WI-PPP: Obama leads them all

[Brittain33]

Very intersting that wisconsin is closer than Virginia

Rasmussen just showed a 55% approval rating for President Obama, who so far has avoided meddling in Wisconsin politics. 

Obama has been uncharacteristically involved in the Wisconsin mess, I would say. I feel like we've heard less from him recently but in the first week, he forcefully stepped in.

[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.

[pbrower2a]

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.

It's "Get away with what you can while you can", power politics at their crudest.

[pbrower2a]

May results:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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

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

[pbrower2a]

Obama vs. Romney

Obama vs. Gingrich

Obama vs. Palin

[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.

[pbrower2a]

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.

[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.

[Sbane]

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.

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

NC and VA look pretty bad for the Republicans too though. As for Colorado and Nevada.....

Honestly, Ohio seems to be the only bright spot for Republicans, if that.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

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.

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

NC and VA look pretty bad for the Republicans too though. As for Colorado and Nevada.....

Honestly, Ohio seems to be the only bright spot for Republicans, if that.

Pennsylvania is looking pretty good for the pubs all things considered.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

PA was an outlier and was during a brief moment of unpopularity for Obama.

[Sbane]

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.

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

NC and VA look pretty bad for the Republicans too though. As for Colorado and Nevada.....

Honestly, Ohio seems to be the only bright spot for Republicans, if that.

Pennsylvania is looking pretty good for the pubs all things considered.

We'll see. I doubt it though. The Republicans already maxed out their performance in the west. I guess they could do much better in places like Erie and Scranton, but it's the burbs that are going to decide how things go. And if Obama can't do well enough there to win, I doubt he is winning VA.

[TheGlobalizer]

If the President now has a near-50% approval rating seventeen months before the election and a year before even primary campaigning begins, then he is in very good shape.

Obama's overall approval rating is above his approval rating on nearly every substantive issue.

There's a lot of room for his overall score to go down once the campaign season revs up.

And "near-50% approval" isn't exactly "very good shape" for an incumbent.  It means that his chances are largely subject to the strength and popularity of his opponent.

[pbrower2a]

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.

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

NC and VA look pretty bad for the Republicans too though. As for Colorado and Nevada.....

Honestly, Ohio seems to be the only bright spot for Republicans, if that.

Pennsylvania is looking pretty good for the pubs all things considered.

Obsolete poll. Pennsylvania has a comparatively old population, and the proposal  to eviscerate Medicare can't do well there.  It's hard to believe that the state is more R than Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, or Virginia.