage of her has been over the top, and in the long run, that will help her; especially in places like Iowa.
Do NOT trust outfits like PPP this far out. PPP is a Democratic Firm that is doing polling this far out to discourage Palin from running.
Best,
Chris
Sadly, we have a large population of ignorant evangelicals here among the cornfields and they want a preacher, not a president.
They have somehow confused their vote with a religious purity test. When I point out Huckabee isn't a conservative, they answer back, 'He's a Christian!" and "Jesus wasn't a Democrat or a Republican!"
His smooth wanna-be televangelist rap has them entranced.
Yeah, it's pretty pathetic. Do you remember when Pat Roberson came in second here? They're politically active, but I swear, if it weren't for gays and abortion they would be apolitical.
It's frustrating as they are good people (some in my own family) and I agree with them on these issues...but there is more to being president than believing in Christ. George Bush was the most devout Christian in the White House in my lifetime...and while he was good on many things, he let us down a lot too.
If Huckabee wasn't running, they would mostly go for Governor Palin and she would walk away with it, as I see them as a natural constituency, but Huck was a preacher. He is a MAN OF GOD.
It is the media’s job (and Rinos) to destroy conservatives.
It is the GOP voters job to see that.
If the GOP voters don’t..then it is time to dump the GOP, and start a 3rd party with voters who actually pay attention.
The problem is the unprecedented effort to strangle a conservative in her crib.
Has anyone noticed how silent Romney’s been during the aftermath of the shooting?
Can it be that he’s laying low, letting Sarah take all the heat, not calling out the liberals for the lying rats they are?
This is one more instance where Romney has backed off, trying to look like a nice guy instead of slapping someone around and looking like a conservative ought to look.
Once again, he’s lost my vote, this time forever.
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