IA-PPP: Clinton leads Bush, Christie, Paul, Rubio, Ryan

[Mr. Morden]

Iowa general election poll by PPP:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_Iowa_7111.pdf

Clinton 43%
Christie 36%

Clinton 48%
Paul 37%

Clinton 50%
Bush 36%

Clinton 49%
Ryan 40%

Clinton 47%
Rubio 35%

[Mr. Morden]

Wow that Ryan is the only one to crack 40, but I suppose he's the only one besides Christie everyone knows and republicans really know

They didn't poll favorability among the general population, but they did in the caucus polling.  If you infer "name recognition" by the combined favorability and unfavorability numbers, then the name recognition among Republicans is:

Bush 75%
Christie 72%
Paul 75%
Rubio 68%
Ryan 80%

Whereas Clinton's name recognition among Democrats is 94%.  Among the general electorate, this might be a bit different though.  Though again, this is a horribly imperfect measure of name recognition, but it should give you some idea.

So yeah, Ryan is the most well known of the Republicans being tested here.  And after that, Bush and Paul.  (Though it would be interesting to know how many people are confused by the name "Rand Paul" and think that it refers to his father.)

[Mr. Morden]

I've only recently started noticing this in these polls, so it might just be a fluke, but the gender gap in Clinton/Christie matchups seems to be a bit bigger than the gender gap in Clinton/some other (R) matchups.

If we define gender gap as

(male Republican vote minus male Democratic vote) minus (female Republican vote minus female Democratic vote)

then the gender gap in these matchups is:

Christie/Clinton: 21 points
Bush/Clinton: 17 points
Paul/Clinton: 15 points
Rubio/Clinton: 15 points
Ryan/Clinton: 15 points

21 points would of course be a very large gender gap by historical standards.  Anyway, something to keep an eye on in future polls.

[Mr. Morden]

How the heck does Ryan have only 80% name recognition? He was our VP candidate for crying out loud...

Well, 1) It's an imperfect measure of name recognition, as some people could know who he is, but not have an opinion of him, and 2) People have incredibly short memories.  I remember some polling from 2005, just a year after 2004, that showed that people were forgetting who John Kerry was, and he was the *presidential* nominee, not the VP nominee.