Talk Elections

49-43 Rubio/Clinton
47-43 Bush/Clinton

Favorables (favorable, unfavorable, neutral, don't know):

46-27-25-2 Rubio
45-31-23-1 Bush
41-39-19-1 Clinton

HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED

This poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida from April 14 through April 16, 2015. A total of 625 registered Florida voters were interviewed statewide by telephone.

Those interviewed on land-lines were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. A cross-section of exchanges was utilized in order to ensure an accurate reflection of the state. Those interviewed on cell phones were selected from a list of working cell phone numbers.

Quotas were assigned to reflect voter turnout by county. The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than ±4 percentage points. This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the "true" figure would fall within that range if all voters were surveyed. The margin for error is higher for any subgroup, such as a gender or age grouping.

This section also contains an over-sampling to include 400 registered Democratic voters. These additional voters were only asked the questions related to the Democratic primary election. They were not included in the general election section. The margin for error on this Democratic voters sample is no more that ±5%.

http://mason-dixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/FL-POLL-APRIL-20TH-RELEASE-PRESIDENTIAL-CLINTON-BUSH-RUBIO.pdf

Compared with their last poll (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=207015.0), Rubio gains 10 points against Clinton while Bush loses 1%.

In before pbrower, who will probably not include this poll in his map thread.

Because, well, it shows Republicans ahead ...

A sampling of 625 with a margin of error of plus and minus 4 points? Talk about junk.

This doesn't really conflict with Hillary's odds. As I said, there are GOP candidates with the potential to flip one swing state but there's no reasonable path to 270 for any of them individually. Bush and Rubio are strong in FL but weak everywhere else.

Why is Mason Dixon still in business? When was the last time they came close to accurately predicting a presidential election - 2000?

No reasonable (i.e. realistic) path for any of them? Are you serious? All a republican needs is Romney '12 (206) + FL (235) (run rubio/bush) + OH (253) (put Kasich on the ticket) + CO (262) + IA (268) (Polling shows that Clinton is significantly weaker from the start in CO than Obama and slightly weaker from the start in IA, and IA electing Ernst COMFORTABLY last year showed that it has no problems with republicans in the post-Obama Era), and then making the uphill climb in ONE of NH/NV/VA/WI/PA/MI/MN/NM.

The answer is nothing, especially since democrats will likely be spending huge sums on states that they probably can't win (GA, AZ, MO) in some stupid belief that they're competitive when they're not (After 2008/2014, I am not believing the whole "we can win GA!" thing, provided Cruz isn't on the ticket, until I see some close results. Everyone (including myself at times) screamed about Deal/Perdue/McCain being in danger of losing GA, and all won (somewhat) comfortably. So, I'm done believing GA is competitive, and if that's not winnable, then neither is AZ or MO), significantly reducing the amount of money spent in swing states by democrats from the 2012 total. Republicans won't fall for the farce and will rightfully ignore GA, AZ, MO, saving that money for the actual swing states.

Mason-Dixon's final poll was about 7% off in 2012.

In any case, winning Florida is not optional for Republicans.  It's what they absolutely need to do, in order to have any chance at all.  You don't celebrate over Florida any more than Democrats should celebrate over winning Pennsylvania.

Plus, if one of the candidates end up being Rubio or Bush, it would be an embarrassment to lose the state.

Yes, I'm serious. The fact that you could lay out how right I am so clearly and then ask if I'm serious just shows you're delusional and thinking on emotion.

The scenario you laid out is one of slight chance to get 268 provided they nominate Bush (and he can defend his homestate), select Kasich as VP (and that matters in OH), and Iowa's turnout is midterm level low (Iowa elected Branstad solidly in 2010, but voted solidly D in 2012 anyway; Ernst is irrelevant) and then the "uphill battle begins."  Why don't they just abandon all that and try to win California? It would require them having to convince just as many swing voters. Equally possible scenario you're mapping out.

Having a chance of having a chance of having a chance is not having a chance. It's wishful thinking.

I listed many possibilities for the final state, and all of them are far less Atlas Red than CA. Ernst is not irrelevant. Plus you ignored half my post and acted like I said the scenario would only work for bush when I mentioned Rubio as well.

That explains it.

Your Irrelevant rambling about Georgia was Irrelevant with a capital I, which is why I ignored it. Ernst is absolutely irrelevant. Branstad won by just as much of a landslide in 2010 and Iowa was just as solid D in 2012 as it was in 2008.

And again, even if FL, OH, and IA all happen, it's just 268. You laid out a minor possibility that Rubio/Kasich or Bush/Kasich would get to 268 provided everything broke their way. Congratulations! You lost the election!

Every state you listed NH/NV/VA/WI/PA/MI/MN/NM is completely out of reach of a Rubio/Kasich or Bush/Kasich ticket. I say that with 100% confidence. That is the objective position. Anyone who thinks Jeb Bush can win a state George W. Bush could not win in 2004 is a hack. Bush 2004 was the peak of GOP minority outreach and Evangelical base turnout model--the peak. It's not getting better than that.

This shrinks it down to just NV/VA/NM for the 270 combo.  NV, NM, and VA are trending Democrat solidly. NV and NM were uncontested in 2012. National Republican rhetoric speaks nothing to the changing population here. The only hope would a Sandoval/Martinez VP spot, but that again ruins your idea of using Kasich to snab Ohio, putting the GOP in an even greater hole.  Virginia? It elected Democrats in a midterm electorate that was solidly Republican. You cannot describe a more perfect Clinton state.

The more I talk about this, the more I am embarrassed I am given Hillary only a 99% chance of beating Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. I really should just go all in at 100%. There's no objective path to victory here. None.

Says the guy who tries to dismiss or spin any poll that shows good news for Hillary, while gladly accepting results from noted junk pollsters like Gravis and Mason Dixon...

Quinnipiac had Bush up by 3 in Florida a couple weeks ago. I have that one.

Florida gets polled often.

Indeed, Rubio is on track to win Florida by the same margin Romney did.

''An exclusive Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll of likely voters along the Interstate 4 corridor finds Romney leading Obama 51 percent to 45 percent, with 4 percent undecided.

“Romney has pretty much nailed down Florida,” said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, which conducted the poll for the Times and its media partners. “Unless something dramatically changes — an October surprise, a major gaffe — Romney’s going to win Florida.''

LOL

- If 2014 showed anything, it's that Democrats are really bad at realizing when a state is lost. They threw HUGE sums of money at AR, LA, and KY in the FINAL WEEKS, only to watch republicans win in a landslide. Sure, there were a few misleading polls, but it was still easy to see in the final weeks that those three were not winnable, yet democrats didn't cut their spending there at all. Had they diverted that money to NC and AK, Begich/Hagan likely would have won, making the senate easier to take back in 2016. Given that the official 2014 democratic autopsy was literally just "low turnout made us lose" and nothing else, we'll see this trend continue in 2016. Democrats will spend LESS in swing states then they did in 2012 because they will spend huge sums in unwinnable GA/AZ/MO, which will be a net plus to republicans.

- I not only think this path can be pulled off by a Bush/Kasich or Rubio/Kasich ticket, that merely makes it as easy as possible. Bush/Rubio/Kasich/Paul/maybe Walker are all perfectly capable of it with a sane, non-toxic running mate, and the odds that the nominee will be one of those five are (in my viewpoint) about 60%.

- GWB won NH in 2000, and in 2004 he only lost it because Kerry was a northeastern candidate. He would have won it in 2004 against a generic democrat. All of the states I listed are states that Bush either won or got within 5 points in in 2004. Bush 2004 may represent an absolute peak in terms of minority support, but it's worth noting that Romney actually outperformed Bush by about two points (nationally) in the white vote. This makes WI, at least, look pretty flippable - In WI, Bush lost by only about 11,000, so you need a switch of roughly 5,500 votes to win. You take his numbers and add in a little more of the white vote, and you get that needed 5,500.

- PA, if anything, is getting more white, not less, meaning it probably isn't permanent fools' gold for republicans. Although I do admit I would be surprised if this was the state that got them over 270. ( I expect it to be WI, NH or VA (assuming Republicans win in 2016, and even I have them more likely than not to lose at this point (against Hillary), I just think the chances of them winning are a lot higher than 1-2%).

- Branstad's race was a governor's race. Voters are a lot less partisan when voting for governors (just look at all the blue/lean-blue state governorships republicans currently hold) then they are when voting for Senators and Presidents, so I don't use governors races for presidential analysis. Ernst's was a senate race. Ernst (unlike Branstad) is the defintion of a far-right conservative, and was expected to only win narrowly. She ended up winning comfortably. (It's worth noting that her margin was actually bigger than Obama's 2012 margin) Her race showed that IA is perfectly winnable by both sides, and doesn't have a blue tint at the start. Keep in mind that IA bordered Obama's home state, an asset that Hillary won't have.

- On VA, even IceSpear admits that Warner's tiny win is a bad sign. Warner was expected to easily dispatch Gillespie by about 10 points. NO ONE expected Gillespie to get within a point of winning. NO ONE DID. NOT EVEN CRAZY REPUBLICAN OPERATIVES. Warner was actually popular in terms of approval ratings around last year's election, and he still almost lost. The fact that almost any other democrat would have lost, and the fact that Gillespie got so close, and the fact that Warner would have lost had republicans just thrown a few more dollars into the state (or nominated Bill Bolling/Scott Rigell/Barbara Comstock), just shows how competitive VA is. It will be a hotly contested swing state in 2016.

Everything you wrote is wrong. I've already stated why.

You're just going to have to find out the hard way I guess.

No, you're just making that up.  Nobody is dumb enough to waste so much money on non-swing states that they deprive themselves of money in swing states.  And, Hillary Clinton will have enough money to swamp every swing state with organization and ads.


So much nonsense here.  Bush won New Hampshire 15 years ago dude.  And, you can't just bootstrap 2016 candidates to favorable 2004 results.  Classic grasping at straws.


What is your source for the "fact" that Pennsylvania, if anything, is getting more white?  Here's a cool map from the Urban Institute.

http://datatools.urban.org/features/mapping-americas-futures/

According to their projections, the white population of PA will decline 3% between 2010 and 2020.  The black population of PA will increase 6.47% between 2010 and 2020.  And, the Hispanic population of PA will increase 38.76% between 2010 and 2020.  So, I'm going to go ahead and say you goofed on that fact dude.


It's a swing state, nobody said it wasn't.

Honestly, it's time for the GOP to just start defending the Senate, as I've suggested before, and do damage control.

Keep Rubio in the Senate, Kasich as VP would help Portman, and pull out all the stops to help Ayotte & try to pick up a Nevada seat.  Feingold seems pretty set for a victory, and Kirk's in trouble.  

This is not a good time to be a non-Democrat. :(  


My thoughts are quite similar to yours, Monarch, but I have a hard time convincing people similar to me of this.

I despise Hillary Clinton  and find the prospect of her as President disheartening, but the reality is reality.  And it sucks (in my opinion).

Wasn't also Suffolk who stopped polling Florida and Virginia a month before the election because they were gimmes for Romney?

Yes.

@Bedstuy: Monarch said that VA was a perfect Clinton state, which is saying it won't be a (presidential) swing state in 2016. Point taken on PA.

@Monarch: I'm not saying (again) that republicans are, at this time, favored to win in 2016. I do not currently expect them to win in 2016. I'm just illustrating why I believe that the chances of them winning are higher than 1 or 2%. Since neither of us are committing to an approximate democratic margin of victory at this point, Democrats winning in 2016 doesn't prove either of us wrong. Also, a rebuttal to my fifth and sixth paragraphs were completely unaddressed by you in previous posting. I fully explained why Branstad's race can't be used for presidential predicting and Ernst's can, to which your rebuttal seems to be "I'm right because I'm right". Great debating. My sixth paragraph explained why 2014 showed that VA is a swing state, and 2014 was what you cited as why you believe VA is a "perfect Clinton state". Again, you seem to have no rebuttal except "I'm right because I'm right".

Anyways, I think we've taken over this thread enough. If you (still) want to have an honest debate on this, PM me and I'll be happy to oblige on that medium. If you're just going to post short, pointless "I'm right because I'm right" sort of things or are tired of this, then let's just agree to disagree.

[/quote]

Honestly, it's time for the GOP to just start defending the Senate, as I've suggested before, and do damage control.

Keep Rubio in the Senate, Kasich as VP would help Portman, and pull out all the stops to help Ayotte & try to pick up a Nevada seat.  Feingold seems pretty set for a victory, and Kirk's in trouble.  

This is not a good time to be a non-Democrat. :(  


My thoughts are quite similar to yours, Monarch, but I have a hard time convincing people similar to me of this.

I despise Hillary Clinton  and find the prospect of her as President disheartening, but the reality is reality.  And it sucks (in my opinion).
[/quote] Why are you conservatives so distraught about the presidency?You guys control every other branch of government plus 31 states.... if anything, it is liberals who should be in panic mode..the Democratic party is floudering

My analysis of the Senate:

Approval polls only. Updated to reflect a 'better' poll for Senator Bennet in Colorado (D-CO), a new poll (and first) of approval for Kelly Ayotte (R-NC), and the likelihood of Bob Menendez (D-NJ) resigning with the near certainty of an appointed Senator replacing him (the appointed Senator would be up for election in 2016):  

()

White -- retiring incumbent, with "D" or "R" for the party in question.

Light green -- Republican incumbent apparently running for re-election, no polls.
Light orange --  Democratic incumbent apparently running for re-election, no polls.

Blue  -- Republican incumbent running for re-election with current polls available.
Red --  Democratic incumbent running for re-election with current polls available.


Intensity percentage shows the first digit of the approval of the incumbent Senator --

"2" for approval between 20% and 30%, "3" for approval between 30% and 39%... "7" for approval between 70% and 79%.

Numbers are recent approval ratings for incumbent Senators if their approvals are below 55%. I'm not showing any number for any incumbent whose approval is 55% or higher because even this early that looks very safe.

An asterisk (*) is for an appointed incumbent (there are none yet, but I predict that there will be one soon!) because appointed pols have never shown their electability.

No, it does not.

Mason-Dixon obviously had a bad FL poll in 2012, but they were generally pretty good in other states in 2012 as well as in earlier Pres. elections.

If we are not including pollsters because they produced an outlier once, then we may just exclude virtually every pollster because even PPP, Quinnipiac etc. produce a junk poll here and then.

You are only excluding this poll here because it shows 2 Republicans ahead instead of Hillary.

That's the reason.

Besides, it's not unreasonable that Bush/Rubio are indeed ahead of Hillary right now in FL, because Quinnipiac has shown the same and because of the homestate effect (Bush) and the announcement-bump for Rubio.

They most certainly were not. The following data is all from RCP.

Florida: Their most famous flunk. Showed Romney and Nelson up 6. Obama won by 1 and Nelson won by 13.

Georgia: Produced a (very early) poll showing Romney up 17. Polls by SUSA conducted around the same time showed Romney up 7-8, obviously far more likely in such a polarized state.

Iowa: Was the only pollster to ever show Romney ahead in the entire year of 2011.

Minnesota: Had Obama only up 3 when he won by 8. Funnily enough though, they missed badly as well in the opposite direction on the Senate election, having Klobuchar up by 43 when she won by 35.

Missouri: Actually overestimated Obama by 3 points, but drastically underestimated McCaskill and Nixon, saying they'd only win by 2/6 when they actually won by 15/12.

Montana: Similar to Missouri, overestimated Obama by 4 points, but underestimated Tester and Bullock, saying they'd lose by 4/3 when they actually won by 4/2.

Wisconsin: Only did one poll in mid October, and was more or less at the consensus at the time. Yay, they finally got one!

Their polls in 2008 were generally bad as well. They showed Obama up 4 in PA when he won by 10, McCain up 2 in Ohio when Obama won by 5, Dole up 1 on Hagan when Hagan won by 9, Obama up 4 in Nevada when he won by 13, had Michigan as a tie at one point when it clearly never was, etc. On the other side of the coin, they lowballed McCain by 5/7 points in Arizona and Kentucky. They did have a few good ones, like nailing the results in Georgia, Iowa, and, ironically, Missouri and Florida. But their overall track record in both 2008 and 2012 is extremely poor. In fact, their consistency is almost eerie. With only a few exceptions, you can get the correct result if you add 5-10 points to the Democrat.

A cursory glance at their polls in 2014 and 2010 seem to be pretty good. What I've concluded from this is that Mason Dixon is horrible at polling presidential elections but good at polling midterms.

Rothenberg took Fl out of LGOP category, but Toomey is still safe. While Sabato still has Pa as a tossup.

QU showed Murphy and Sestak behind and Strickland leading.

I believe Sabato.

I'm talking more about Terry McAuliffe than Warner, but Warner still won.

I'm not saying Virginia is not swing state. I'm saying you could not describe a more perfect Clinton state. If I told you to build a swing state that would break for Clinton at the end, the state you would build is Virginia.

Also, cool nitpick on the exit polls. Virginia in 2014 was 36-36 D-R, compared to 39-32 D-R, 36% identified as conservative compared to just 31% in 2012. Only 12% under 30 versus 19% in 2012. Calling 2014 and 2012 electorates the same is simply lying to yourself.

There's no reason to be disingenuous. All your bold underlined screaming shows is that you are a distraught emotional wreck over the prospect of Hillary winning this election and aren't thinking objectively.

I never said it was not a swing state, what I'm saying is that if you had to design a perfect swing state that would break for Clinton in the end, you would design Virginia in 2016.

If you count on Virginia being the state to break against Clinton to put you over 270, you're going to be disappointed. Demographics have changed so rapidly there that it's really more of a swing state that would vote Republican as part of a 300 EV win. Obama did better there than in Ohio.

It's the same as North Carolina. A swing state, but honestly we all know it will break for the GOP in the end.

--

And I don't get why you insist there's some trend to be gained from midterms. There wasn't in 2010 and there isn't in 2014. Almost 2 million less people voted in 2014 in Virginia. 2 million people. How could you not make an assumption that white Democrats did not show up?

Illinois elected a Republican Governor, Maryland elected a Republican Governor. Are you going to call these potential swing states too? No, it'd be ridiculous.

In all honesty, I think that focusing on turning Ohio more atlas blue would be a better bet. Any serious early foray into Pennsylvania will see serious defense by Democrats. Turning voters in Western Pennsylvania works only until you reach a ceiling there, and since Eastern Pennsylvania, which is the growing half, is trending Democratic, there's only so much you can change.

Focusing on Ohio would definitely pay off more than Pennsylvania.

1. You agree Virginia is going Democrat if the Republicans don't win the popular vote.

2. GOP has no clear shot at a popular vote win with the white vote continuing to fall in Pres elections for about 40 years now and no minority outreach even planned.

3. GOP stance is leading in the polls on no issues right now from minimum wage to gay marriage to Iran.

4. The economy is not on the decline and Gallup is reporting the most Americans optimistic about their financial future since 2004.

The question arises again how you think this election isn't completely done other than wishful thinking.

Hillary running a bad campaign likely won't happen because Obama's people are now behind her for 2016.

Even if she did, it likely wouldn't matter because nothing the GOP is showing suggests they are going to run a good campaign.

Hillary having early support from Obama surrogates doesn't affect whether she runs a good campaign. At the end of the day, it's the candidate choosing what they want to say in an ad or in a rally, and no one can stop Hillary from saying something toxic should she decide to do so.

Nothing Hillary said last time would have lost her the nomination or the general if Obama had never been born.

The fact that she ran a fairly good campaign in 2008 does not necessarily mean she will run a good one in 2016, especially considering that Hillary has been off the trail for 7 years. The democrats are hoping that a couple debates with O'Malley are all she needs to prepare to run a good GE campaign, but there's no way of knowing if that's true.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

He clearly means campaign staff, campaign organization and institutional knowledge, not surrogates.  Obama's campaign team clearly out-organized the GOP twice and knows how to connect with voters.  The Clinton campaign will hire many of those people and apply the lessons learn from 2012 to their campaign.  They will make use of the same technology, research, organizing technique, fundraising strategies, etc that Obama succeeded with.  No Democrat is going to look at the Obama Presidential campaign strategy and out throw it out the window, he won twice.  Hillary Clinton wants to win and she's going to copy a ton from the Obama campaign model.  You can assume the Clinton campaign will be monumentally stupid, but that is ridiculous.

On top of that, Hillary Clinton is not writing the copy for her campaign commercials or writing all of her own speeches.  She isn't going to waste her time with that.  Hillary Clinton is not going to be the communications director, campaign manager and candidate at the same time.  The Clinton campaign will have a large group of smart people deciding the messaging, from concept to execution.  Hillary will have input and the final say in these high level discussions, but she will focus on campaigning and fundraising, like all candidates do. 

You also have to remember that people learn from their mistakes.  Hillary Clinton truly did fail at messaging and organizing in 2008.  I guarantee you that she knows that.  She will probably make other mistakes, but I doubt she's going to hire Mark Penn and stubbornly ruin her chances again. 

You're correct. My math was off. Still though, I just can't see making a play for Pennsylvania working out as well as some seem to think. I've seen too many people simply say that just by targeting Pennsylvania early, the Republicans can win it, as if the Democrats will do nothing to counter that (I see the same thing regarding North Carolina for Democrats). In a close election, I just can't see a way for Republicans to swing Pennsylvania to them while losing Virginia.

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Hilary wont win FL, she will win 290 firewall CO, NV, Pa, Ia, NH and OH, that's as far as she will go.

Hillary won't win by 6% nationally or more and lose FL. PPP showing her up 2-3% on Jeb and Rubio is probably the most realistic.

Mason Dixon and Gravis should be banned from this site.