Posted on 05/24/2011 2:23:45 PM PDT by WatchYourself
Public Policy Pollings magic is back to work again. A new Ohio poll, featuring an important swing state that Obama narrowly won in 2008, is up this week. Like most other PPP polls, Democrats are the overwhelming respondents in this poll. How bad? Lets take a look: The PPP poll had a respondent makeup of 45% Democrat, 35% Republican, 20 Independent, giving the Democrats a +10 Net Advantage over Republicans. In 2010, the Ohio turnout was 36% Republican, 36% Democrat, 28% Independent. So, no difference. The 45% Democrat sample even overdoes Democrat heavy 2008 by 6 points, where still only 39% of the Ohio electorate were Democrats. Its a near impossibility that 45% of the 2010 voting electorate will be Democrats in Ohio if it wasnt even that close in 2009, as this poll shows.
What does PPP President Dean Debnam say about these results? These Ohio numbers epitomize Barack Obamas status right now- hes not terribly popular but the Republican field is even more unpopular and because of that hed be in a solid shape for reelection if we had to vote today. If a GOP candidate really captures the attention of the voters Obama will be in trouble but that is far from inevitable. Ok, sure, if 45% of the electorate is Democrats .
PPP Reports a 10 Point Victory for Obama against Palin if the election were held today. Gosh, I wonder if a 10 point victory has anything to do with a 10 point artificial inflation of Democrats? Doing the work no media analysts will do, we re-run the numbers here and let you decide what is most accurate.
PPP Data: Obama 50%, Palin 40% (Unweighted poll, uses Dem sample 10 point higher than 2010 total and 6 points higher than 2008 total.)
Poll Insider Base Analysis: Obama 46%, Palin 43.5% Here we see a statistical dead heat. We rework the the PPP numbers showing the makeup of the 2010 electorate of 36% Democrats, 36% Republicans, and 28% Independents. It is safe to assume that the 2012 electorate will be much closer to the 2010 one than to the 2008 one now that Obama has a (fairly unpopular) record in the state. Sarah Palin actually tops Obama slightly in Independents by 1% and even gets 1% more Democrats than Obama gets Republicans.
Poll Insider Analysis Level 2: Palin 48.5%, Obama 48% This level I consider the best indicator on a statistical level as it includes all GOP and Dems and leaves out undecided Independents. Still a close race, but now Palin moves ahead. The reason Palin still trails in the first poll is that 14% of Republicans are undecided compared to just 5% of Democrats, these are allotted in similar fashion as the rest of the voting bases for each candidate. Challnger party high undecided rate is very common when testing an incumbent vs. a multitude of potential challengers, and the challengers usually trail in the undecided column. Why? In this case Republican voters often have a candidate in their minds to go up against the incumbent. Oftentimes they answer undecided when their candidate is not the one mentioned because at the time they dont want to imagine that person as the candidate, even though they are likely to vote for them should they become the nominee. The incumbents party usually has low undecideds as they know who the candidate will be and there is no other horse in the race.
Poll Insider Analysis Level 3: Palin 51%, Obama 49%. Of the remaining 15% Undecided Independents, we allotted 9% to Palin and 6% to Obama, giving the break 3-2 to the challenger. We arrive at this rate knowing that Undecided Independents usually vote for the incumbents by similar (or greater) margins; Ohio Independents favored Republican Senate candidate Portman by almost 40% points over his Democrat challenger and favored now Governor Kasich by 16% over the Democrat incumbent.
4 scenarios, 3 of which show a reasonably close race, the other is PPP. I analyze, you decide. This is a good sign for Palin as she will have a much better opportunity to change minds in her favor than Obama will. If Palins numbers are this strong with the media coverage she has gotten, Ohio might not even be a toss-up a year from now.
Other tidbits from the poll:
Favorability among Conservatives: Palin Favorables among the very Conservative is at a solid 76% for a +62% favorable measure. She is +18% among somewhat conservative voters and falls off considerably from there with more liberal voters, not surprisingly. Gingrich meanwhile is at a softer (but surprisingly high) +32% among very conservative voters but at -9% among somewhat conservative voters. Romney knocks in +27% in the very important and active very conservative group which is 60% lower than Palins support. But he rebounds with somewhat conservative voters at +31% and does best in favorables among liberal voters.
Favorability among Republicans: Hey, remember all those media stories about how Palin is falling from GOP stardom? Well, turns out she remain the top Republican of the 3 main challengers. While Gingrich has a pitiful +9 standing among Republicans and Romney is at a pretty decent +30, Palin leads the pack among the Republican field at +36% favorability.
They so have their hearts set on her not running so their chosen RINO can have a clear path to Ubama's victory.
“uses Dem sample 10 point higher than 2010 total and 6 points higher than 2008 total”
Palin for the Win.
Born February 11, 1964 in Sandpoint, ID (Meets the Jus Soli Requirement)
Parents were
Charles R Heath, born in ID
Sarah Sheeran, born in WI
Both parents were US Citizens at the time of her birth (Meets the Jus Sanguinis Requirement)
Sarah Palin is a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN unlike Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama.
I might have a few more beers along with my Tuesday tacos at my favorite hangout. Go Sarah - Go Ohio.
This is how all polls need to be reported. After fixing the bias. Good job to those folks!
If Palin polls so close to Obama in a key state, why do all liberals, and even some people here, say that Palin could never beat Obama, and hope she doesn’t run?????
In 1980, the Carter people hoped Reagan would get the Republican nomination, because Carter’s boys thought that Reagan would be the weakest opponent.
In 2008, the Clintons spread stories about how Obama just couldn’t win a general election, and that’s why Hillary should be the nominee. But who got elected in ‘08?
It’s very premature to say that any candidate can’t beat Obama, or, also premature for the liberals to say that Obama is a lock for re-election. We just can’t see what the situation will be election day 2012 at this time.
This can’t be right.
Palin is unelectable. /s
If Sarah Palin really was unelectable, the Democrat/state-run media complex would be begging the GOP to nominate her.
How can this be ? There are posters here referring to PPP push polls as facts ! Do you mean PPP is cooking their polls? Wow, that’s big news for some here!
Would someone please call vector control before the vermin get here???
I worked on that campaign & I knew in late June that RR had it wrapped up. This is encouraging news. If she gets Ohio, Florida & hopefully Pennsylvania we all are in tall cotton.
... and a road crew to take care of the usual potholes.
The more I learn about Cain, the more I like him; and I’m a huge Palin fan. Cain-Palin is my dream ticket for eight years and then Palin-? for eight more. Cain first because he is quite a bit older.
This pairing would get 55-60% of the popular vote; especially with several states getting serious about vote fraud.
So I have to conclude Sarah will have difficulty winning the nomination. For me, I still like her and think she can pull it off, but concerned that most people think they know her and have made conclusions that will be difficult to change. Flame away.
Perhaps it’s no better because Sarah Palin is not even a candidate.
Don’t get me wrong I’m a Cain fan, but more than that I’m ABO (Anybody But Obama). If she decides to run and gets the nom I’m definitely for her but until then I’m going to work for Cain.
Obama is going to have a very tough time in Ohio no matter who he faces. He looked those people in the eye and promised to “do something” about NAFTA. That was clearly a smarmy self-serving lie and the voters over there are highly P.O.-ed about it.
How do we reconcile this poll with the Harris interactive poll whose results are posted nearly adjacent to this FreeRepublic posting?
So I have to conclude Sarah will have difficulty winning the nomination. For me, I still like her and think she can pull it off, but concerned that most people think they know her and have made conclusions that will be difficult to change. Flame away.
No flames Dave, just a reminder that Sarah Palin has not announced her candidacy and although those of us who support her like to read a 'yes' into any statement she makes about running, as long as her candidacy remains an open question it will reduce her recognition factor and even her support, to some degree. I believe that if Palin announces, starts making fiery speeches and sets out common-sense proposals to bring the U.S. back from the brink of economic destruction and social upheaval, her popularity will soar and the leftmedia's attacks will be blunted. Americans are very uneasy about the state of their country, Obama's 'historic' sheen has faded and Sarah Palin can change people's minds.
With Newt imploding, Huckabee, Daniels and Trump opting out of running and Romney saddled with 'RomneyCare' the field has narrowed. An announcement of candidacy by Sarah Palin would blow the whole thing wide open. I'm confident she would be able to raise huge amounts of campaign cash, giving some of the marginal candidates second thoughts about remaining in the race. We'll see.
This notion that anyone who isn't on the Palin bandwagon somehow is a troll really needs to end.
And while reworking PPP's poll numbers is fine, keep in mind people played all sorts of games with poll numbers in 2008, especially with Dem/Rep registrations in "early voting" states and took a beating when the real vote occurred. It is reasonable to assume that Republicans will vote R and that they don't like Obama, but in one of our MOST conservative districts in Montgomery County on election night, fully 1/8 voted Obama---a district that should have been 99% McCain. So assumptions aren't always accurate.
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