Posted on 03/18/2016 12:44:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The new Emerson College poll for New York provides some good news for Donald Trump — for now, anyway. With more than five weeks to go before the Empire State’s primary, Trump trounces Ted Cruz for the state’s 95 delegates by more than 50 points, 64/12, with John Kasich only getting 1% despite his big win in Ohio. That puts Trump well over the 50% threshold for winner-take-all allocation, while leaving Cruz and Kasich well below the 20% threshold for any allocation in the event of a plurality. Trump, the home-state candidate, also gets the most favorable marks in the GOP field, +48 against Cruz’ +8 and Kasich’s +20. The small sample of 298 likely Republican primary voters leaves the margin of error at 5.6%, but with gaps like these, the MoE is an afterthought.
However, when it comes to the general election, the news looks worse — much worse, in fact, for the argument that Trump will expand the GOP map:
Looking ahead to the general election, the two Democrats do equally well in a head-to-head matchup with Trump. Clinton (55% to 36%) and Sanders (53% to 36%) lead the reality show star by 19 and 17 points, respectively, while Cruz loses to Clinton by 31 points (61% to 30%).
The MoE on the full survey is a much more reasonable 3.5% on a sample of 768 likely general-election voters, so these numbers are a little more solid. The only bright spot for Trump in the general-election numbers is that Cruz does worse at 61/30, but that’s a cold comfort in a general election, where Electoral College votes are winner-take-all.
Furthermore, these numbers are almost exactly the same as two successive Siena polls got in the past two months, surveys with even larger sample sizes and a traditional live-call model. In February, the race was 57/32 Clinton, and two weeks ago Siena had it at 57/34. That’s close to the margin by which Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012 (62/36). All three polls show no upside for Republicans by having Trump on the ticket, not even with New York being his home state and the base of his business operations. Clinton may be underperforming Obama, but not by much.
Of course, the general election is still seven-plus months away, but that would only matter if New Yorkers hadn’t gotten to know Donald Trump well (or Hillary Clinton, for that matter) before now. Trump’s ubiquitous in New York, though, and voters there know him better than voters in most other states, with the possible exception of Florida — where Trump actually looks more competitive, but where Republicans have been much more competitive in presidential elections anyway. Romney only lost Florida by a percentage point, getting to 49%, while the RCP average of head-to-head polling there has Trump down 2.2 points … and Trump going no higher than 47% in any of them.
Given this lack of change over Romney’s 2012 performance in New York, where’s the evidence that Trump expands the map? If at this point Trump can’t get to 40% in his home state in head-to-head polling, what makes anyone think that Trump could beat Hillary in California or Massachusetts, or even in Pennsylvania or Michigan? The theory that Trump expands the Republican general-election map and provides a new path to 270 has no evidence supporting it. Right now, it looks like pure fantasy.
“President Hillary Clinton will attend Donald Trump’s next wedding”
No doubt.
I’m sure she sends some business his way for a payoff. The Clintons took good care of H Ross Perot after he aided them in ‘92 and ‘94.
“Are you paying any attention whatsoever to Trump’s position papers or his stated positions?”
Of course, I follow everything political.
I’ve been around long enough to know that The Donald is now and always was a liberal democrat regardless of his current positions.
He is capable of changing into whatever he needs to become to win. He said that himself.
And Cruz is supposed to beat hillary? .... Don’t think so.
Not only can’t Cruz take a rust belt state no matter who his VP pick is, He’s going to lose VA, NC. There is no path for Cruz to win the Presidential race.
Nice post ...good point
A Criminal, A Commie and a Capitalist walk into a bar...
If Trump doesn’t have a prayer, why are Hillary, Soros, BLM, and the entire MSM attacking him even before he has the nomination
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BECAUSE they know he will ABSOLUTELY CRUSH the wicked witch of middle-east...
It will be interesting. I posit that there will probably be a percentage of the population who will vote for Trump but will never admit it to a pollster. How many is anyone’s guess.
For conservatives in politics, always be prepared for the worst. 2016 will be no exception, Mrs. Bill predicts.
Walk down Roosevelt Avenue in Queens: it oozes leftism. Mrs. Bill will score hefty majorities there.
Actually, upstate is NOT solidly red. It wasn’t nearly red enough even in 1960 to help Nixon there.
No, because they know he will fight back with items in his arsenal that others would make off limits. But it’s not enough to sink Mrs. Bill, whom the American people truly like.
That is my hope as well, that Trump will be extremely aggressive against HRC.
Don’t NY and PA always vote alike for President? What was the exception, maybe 1988. They both even voted for Dewey in 1948 but all Democrat since 1992.
Mrs. Bill doesn’t need to draw crowds. Her people believe in her and are pre-committed. Most would be uncomfortable worrying with a speech before a crowd; probably wouldn’t even understand what was said.
Over the course of five weeks, Working America, the non-union affiliate of the AFL-CIO labor federation, did extensive canvassing in union-dense, blue-collar areas of Pittsburgh and Cleveland. They called it a “front porch focus group.” The idea was simply to listen — to let likely 2016 voters sound off about their thoughts and concerns headed into the presidential election.
What they discovered, among other things, was a lot of support for Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner. For months, this enthusiastic backing of the obnoxious billionaire had generally baffled the chattering class — not to mention the GOP and Democratic establishment. But to Working America canvassers, it made plenty of sense.
“We hear the same refrains all the time,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, which has high membership in the Rust Belt. “That people are fed up and they’re hurting. That their families have not recovered from the recession. That every family is harboring someone still not back at work. That someone is paying rent for their brother-in-law.”
RE: And Cruz is supposed to beat hillary? .... Don’t think so.
So, in a sense you are saying no one beats Hillary in 2016.
The campaign that will change all this has yet to begin.
Interesting...thanks for the graphic.
At one point several polls in 1980 election had Reagan between a 20 to 30 point underdog.
We all know how that turned out.
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