Posted on 06/03/2011 11:57:05 AM PDT by techno
As many of you know by now Public Policy Polling (PPP)released a national poll of the GOP presidential contenders yesterday on the same day Mitt Romney was announcing his intentions to pursue the presidency once again. This was the first poll post-Huckabee and post-Trump.
What you might not know or remember is that on May 10, three weeks earlier PPP released a national poll of the GOP presidential contenders which was before Huckabee and Trump threw in the towel. However, within that poll PPP proposed a scenario of Huckabee and Trump not being in the race and then asked the respondents how they would then vote.
(Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman were not included in the May 10 poll.)
Well here are the results yesterday again for the various candidates in the various categories juxtaposed in brackets against the results from May 10.
--------- OVERALL MODERATES SOMEWH CONS VERY CONS
ROMNEY 16 (24) 26 (32) 19 (26) 11(21)
PALIN 16 (17) 8 (13) 15 913) 20 (18)
PAWLENTY 13 (8) 15 (5) 15 (8) 12 (10)
BACHMANN 9 (8) 5 (2) 6 (6) 13 (14)
GINGRICH 9 (20) 7 (13) 10 (22) 9 (20)
PAUL 9 (12) 6 (13) 9 (12) 10 (12)
-------- FEMALE MALE 30-45 46-65 65+
ROMNEY 17 (27) 15(22) 14(21) 17(21) 18 (31)
PALIN 20 (18) 13 (17) 17 (19) 15(17) 13 (17)
PAWLENTY 12 (8) 14 (7) 13 (8) 13 (9) 15 (8)
BACHMANN 8 (7) 10 (10) 6 (5) 9 (10) 14 (8)
GINGRICH 10 (20) 8 (21) 11 (14) 9 (23) 11 (22)
PAUL 4 (7) 13 (16) 10 (21) 9 (8) 7 (8)
*Liberal and 18-29 samples too small.
Analysis and conclusions:
1)Notice that Michele Bachmann's support has only risen slightly from what was projected on May 10. This tells me she has little potential for the exponential growth that she would need to win the GOP nomination, especially with the GOP field pretty well set and Sarah Palin more likely than not to enter the race sometime in the summer.
2)Ron Paul's slight drop in support from what was projected imho is due to the inclusion of anti-establishment candidate Herman Cain in the most recent poll and picking up former Huckabee supporters that 3 weeks ago told PPP that they would move over to Paul.
3)Tim Pawlenty far exceeded the predictions on May 10 which I do find quite incredible given that both Cain and Huntsman were added to the mix. One thing this tells me is that Cain and Pawlenty are NOT playing generally to the same pool of voters. Cain's supporters are more anti-establishment while T-Paws newfound support appears to be more traditional and mainstream, made up of folks who are not all than enamored with either Romney or Gingrich (more on that later) and looking for another tent to enter.
4) As for Newt Gingrich his support has literally collapsed probably due to talking about Paul Ryan and social engineering in the same breath on Meet the Press a couple of weeks ago. Newt has lost a massive amount of support across the board especially among conservatives and older voters. Some of it has gone to Cain as both are identified with Georgia and some of it has gone to Pawlenty or even Huntsman imho. I don't think Newt can ever recover from this debacle.
5)And almost as devastating are Romney's poll numbers released yesterday compared to what he was projected to get three weeks ago with Huck and Trump out of the race. A 8 point drop-off overall, a 7 point drop-off among SOMEWHAT CONSERVATIVE voters, a 10 point drop-off among VERY CONSERVATIVE voters, and a 13 point drop-off among seniors, again from what was earlier projected might be rationalized by Mitt due to the addition of Cain and Huntsman to the people polled but Mitt how do explain Tim Pawlenty far exceeding expectations in spite of that factor?
But what was even more disastrous for Mitt not only was there an eight point drop-off overall than what was projected, he even fell two points off from three weeks ago with Huck and Trump in the mix (18%) to 16% in the poll released yesterday.
In other words this is further evidence that Romney's support is "a mile wide but an inch deep" but even some of his core supporters have left his ship and boarded another.
6) As for Sarah Palin, she is only 1 point off her overall projected total but what gratifying if you are a Palinista is that she polled better yesterday with SOMEWHAT CONSERVATIVE and VERY CONSERVATIVE voters than was originally projected and that was despite the fact that conservative candidate Herman Cain was being polled and that he has recently surged in support.
And another gratifying result has to been even though Palin fell 4 points among seniors than was projected she only ended up 5 points behind leader Romney (18% to 13%). Remember on May 10 PPP showed Huckabee 15 points ahead of Palin among seniors and Romney 10 points ahead of her. This is living proof that sometimes you can dramatically improve your situation not be so much what you do but what your competition does or does not do. For Mitt to drop from a projected 31% senior support to 18% is huge while it appears that Huck's support among seniors got distributed a lot to the second tier candidates.
If there is one saving grace for yesterday's poll for Mitt Romney, it is the fact that seniors are still shying away from supporting Sarah Palin; because if seniors ever change their perceptions towards Palin over the course of the primary season and en masse being to embrace her that could be very well game, set and match for the former Governor of Alaska.
Overall conclusion: It's a whole new ballgame with Huckabee and Trump out of the race. It's 0-0 for everybody. Polls taken before Huck and Trump bowed out are virtually meaningless now.
And one final thought: Sarah Palin has not officially made known her intentions yet and she is tied with Romney overall at 16% apiece. Makes one wonder what her poll numbers will look like once she declares.
America needs you, Sarah.
Does Mitt Romney have a prayer with Evangelicals?
Looks more like Mitt is tied with Palin. Time for Mitt to Quit.
Pray for America
"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party
over to the traitors in the battle just ended.
We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged
to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support.
Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates
wouldnt make any sense at all.""
-- President Ronald Reagan
Romney’s going nowhere. He’ll end up like his father as Secretary of Transportation or some similar worthless asterisk position.
“Polls taken are virtually meaningless now”
There fixed it. while it is fun to watch them, they really don’t mean j.s. this far out.
She got Mittens so discombobulated that he came out for that anthropomorphic global warming bunk.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.