Senator Averroës Nix Poised For Landslide Win
This poll was conducted over 3 days, from December 22, 2012 to December 25, 2012. All registered Northeastern voters were encouraged to participate in the survey. Voters could cast up to two votes. Votes could not be changed, but results could be viewed once a participant had voted. Percent values in parentheses next to total votes for each candidate are calculated by number of votes received by the candidate divided by the total number of votes cast in the individual matchup multiplied by 100%.
Incumbent Regional Senator
Averroës Nix (TPP-NY)(i)- Incumbent Senator Averroës Nix's political career began with a stunning manuever, when the Northeastern independent, a recent convert to a young Atlasian Liberal Party, won a seat in the regional Assembly despite running a write-in campaign after missing the deadline to put his name on the ballot, and managed to finish in 2nd place in a race featuring 7 candidates. During his two-term tenure as a Northeast Representative, Nix established himself by fighting against "socially authoritharian" legislation, along with introducing numerous governmental reforms, including gubernatorial temporary appointment for Assembly vacancies along with the Northeast Annals Act, in addition to amending other legislation introduced by conservatives Simfan34 and Winfield. The then-Speaker easily won the Governorship in July, crushing Whig candidate Jerseyrules (who ran a virtually nonexistent campaign) with 75% of the vote. His one term for Governor featured the passage of the first Northeast regional budget in history along with other numerous legislation. After founding C.A.R.E. (Conference of Atlasian Executives), he switched allegiances to The People's Party upon its creation, angering President Napoleon who slammed the party as a "personality cult" and ended his once close relationship with Nix. This created somewhat of a rift with others too, including now-Governor Scott, but his relationship with the Liberal Party has since patched up for the most part. With the endorsement of every major party besides the Whigs, Governor Nix proceeded to win a landslide victory in his regional Senate campaign against various write-in candidates. In the Senate, he has been a leader in promoting good government in his role as chairman of the GOR Committee, and has introduced a multitude of bills. Last month's SurveyAtlasia poll showed his approval rating hovering at 92% and is considered to be a moderate leftist.
Potential Challengers
Goldwater (Federalist-DE)- Goldwater, a popular quasi-libertarian who resides in the state of Delaware, has managed to carve out a popular image among both the left and right wingers of his state. Upon the retirement of longtime Northeastern politician and then Lieutenant Governor Winfield, then-citizen Goldwater won a resounding victory to the Assembly with his support in the August elections. Re-elected in both October and December, he rose to the position of Lieutenant Governor after receiving the most first preferences of any candidate seeking a seat in the regional Assembly. A key figure on the Atlasian right, he was the key factor behind the unification of the Imperial Bloc and Whig Party into the modern Federalist Party of Atlasia, which has seen success in every region but the Midwest, holding three Senate seats, a Governorship, and four Legislators across the nation. He is seen as unlikely to enter the race, but has not explicitly ruled out a bid.
Poirot (Independent-New York)- Poirot recently won his first full term to the Northeast Assembly. Considered to be perhaps the epitome of an independent, he has built a reputation as someone hard to pin down on ideological lines. After initially falling short in a bid for an Assembly seat in October, he stunned the political punditry by defeating the candidates of the Northeast's dominant Labor and Liberal parties; Snowball and Sirnick (who had been appointed to the Assembly) in a special election following the election of Representative Simfan34 to the At-Large Senate. In the regularly scheduled election, he stunned Atlasia by winning a full-term easily when he had been seen as a longshot for re-election against the nominees of the major parties. He received acclaim for engineering the passage of the Sbane Windfarm Act and is currently in the process of fighting for the standardization of English as the official language of the region. Poirot has not commented publicly on a potential campaign to challenge Nix, so he has not generally been thought of as a potential candidate in this election.
Results
Total Voters- 15
Averroës Nix (TPP-NY)(i)11 (73.3%)
Goldwater (Federalist-DE) 4 (26.7%)
Total Voters- 12
Averroës Nix (TPP-NY)(i)9 (75.0%)
Poirot (Independent-New York)3 (25.0%)
Analysis
This is the only poll thus far published for the February 2013 Northeast Regional Senate Election, and quite possibly will be the only one, as PPP does not intend to have another one until unexpected events dictate so. Senator Nix has proven himself to be an almost infallible election winner, winning landslide after another and has served in nearly all major positions in the Northeast despite a career not even a year long. He leads Federalist Representative Goldwater by 46.6%, and is comfortably over the 70% mark in that race. Both the aforementioned candidates are very well-known in that region, and this result is likely very much akin to the one which would happen if Goldwater decided to pull a trigger on this bid, simply due to the dynamics of the Northeast Region, the most left-wing of Atlasia's three premier East Coast Regions. Against Goldwater, Senator Nix would likely win the endorsements of all political parties besides the Representative's own and would be assured a landslide victory, no matter what sort of campaign Goldwater could theoretically run. A PPP analysis of the registered voters in the Northeast region shows that there are not nearly enough voters predisposed to vote for the Lieutenant Governor over the incumbent Senator, and private remarks by Federalist and TPP sources echo these sentiments. Nix, in fact has already locked up endorsements from across much of the aisle, ranging from Labor Representative Alfred F. Jones to Liberal Governor Scott, and has a campaign framework no candidate can hope to match at this stage, as vice Chairman of TPP and former Chairman of the Liberal Party.
A more intriguing matchup would be the potential entry of Representative Poirot into the race. While Nix is considered to be a moderate in Atlasian terms, his personal ideology is clearly allied with the left-wing. Poirot has also shown himself capable of crafting excellent legislation, but doesn't appear to hold rigid ideological positions judging from his public statements (this could either be a gift, not limiting his appeal to voters as a result of partisanship, or limit his options, as left-wing voters gravitate to Nix). Indeed, less voters have made up their mind on this matchup than the one mentioned above, and it received 3 less votes overall, suggesting the presence of undecided voters- or simply lack of name recognition for Poirot. However, he only achieved a third of Nix's voters nonetheless, trailing by 50%, a larger deficit than Goldwater. In the future, Representative Poirot could make a formidable challenger for statewide office, but he would still lose handily to the more politically savvy Nix, despite the rave reviews he has gotten as a legislator. In addition, as an independent, he lacks any sort of machine behind him and would be hard-pressed to run a good campaign, unless he were to be backed by other parties. Indeed, he hasn't commented yet on a bid for higher office, suggesting his chances of entering this race to be quite low.
Besides the possible exception of the IDS Senate election, this will likely be the least dramatic of any election in February. Senator Nix is not expected to receive a serious challenge, if any at all, and judging from his current endorsement slate and the potential challenges PPP has described above, remains likely to repeat his landslide victory from October. Unlike another upcoming Northeast race PPP analyzed recently, we had no qualms about what rating to assign this race.
Therefore, we rank the election detailed above as a
SAFE TPP HOLD.
Poll
