I've been looking over the 2006 Senate race polls that Rasmussen did right before the election. On average, they were 2-3% points off... but all in all they did a pretty good job calling the state level elections. My gut feeling tells me that Rass. polls are leading indicators and that other polls will start showing the same trends shortly in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Those trends are:

1. The Huckabust is indeed coming (don't tell Abe)


2. Romney is holding well in New Hampshire and building strength in Iowa and


3. McCain is back.

I'll churn out some New Hampshire details tomorrow. But here are the key points from the Iowa crosstabs:

• Huckabee lost 11% points since last week. Romney gained 4% and McCain 8%


• Gender breakdown: Oh, the fickle female race. Huck lost 20% points from women (McCain gained 13 of those in turn). Compare that to an 8% point loss from the male column for Huck. (Don't show my wife this post :) )


• Age bracket: The young upstarts (18-29) are pretty settled on their choices now according to Rasmussen. But the 40-49 crowd are on the move, shedding themselves of Huck by 27% while 21% have hoped over to McCain. Huck lost 21% of the 50-64 crowd which dispersed across the entire crowd of folks.


• Political leanings: Wow! Did the full throttle hammering from the other candidates really work? Looks like it. Huck lost a whopping 38% of the conservative vote. Mitt actually wins this round by picking up 24% vs. McCain who picked up 14%.


• Married with kids: These folks abandoned Huck as well. 24% and 26% respetively. There must be something to this because the single / no kids demo didn't move away from Huck hardly at all.


• $$$. Huck lost double digit % points in almost all the wealth brackets. Once again, McCain and Romney traded gains from these groups.


• Religion. OK. Drumroll please.... Evangelical Christians matched the Conservative demo and left Huckbee by 35%. Yikes.


• People are generally fickle as well. 25% of those who said they were certainly going to vote for Huckabee changed their minds. Note this. Mitt now leads the "certain" pack with 32% of people indicating they are staying put. Compare that to Huck with 16% and McCain with 17% certainty.

Bottom line. Remember those religious women having trouble deciding who to vote for and taking a hard look at Huckabee? They changed their mind. McCain is taking about half of the crowd leaving the Huck auditorium. Romney takes about 30% and the rest peter out among Ron Paul and Rudy.

McCain shows some real momentum and Romney has regained his former standing. Here's McCain's problem in Iowa... he needs Huckabee to absolutely bottom out before he can even meet Romney head to head. With Thompson's King endorsement and newfound life this will be a fight.

Are we bored yet? :)

Labels: iowa, iowa caucus, poll, rasmussen

Once more we take you inside the crosstabs of Rasmusen's latest poll. This time for the GOP South Carolina primary.
Big news items: Romney has matched Huckabee in a conservative Christian stronghold where pundits always said he would lose. The secondary story is the continued collapse of Rudy along with the Thompson freefall.

Topline numbers: Rudy loses a point since the beginning of September (this is his second lowest number in any SC) poll. The other news: Thompson losing six. Huckabee loses two and Romney gains five. McCain gets a three point bounce. (Note, I calculate a standard deviation of 6.6% for SC Rasmussen polls this year so the most significant number is the Thompson decline).

• Romney made huge gains in the 18-29 crowd with a whopping 19% increase in the young age bracket. (Again, I should point out that this number, like the Iowa internals, are way out of bounds but they're interesting nonetheless). Where did they come from? The 35% unsure mark at the beginning of December went down to 15%. The upstarts are finally making up their mind.
  
  
• Thompson dropped like a rock among voters age 30-39 losing 30% points over two weeks according to this Rass. poll. (Again, this is an outlier but I have to note it as something that stands out). Meanwhile Huckabee gained 14% of these folks to his camp. Conversely though, Huck lost 14% of the 50-64 crowd (from 32% down to 18%).
  
  
• Romney and Huckabee each took home 24% of the "Conservative" leaning GOPers while Thompson lost 7% of this demo, down to 12% from 19% two weeks ago.
  
  
• If you're wondering, no dramatic loses for Rudy... rather, just a steady decline by small percentage points across the board. His only gains were among "Liberal" leaning GOP primary goers and the 40-49 demo (9% increases in each demo).
  
  
• Speaking of political leanings. Thompson lost 22% from liberal leaning GOPers. (Note, this is probably a small sample of the overall group of people polled so no biggie). Interestingly enough, Rudy garners 75% of the "don't know" crowd when it comes to political leanings.
  
  
• Family stat notables. Romney is catching up with Huckabee among married voters but Huckabee leads in the "voters with kids" demo.
  
  
• Income brackets. Thompson tanks in almost each wealth demo across the board (losing an average 10% in each bracket). Romney catches Huck for the lower income bracket (23% each).
  
  
• Huckabee has a solid lock on the Evangelical vote with Thompson coming in second. (Huckabee: 42%; Thompson 14%; Romney 12%; Undecided 11%). But Romney now leads among SC Protestants and dominates among Catholics (34% to Rudy's 13%). Romney also leads the "Other" category of religion.
  
  
• As far as vote change probability goes... Romney and Huckabee actually lead the pack with 60% and 51% of those polled indicating that their vote might change. I think this readily reflects the tenuous nature of the voting pack altogether. Looking at the other state polls we find the same thing with Rudy or whoever the top two folks are. People are still really uncertain about where this is going and who they support.
  
  
• Finally, on the issues. Romney wins the on "Economy" and "Immigration" while Huck takes "National Security" and ties on the "War in Iraq". Huck lost serious ground on both the Economy and Immigration demo. Huck actually lost 16% points on the "War in Iraq" and is now in a 5 way tie. I also should note the McCain is picking up some slow steam across the board but most notably on issues of "National Security"

To sum up it...

> Romney's hard hitting challenges on Huckabee's conservative record may be capping Huck's sudden burst on the scene.
> Rudy keeps sliding but Thompson is an a relative freefall.
> Huckabee still dominates the middle-aged evangelical base but Mitt is cleaning up the younger crowd and the other religious demos.
> People are still wary of the top choices across the board.

Labels: poll, polling, rasmussen, south carolina

Rasmussen Reports came out this week with an interesting pre-holiday poll asking the question: "During your Holiday Family Gatherings, will you and your family discuss politics with a passion, avoid political discussins like the plague, or occasionally talk about the political news of the day?"

The results?

"Discuss politics with a passion": 15%
"Avoid political discussion": 25%
"Occasionally talk about politics": 58%
"Not sure": 2%

Couple of bullet points from the crosstabs:

• There was no difference in the sexes. Men and women alike lined up with the numbers above.
  
  
• However, women under 40 were almost twice as likely to "discuss politics with a passion" than their counterpart males (20% vs. 11%). In fact, 30% of men under 40 indicated that they tried to "avoid political discussion"
  
  
• Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to discuss politics with a passion (22% vs. 13%)
  
  
• People who are investors were more likely to avoid political discussion but its pretty negligible.
  
  
• Interestingly, while "passionate" discussion was relatively the same among Whites, Blacks and "Others" (16%, 10% and 16%) Blacks were far more likely to discuss politics occasionally (56%, 72%, 54%), and avoidance of political discussion lines up in a like manner (26%, 16%, 27%).
  
  
• Other age breakdowns. It appears that the fluctuation of "passionate" and "avoidance" goes in cycles. 18 to 29 avoid more; 30-39 more passionate; 40-49 less passionate; 50-64 more passionate; 65+ avoid more.
  
  
• How about incomes? Avoidance seems to be the key variable: Under 20K - 42% avoid; 20K-40K 28% avoid; 40K-60K: 17% avoid; 60K-75K: 18% avoid; 75K-100K 22% avoid; 100K+ 15% avoid. Most "passionate" bracket? The last one, 100K+ at 22%
  

Labels: christmas, election, holidays, politics, poll, polling

I don't have anything to add to the "push poll" scandal, so I thought I would give you the latest New Hampshire poll. From CNN/WMUR:

Romney 33 (+8 vs. last poll in Sept)
McCain 18 (nc)
Giuliani 16 (-8)
Paul 8 (+4)
Huckabee 5 (+2)
Thompson 4 (-9)


CNN has this analysis:

Thompson came into the GOP race late with the hope of winning over social conservatives unsatisfied with the rest of the party's field, and racked up a key endorsement from the National Right to Life Committee last week. But the former star of the television drama "Law and Order" has trailed the GOP front-runners in early voting states since entering the race in August, and his support in New Hampshire dropped from 13 percent in a September poll to 4 percent in November's survey.

By contrast, Romney's support grew from 25 percent to 33 percent over the same period; McCain held steady at 18 percent; and Giuliani dipped from 24 to 16 percent.

Labels: New Hampshire, poll

According to a new Florida Chamber poll by Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion Research Romney has moved into 2nd place:

Guiliani – 33%
Romney – 17%
Thompson – 13%
McCain – 9%
No opinion – 17%.

Labels: Florida, poll

No one expects the race in South Carolina to come out this way... but, what the hey... here it is from ARG:

(Last months in parenthesis)

* Mitt Romney 26% (+17)
* Rudy Giuliani 23% (-3)
* John McCain 15% (+3)http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
* Fred Thompson 10% (-11)
* Newt Gingrich 7% (+1)

Sample Size: 600 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of likely Republican primary voters living in South Carolina (524 Republicans and 76 independent voters).

Sample Dates: September 26-29, 2007


h/t Tommy O. from Race42008 who exclaims: "UUHHHHH…. If these are true, then I’ll eat my shorts and endorse Mitt Romney as the second coming of Moses…"

Labels: poll, Polls, south carolina

OK... it's official. In case you missed it, last week we had a great time at the Young Professionals for Mitt kickoff in DC. A few sign-ups here, a $100 contribution there, and bingo! We've surpassed our goal of $50,000 raised for Mitt.

So... now I'm asking you. What should our next goal be?

Labels: fundraiser, poll

National Journal, the premiere (and very expensive) rag about all things political has moved Mitt into second place.

This is a serious development. And one which I applaud.

Labels: poll, rankings

At least, that's what the press wants you to think.

The man who had been written off across the political spectrum as unelectable is suddenly leading in Iowa and New Hampshire (two of the three critical early Primary wins according to Charlie Cook).

So, how do you deal with serious trends showing serious momentum for Mitt? Ah yes, now he's peaking too early.

The vacillation of press excuses is humorous but really par for the course.

My prediction remains however. While many would chalk the race up to Rudy vs. Romney the tea leaves tell me that McCain is the man to beat. Yes he has taken to self-defeatism of late but you discount McCain at your peril.

The recent sparring between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain is not accidental. Both campaigns are led by wizened pros of the political arena. Both camps have serious ground operations already in place. Both camps have numerous endorsements from local elected officials. Both camps have an existing base of supporters across the nation. Finally, both camps realize that Rudy will not win the Primary and that the race will come down to Romney or McCain.

While McCain decried the “money in Washington" he also fired quite a few individuals over the lackluster performance in Q1 fundraising. But McCain knows fundraising. He has one of the best mailing lists in the politics and has hired mail firms that can tell you within a 10% how much money you will raise per drop.

Romney has a smaller list but has mastered the art of incentive-based fundraising with numerous programs tailored to the individual. Paybacks for College Students; networking for young professionals; online bonus points for the net savvy; associate fundraising for the real ambitious. Team Romney has also commandeered a good number of former Bush associates in Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire and elsewhere to run their ground operations.

Rudy has his name. He has a decent national staff. Rudy may match both candidates with the simple star power... but beyond this he does not have the ground game to make up the difference.

I could go on... but I really don't have to. The race is still Romney vs. McCain. And after this last week... I like our chances :)

Labels: ground game, poll

Take a minute and vote on this poll at IowaVotes2008.com... if only to make sure that Joseph Biden doesn't end up on the TV. The Senator can thank us later for ensuring he doesn't step in it again?

I'm not sure what Tommy Thompson is doing there?

http://www.iowavotes2008.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4
76&Itemid=58

Labels: iowa, poll

That was quick!

A New Hampshire poll has Romney leading in New Hampshire:

According to a SurveyUSA poll of 551 likely Republican Primary voters, Mitt Romney gathered 32%, followed by Rudy Guiliani at 23% and John McCain with 22%. Fred Thompson finished fourth with 11%.

Labels: poll

HeavyM writes on Race42008.com:

McCain’s choice to skip the county conventions in South Carolina are really starting to hurt him. First it was a state Representative who had endorsed McCain but voted for Romney in the Horry County straw poll - and said he may switch his endorsement in the future. He was confused as to why McCain wasn’t there, which was a good question - Romney had attended the same dinner earlier in the day as McCain and still managed to make it down to South Carolina.

Now, there’s a local endorser who actually has jumped ship over to Camp Romney, in part because of McCain’s absence:

Saluda County Sheriff Jason Booth jumped to Romney’s campaign on Wednesday, and other party officials have questioned the candidate skipping their county conventions. McCain’s campaign had no immediate comment on Booth’s switch.

Welcome to the team, Sheriff Booth! McCain’s South Carolina organization is in danger right now, and by the time he makes it down there to re-kick off his campaign at the end of this month, he will have missed at least 20 more county conventions and straw polls.

And here’s the latest straw poll result from McCormick County’s convention this evening:

Romney - 35%
Cox - 19%
Giuliani - 16%
McCain - 13%
F Thompson - 8%
Newt - 3%
Undecided - 5%

Labels: John McCain, poll, Polls, south carolina