WI-PPP: Obama leads them all

[krazen1211]

Walker isn't 'intensely'  unpopular; his approval is well into the 40s. He's more popular than his predecessor.

This current issue will be ancient history in 2012 anyway.

[krazen1211]

Walker isn't 'intensely'  unpopular; his approval is well into the 40s. He's more popular than his predecessor.

This current issue will be ancient history in 2012 anyway.

43% approval, 57% disapproval, according to Rasmussen. Rasmussen tends to be sympathetic to Republicans. He has approval of President Obama at 55%, which is about what he won with in 2008, if you want to see a contrast. President Obama has been keeping his proboscis out of Wisconsin. Maybe he thinks that Governor Walker will implode on his own.

That's not "well into the forties". He would need a miracle to get re-elected. People seem not to like bait-and-switch politics. I have known of Governors and Senators who recovered from such low levels of approval, but he would need a miracle to get re-elected.

This is from about a week ago by PPP:

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Different pollsters, different methodology, and a difference of one week in a volatile situation. PPP is sympathetic to Democrats, but has an R lean in results.

That miracle is known as economic growth. It is patently absurd to draw long term conclusions from polls in a 'volatile' situation.

Jennifer Granholm, for instance, was re-elected with approval ratings in the same area.

[krazen1211]

she wasn't that unpopular in 2006.. and 2006 was a democrat year. I don't think 2014 will be another GOP wave.

http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/news/article/michigan-governor-falling-star-what-ever-happened-to-jennifer-granholm

Granholm’s job approval in the poll stood at 40 percent, while 59 percent said they disapproved of her performance. Not surprisingly given those numbers, only 30 percent of respondents said they would vote to re-elect her, while 33 percent said they would vote to replace her.

DeVos held a 48 percent to 40 percent lead over Granholm in the poll, with almost one in five Democrats selecting DeVos over the governor. Ominously, independents preferred DeVos over Granholm 46 percent to 30 percent.



And of course, that was a few months before the election, not a few years....

[krazen1211]

You saw and recall the same Nate Silver article that I did. Congratulations!

I remember her case as one of the outliers on the low end.
Jennifer Granholm, at the least, didn't govern like a dictator.  In her case, economic improvement saved her Governorship. Scott Walker's unpopularity has nothing to do with economic performance.

44% approval at the start of campaign season is the borderline for a 50-50 chance for an incumbent winning re-election as a Senator and Governor. I use this for predicting how an incumbent President will do in an individual state. With an approval even at 47% going into the campaign an incumbent wins well over 50% of his elections.  The curve looks something like this:

                                                                 
  (near-100% chance of winning)
                                                                         ----------------------------------------
                                                                        /
                                                                       /
                                                                     /
                                                                    |
                                                                    |
                                                                    /
                                                                  /
________________________________/     (near-zero chance of winning)

                                                    39%       44%     49%

(If you can find a graph of a titration curve, that's about what the prediction looks like).

It's also possible to have what looks like a strong position going into the race, like George Allen in 2006 who was actually above 50% early but then faced an unusually-strong challenger and melted down late.  Strange things can happen, like the breaking of a scandal -- but somehow that often shows up in the secretiveness of a politician very early. People who give others the creeps often have cause for giving people the creeps.

Granholm was one of the low-end outliers.  Others in or near the low end were Conrad Burns, Rick Santorum, Lincoln Chaffee, and  John Corzine. They had trouble early, campaigned well enough to pick up about 5% of the vote share, but that wasn't enough to rescue their faltering careers.  I'm going to figure that Governor Strickland in Ohio and Senator Feingold were in trouble, and Blanche Lincoln had no chance.

Almost all incumbents have shown that they can run a campaign well enough to win at least once and are able to replicate much of what they did in the next one. A very effective campaigner might gain 8% from where he starts, and a more average one might gain about 5%. While in office, incumbent politicians are not in campaign mode until campaign season, and they usually lose a little something from having been elected. During the campaign season they typically make the connections that they did with such as union officers, clergy, news media,  financial angels, and of course campaign staff. Such is often good for a 5% to 7% gain in vote share. But if one's approval is around 40% going into the campaign, then no connections and no get-out-the-vote-drive can rescue one's campaign.  One then needs miracles.

...with Scott Walker, the pollster Rasmussen just showed him with a 43-57 split between approval and disapproval.  There will be ups and downs for any politician; just look at the approval ratings for President Obama. But those are ups and downs often related to the economic realities and the debate on sundry pieces of legislation.   This is very poor after two months in office. I just can't see him doing anything to rescue his popularity. He has taken a daring gamble and has expected the public to appreciate it as brilliance. If all goes right he will convince Wisconsin voters that his way is a sure way to create prosperity for the good of all. Maybe he will make a paradise for incoming businesses and solve his problems by the time that re-election comes along and create a model for other republicans who trounce remaining liberal Democrats in 'blue' states and defeat the re-election bid of President Obama.  But so far the demonstrations against his policy and his reckless slips of the lip suggest more a Captain Queeg than the sort of politician who gets re-elected.

If his approval rating is at 43% going into his re-election bid or into a recall, then he has a slight chance of being re-elected. I can't predict where it will be at such a point; it is just too early. Silver's model is one of predicting the behavior of voters, and not of politicians. Silver could never predict that the disgraced former Governor Blagojevich of Illinois would be recorded in an obscenity-laced telephone conversation in which he tried to sell a Senate seat vacated by President Obama. either. 

The rest of your post is pretty good, but I wonder where you get the "  In her case, economic improvement saved her Governorship." line from.

Michigan has been a disaster for a decade. I think she was at -200k or so jobs at the time and ended up about -800k for the state.

[krazen1211]

Don't count on it...this union gutting is spreading all over the country and we will be fighting this well into the summer/fall. If not in Wisconsin, in other states.

Walker's number are falling fast...I wouldn't be surprised if his numbers were 'disastrous' by the end of the year...

That's called raising the stakes, if it happens, it happens. I think both the pro-union Democrats and the anti-union Republicans are confident in their position, so lets have that debate.

[krazen1211]

May results:
Still with a sample more R than the vote of 2008.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_WI_0525930.pdf

42% McCain, and 37D/32R/31I are both quite reasonable. This one looks accurate.

[krazen1211]

May results:
Still with a sample more R than the vote of 2008.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_WI_0525930.pdf

42% McCain, and 37D/32R/31I are both quite reasonable. This one looks accurate.

The point: even with an electorate more R in 2012 than in 2008, President Obama wins Wisconsin decisively. Wisconsin is already a disaster for Republicans.

That's not a disaster any more than Poppy losing it to Dukakis was a disaster. It's a Dem leaning state.

It's not a tier 1 pickup, but it doesn't have to be.


CNN exit poll in 2008 was 39/33/29. 2010 was 37/36/28. Not really overcounting R's.