Rudy, Hillary win Ohio ’08 poll

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34 Responses to “Rudy, Hillary win Ohio ’08 poll”

1. Horace Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:40 am

   Alternatively, it may just be that the GOP brand is generally tarnished in OH, given the god-awful tenure of Taft. Definitely worth watching.

2. Matt Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:43 am

   I’ve insisted for awhile that the GOP absolutely loses Ohio in 08. Which is why I accept the notion that we need someone who can put additional states into play.

3. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:44 am

   Any mention of how the general election poll was weighted? If it’s another case of Dems +11 I wouldn’t get too excited.

4. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:45 am

   “I’ve insisted for awhile that the GOP absolutely loses Ohio in 08. Which is why I accept the notion that we need someone who can put additional states into play.”

   And you decided on Romney? Interesting…

5. DaveG Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:49 am

   No mention of how it was weighted, nor do I know Ohio’s regular turnout numbers.

   It does seem odd that Rudy beats Hillary in holding the base and beats her among indies but still loses to her. Ohio is a traditionally Republican state if anything, while that result suggests that there are lots more D’s than R’s in the state.

6. jim Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:57 am

   If I were to look who could flip blue states, it’s not a pretty picture. There’s a much greater chance of red going blue than the other way around. States like IA, NM, CO, MO, OH, VA could all go blue.

   The good news is that the EV totals of those states are on the smaller side.

   The states that a Rudy or McCain might out in play such as NJ, NY, PA, CA, MI, WI tend to be on the larger side. IOW, if Rudy can flip NY that would cancel out OH and 1 or 2 other states like IA and NM. To be honest, I can’t see Romney or anyone else flipping any states in 08.

   My ultimate gambit is to ride Arnold to victory in CA and close the deal. While CA has been solidly dem, if Arnold’s approval numbers stay high or go higher, his support could be crucial. Also, a more moderate guy like Giuliani or McCain could swing more independents and moderates. There was a time from 1968-1988 when the GOP owned CA, won it 6 straight times. Those times could return.

   A Rudy/Jeb Bush ticket would be sweet, as would a Rudy/Condi Rice ticket, or Rudy/Newt(although 6 marriages might be pushing it).

   On a side note, Rasmussen out today has Rudy up 29-19 over McCain with Romney at 4%.

   I continue to hold that McCain will fizzle out and the race will come down to who between Rudy and Romney can pick up his donors/organization/people/voters.

7. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 11:59 am

   “It does seem odd that Rudy beats Hillary in holding the base and beats her among Indies but still loses to her.”

   That’s good enough for me. I’m officially calling BS on the general election poll in that case. Seems to me that the only way that Rudy can hold the base, win Indy’s, and still lose to Hillary would be if they weighted the poll +Dems by some ridiculous margin.

   There is some concern for the GOP in Ohio, there’s no doubt about that. But people forget that even in an awful GOP year like 2006 the Republicans still kept the state legislature. So there’s reason to be concerned, but not panicked. It depends mostly on the candidate. If the GOP nominates someone like Rudy or McCain you’ve got to like our chances in OH versus any Dem.

   If we nominate a 11/6/2006 candidate like Romney or Brownback however…

8. HeavyM Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 12:10 pm

   If the voters on 11/6 wanted a cleaner, smaller, government with less taxes, and they did, then what makes you say McCain is an 11/7 candidate, Kavon? For that matter, what makes you say Romney is an 11/6 candidate?

   Perhaps we learned two different lessons from the midterm elections…?

9. DaveG Says:
   January 30th, 2007 at 12:15 pm

   In 2006, Ohio had a 40D/37R Democratic turnout. So yes, the gen-election #s are a little off.

10. LJ Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    HeavyM,

    Romney’s candidacy is centered around social conservatism. He is trying as hard as he can to be the “the true conservative” alternative to McCain and Giuliani. But given the political trends of the country – increasingly blue – at least in the short term, we need a candidate who can flip some of the purple states in the north. Not only is Romney back down to 4% (in the margin of error), he is losing evangelicals to Hillary of all people! If he doesn’t have evangelicals or independents, what base of support does he have left?

11. DaveG Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 12:24 pm

    My post-election analysis last year showed that we lost in 2006 because secular moderate indies in the north and the west defected.

    Ironically, Romney used to have a profile that fit that group, but lost it IMO when he spent two years becoming the candidate of cultural conservatism.

    I don’t deny Romney’s managerial ability. But he comes out of the gate most known for his views on gay marriage and social issues. And those issues were never big movers in the north and west, and will be even less important now that the battle is over indies who care most about the economy and education and the borders and health care and the war.

    If Romney had cultivated his candidacy from the start as that of someone who wanted to bring competence and executive prowess to Washington, had come out strong on foreign policy, and had emphasized budgets and taxes, heck, *I* might be supporting him. But like so many others on 11/6, he seemed to think that opposing gay marriage was the answer to a permanent Republican majority.

12. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 12:37 pm

    I think Kavon simply doesn’t understand the appeal of Romney or his potential electoral strengths. I’ve said before, with some data at hand, that at least among Republicans, Romney has strong appeal in the Great Lake states. Whether or not this is because he’s simply better known there (a dubious proposition outside of Michigan), or because he’s viewed as, fundamentally, Great Lake Republican is up for debate, but its a clear factor in this election. He’s been shown to poll well in, of all places, Illinois. In addtion to Michigan and Iowa. He also has greater then average strength i New England as you might imagine. Again, look to that much touted SurveyUSA poll from around November. Against the only two opponents with similar name recognition (Feingold and Warner) he lit a firestorm through New England, and won states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. The idea that Romney won’t put several blue states into play is simply ludicrous and is reflected by virtually no data. It’s just a gut hunch which ignores years of experience that suggest that Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans are simply better at winning crossover votes. Will Romney win all of these states in the general election? Certainly not. But he has a substantially better chance of winning any given blue state then anyone not named Rudy and possibly McCain. I’ve never contended that I tought Romney was the most electable of the bunch. I think Rudy is. And I think that McCain, if Iraq doesn’t torpedo him, is more electable as well. But I’ve expressed my issues with their candidacies previously and I don’t intend to rehash them in this post. But Romney is certainly a candidate with considerable ability to win blue state voters.

13. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    The lesson I learned from 11/7/2006 is that Americans rejected the culture-warrior, big-government conservative, George W. Bush model.

    I know people are going to disagree vehemently on this. But Romneycare just echoes Medicare Part D and NCLB to me.

    America wants the government to get back to issues that are the most critical to their daily lives.

    What are each candidate’s perceived raison d’etre?

    Rudy- Leadership.
    McCain- Clean government.
    Romney- Fighting Gay Marriage

    If we throw up another big-government conservative culture warrior in the mold of George W. Bush, then you can certainly kiss states like OH, MO, AR, CO, NM, NV goodbye.

    We need a candidate who is more Reagan, less Bush in 2008. Reagan was committed to social conservatism but did not wear it on his sleeve.

14. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    “I think Kavon simply doesn’t understand the appeal of Romney or his potential electoral strengths. I’ve said before, with some data at hand, that at least among Republicans, Romney has strong appeal in the Great Lake states. Whether or not this is because he’s simply better known there (a dubious proposition outside of Michigan), or because he’s viewed as, fundamentally, Great Lake Republican is up for debate, but its a clear factor in this election.”

    Matt, I just don’t see where you are getting your info. Have you ever seen a single shred of empirical evidence that you base your assertion of Romney being strong in the Great Lakes region? Because I have seen countless polls of him getting his hat handed to him in Michigan, where he was born, his father was governor, and his mom ran for Senate, among other states.

    Not only is Mitt totally unsuited to win MN, WI, and MI (where his brand of social conservatism keeps voters away for the GOP in droves), he will not win a single state in the region of the US where is currently located. So where’s Mitt’s electoral strengths going to come from?

15. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:19 pm

    If you think Romney’s raison d’etre is fighting Gay Marriage then I seriously question whether you’ve been paying any attention at all. During Romney’s admittedly rambling speech at the NRI, he mentioned gay marriage only briefly and focused instead upon eliminating (something that, for all McCain’s rhetoric, Romney is a far more credible spokeman on), transfering private sector principles to government, health care, and Iran. In most of the stump speeches he’s given, his ode to the cultural world is primarily expressed through a general trumpeting of American values (focus on hardwork for example), using an anecdote on the Challenger disaster for example (huh, wonder who else has used the Challenger disaster as an ode to America’s resilence). Romney may be courting social conservatives, but he’s hardly focusing his campaign on them. He has been running, for some months, what I’d consider a “campaign on competence”, with a dash of hokey humor and inspiring anecdotes.

    As for Romney’s healthcare plan, I think its been discussed ad nauseam here. But there’s a reason Romney is incessantly being attacked on his socially conservative credentials. Because its a hard sell to convince people that a man who cut nearly a 1/10th of spending in a single year, cut more government employees then any state in the country in 2003, kept spending increases below 2% 3 of his 4 years, held the line on taxes, all whule living in the people’s Republic of Massachusetts, is some sort of fiscal liberal. You may believe he’s a big-goverment conservative, but the populace at large won’t.

16. Frank Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    So, “white evangelicals are now less committed to the president, the GOP, and Iraq than ‘Republicans,’”, and they support Giuliani more than any of the other candidates.

    But I thought we were supposed to believe that evangelicals were overlooking Giuliani’s social liberalism in order to support him on national security issues. Now a poll comes out saying that evangelicals are wishy washy on national security. There’s a glaring contradiction here.

17. HeavyM Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

    Kavon,

    I respect you, bro, but I think you’re way off base on this one. Romney’s campaign hasn’t hardly focused on gay marriage at all. He has excellent reasoning why we need a FMA, but a vast majority of his speeches focus on that infamous $3 billion debt he eliminated without raising taxes or borrowing money (that’s in every single speech he gives, sometimes multiple times) and on getting everybody to understand the war on terror is a war on jihadists (I have yet to hear a speech by him where he doesn’t talk about this at length).

    Those are his two main reasons for running, and my two main reasons for supporting him: he will eliminate waste and make government smaller (a welcome change after “compassionate conservtivism”), and he really gets the fight against terrorists and want other people to get it as well.

    Gay marriage is such a peripheral issue, it’s almost asinine to suggest that’s Romney’s reason for running.

18. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:32 pm

    Again, look at the SurveyUSA polls where Romney wins huge swaths of New England against Feingold and Warner, in addition to states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon. Look at blogger polls where Romney , again and again and month after month, performs consistently better in blue states. Look at the poll last week which showed him at 12 percent in Illinois, a state where we have no reason to expect him to have significant name recognition (to my knowledge he’s never even visited there). Regardless of what you’d like to believe, Romney’s base is not die-hard social conservatives. They have yet to jump on board. He is winning blue-state Republican conservatives, a group of people who are, while certainly more conservative then McCain’s moderates, a group of people who are much closer to the Republican mainstream then social conservatives in the Deep South. And I’ve yet to see any evidence that Romney’s brand of conservatism is driving away the middle. Has ANYONE outside of DU and DailyKos criticized Mitt for being TOO conservative? I think you overestimate the extent to which Great Lake voters are driven away by social conservatism and I think you overestimate the extent to which Mitt’s campaign is focusing on social conservatism.

19. Horace Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    Not to get on-track, but if you re-weight the Q party results for 2006 turnout, Giuliani leads 48-42. It would be slightly closer for McCain.

20. Horace Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 1:54 pm

    Also worth noting that 10% of Kerry voters said they would vote for Giuliani, and 11% of Bush voters said they would vote for Clinton. Again, counsels a better result for Giuliani than the results would seem to dictate.

21. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 2:03 pm

    Right now, the general populace prefers, at about a ratio of 61-39, generic Democratic president. Let’s just assume, to be generous, that Romney has 50% name recognition. I.e., 50% of the public knows enough to form an opinion about him. And let’s just assume, quite reasonably I believe, that those who don’t know enough to form an opinion about him, would vote in the same proportion as listed above. I.e., the remaining 50% of voters would chose a generic Democrat at a ratio of 61-39 percent. Now, assume people are asked “Would you prefer Mitt Romney, or a Democratic president in 2008?” An odd formulation to be sure, but this is just a little experiment. Now, assume that when asked this, the entire population prefers the Democratic president at a ratio of 57-43. Travesty. Romney is destroyed. Or…is he? Well, going back to our previous assumptions, the first 50% of voters preferred the Democrat by a 61-39 ratio. So what about the last 50%, who actually know who Romney is? Well, it turns out they only preferred the Democrat 53-47. I.e., upon presentation to the general public, Romney convinced 8% of voters who initially preferred a Democrat, to back him. The situation for Romney is even more skewed at this juncture, because he’s not facing off against generic Democrats. He’s facing off against well-known, well-liked, media hyped sensations like Obama and Edwards. How has Romney been presented, in contrast? What do the 50% who know of him, know about him? Well, chances are, they know he’s changed some positions, possibly they believe in mandated gay marriage or is conducting a crusade against homosexuality (Romney detractors can’t seem to decide). Maybe, just maybe, they know that he “hired” illegal immigrants to work on his property. They certainly don’t know an awful lot of the positive features of his record, and yet he STILL makes progress among these generic voters. This is just a hypothetical poll, but these are the types of disparities I’ve seen in actual polls. Now I’ve seen at least two polls where Romney trailed Clinton by single digits (one I remember was a Rasmussen poll at 48-41). And I’ve seen another poll where Romney trailed Vilsack by around 3-4 points. In situations where people still very clearly favored a generic Democrat vs. a generic Republican.

22. Horace Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    “Again, look at the SurveyUSA polls where Romney wins huge swaths of New England against Feingold and Warner, in addition to states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon.”

    Two people who aren’t running, with little name recognition.

    Against Hillary, Edwards, and Gore, he gets absolutely crushed in every New England state (except NH against hilary). While I don’t think you can tell much about his appeal outside of New England due to his low name recognition there, I think his NR in NE is pretty high.

23. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    Heavy,

    I hear you on this one my friend. But I’m not referring to campaign platforms. I am referring to the general populace’s preconceived perceptions of each candidate- for Rudy: 9/11 Leadership, for McCain: War Hero/Reformer; Romney for better or worse is known at-large primarily for being a leading general of the culture war.

24. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    Yup. Hillary, Edwards, and Gore with name recognition 2-4 times as high as his. The point is, it only makes sense to compare people with similar name recognition. Romney was very compareable to both Feingold and Warner in that regard when the poll was being administered. And he took them to the cleaners.

25. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    So Romney is a leading general of the culture-war, while simultaneously being a traitor to cultural issues? That’s really some trick.

26. Horace Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

    “Yup. Hillary, Edwards, and Gore with name recognition 2-4 times as high as his.”

    Thus, I don’t care what the matchup in, say, Arkansas is.

    The fact is that Giuliani and McCain outperform Romney in Massachusetts — where I presume name recognition is not a problem. This is a cause for concern. As is the fact that Romney is outperformed in the neighboring states, where I’m guessing his name rec is high (esp in NH, ME, and RI, which contain a lot of Boston commuters).

    As for the “social issues” thing, the problem is that Romney offers something for everyone to hate. Liberals know that he claims to be pro-life, anti-gay marriage now, while his previous stands don’t offer much for conservatives to love. It is a very precarious state for Romney right now.

27. DaveG Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    “But I thought we were supposed to believe that evangelicals were overlooking Giuliani’s social liberalism in order to support him on national security issues. Now a poll comes out saying that evangelicals are wishy washy on national security. There’s a glaring contradiction here.”

    In ’04, Bush won with his base in voters who were culturally conservative and foreign policy hawks. The data now suggests, and I’m not the first one to bring this up — it’s been discussed on cable news, that evangelicals are becoming less and less hawkish on foreign policy. I would imagine this is due almost entirely to Iraq. As Gamecock noted in a post the other day, LOTS of Republicans are becoming more and more isolationist ever since Iraq. What the Ohio poll confirms is that on the ground, evangelicals are becoming MORE dovish than non-evangelical Republicans. That basically means the Bush ’04 model is even more obsolete than I once thought, because your average so-con is now starting to look like Sam Brownback in his foreign policy views, meaning that a so-con/hawk fusionist base is not an option for ’08.

    What Republicans need to do is first figure out who their base currently is. If the evangelicals in Ohio aren’t supporting Bush or the war, but most “Republicans” are, then who are these “Republicans?” Start from there and work your way out. If the people most supportive of the GWOT right now are “McCain” types, that is, fiscally conservative hawks who don’t care much about social issues, then that makes Rudy or McCain even more likely to win the nomination, as those will be the self-identified Republicans going to the polls in a year, and also gives us a chance to make inroads into the more secular states of Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey, California, etc.

28. DaveG Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    Regarding Romney’s chances in the Great Lakes states, I agree with Kavon that I just can’t see it.

    Want my reason? Two words: Rick Santorum.

    In 2006, we were told that Santorum would “make a comeback” in purple PA. We were told that, yes, Santorum cared more about social issues than most PA voters, but PA is a moderate state. It doesn’t want to lose the war. It doesn’t want higher taxes. Or Nancy Pelosi. And it’s a Catholic state, meaning that it really doesn’t want gay marriage or abortion either. We were told that Santorum would be the Comeback Kid of ’06.

    What happened?

    He lost by 20 points.

    It’s not that any of the above assertions about PA were untrue. It’s that most voters vote at a gut level. Rick Santorum became that guy who thought government should deal first and foremost with what adults were doing in the bedroom. Bob Casey was Something Else. In that scenario, voters will pick Something Else every time.

    Tommy Thompson is an example of a Republican who wins in the Great Lakes region. Competent executive, pro-business, pro-low taxes, pro-life but you’d never know unless you looked at his Right to Life scorecard. I know social issues are big movers in the plains states and the south and maybe Idaho and Utah, but they aren’t everywhere else. And in ’08, we need to win everywhere else.

    I know Romney’s trying to re-emphasize his fiscal conservatism and competence now, and I respect his record in those areas. But I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s already wedded in voters’ minds to social conservatism. Non-so-cons see him as a guy who cares way too much about what gays do, and so-cons like those on RedState see him as a social liberal who tried to pull the wool over their eyes.

29. Matt Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    Comparing Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum is absolutely ludicrous. Santorum was likely the most conservative senator in the senate, while Romney is attacked by both the right and left of the Republican party. He’s neither an ideoligcal nor a dispositional clone of Rick Santorum: not even close. I don’t know where you’ve developed this idea that Romney has made any sort of concrete or lasting impression on the general public-half of them don’t even know who he is.

30. murphy Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    Kavon,

    I am referring to the general populace’s preconceived perceptions of each candidate- for Rudy: 9/11 Leadership, for McCain: War Hero/Reformer; Romney for better or worse is known at-large primarily for being a leading general of the culture war.

    Do you think this will change as name recognition for all the candidates equalizes with national exposure, full blown campaigning, and prime time debates? Do you think Romney will be viewed merely as the pro-life traditional marriage guy despite a campaign where he devotes something around 10% of his talk to culture issues and a much greater percentage to cleaning up government corruption, inefficiency, and entitlement spending?

    If these latter issues are what 11/07 voters care about, Romney is in a very very good position compared to the other two heavyweights. Just look at his top 10 issues…this is what he’s focussing his campaign on:

    1. Defeating the Jihadists
    2. Competing with Asia
    3. Simplifying the Tax System
    4. Stopping Runaway Spending
    5. Getting Immigration Right
    6. Achieving Energy Independence
    7. Affirming America’s Culture and Values
    8. Investing in Technology
    9. Extending Health Insurance to All Americans
    10. Raising the Bar on Education

31. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    Except for perhaps #9, that will be the platform of all GOP candidates in 2008! So what will people do to differentiate between them?

    They will look back to where they came from.

32. murphy Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    1. Yup, the Big 3 are uniform.
    2. Romney has spoken to this more than the others.
    3. See #1.
    4. Romney, and to a lesser degree McCain, are the only ones credible on curbing deficits.
    5. See #1.
    6. See #1, probably remains to be seen who can come up with novel ideas.
    7. This is not just abortion…gay marriage, equality, work ethic, sacrifice, etc…I’m biased, but Romney’s rhetoric and actions speak the most to me.
    8. See #2.
    9. This will be a growing national concern whether we like it or not, and the democrats are clamoring for government take-overs. I prefer not to be offering a candidate with no ideas or solutions on the issue. Romney offers the only conservative solutions.
    10. I’m not familiar enough with Rudy’s or McCain’s records to speak to this one.

33. Kavon W. Nikrad Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 5:28 pm

    Like I said, except for perhaps #9, that will be the platform of all GOP candidates in 2008. Given them a chance.

34. Peter Says:
    January 31st, 2007 at 11:04 am

    You say Rudy’s a conservative and that social conservatism doesn’t matter, but you are still surprised when he loses evangelicals to Hillary. That’s why Rudy would lose against her. What would be the motivation to vote for someone other than Hillary if they’re exactly like her?