PPP continues to release state polls ever so often that contain 2016 speculation. Their most recent state poll was of Wisconsin, and it tested the water for a few well-known candidates.
Hillary Clinton's favorability stands at 56%-37% in the state, while Rep. Paul Ryan has seen his numbers slide a little to 46%-46%. In potential 2016 presidential matchups, Hillary Clinton is way out in front of the pack, leading Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker 54%-41%, Congressman Paul Ryan 51%-43%, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio 52%-38%. These theoretical matchups are pretty much just name recognition at this early stage (for Clinton), and a combination of name recognition and approval rating for the home-state guys.

President Obama's job approval rating clocks in at 50%-48%. Newly-elected Senator Tammy Baldwin's job approval sits at 45%-40%. Somewhat of a troubling sign for Governor Scott Walker is his job approval being underwater slightly at 48%-49%, and interestingly enough he trails former Senator Russ Feingold 47%-49% in hypothetical 2014 gubernatorial matchup. Walker holds very narrow leads over all other mentioned Democratic candidates though. There was some issue-based polling as well, with the state holding some interesting views. Support for same-sex marriage sits at 44%-46%, but the state favors an assault-weapons ban 53%-38% and Congress passing stricter gun laws 54%-49%. The favorability of the NRA is also underwater at 40%-46%.

When asked who they would support in a potential 2016 Republican primary field, there were several very interesting results: Paul Ryan leads with 35%, Marco Rubio at 22%, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pulls 10%, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is tied with Someone Else/Not Sure at 8%, former Governor Mike Huckabee at 7%, former Governor Jeb Bush at 5%, Louisianna Governor Bobby Jindal at 3%, Texas Governor Rick Perry at 1%, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez brings up the rear at 1%. If you substitute Scott Walker in for Paul Ryan, he pulls 33%. This is pretty interesting, because once you clear out the people who are not going to run and that have no chance (Huck, Perry, Martinez, maybe even Bush) and include a few likely not-listeds (outgoing Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, Ohio Governor John Kasich) you're left with a wide-open fight.

When asked about a potential Democratic 2016 field, Clinton is the clear frontrunner with 50%, Feingold at 25%, Biden taking 11%, Someone else/Not Sure at 8%, and Cuomo, Warren, O'Malley, and Deval Patrick in the very low single digits.


Other somewhat-recent PPP polls, including Kentucky
Potential 2016 Senate race (Rand Paul's reelection) numbers: Steve Beshear 46%-44% over Rand Paul, and Rand Paul 47%-46% over Ashley Judd (who will be challenging Mitch McConnell in 2014 for his seat)
Hillary Clinton favorability at 48%-42%, Rubio favorability 31%-22%-47% (before his SOTU response)
Clinton leads Rand Paul in hypothetical 2016 presidential race 47%-42%
Clinton leads Rubio in same hypothetical matchup 48%-40%
Rand Paul's approval rating was actually slightly underwater, which was pretty surprising.

PPP: Texas
Clinton leads Rubio 46%-45%
Clinton leads Christie 45%-43%
Clinton leads Rick Perry 50%-42%
Clinton favorability 50%-43%
19% say Perry should run for President in 2016, 70% say no
A possible 2016 GOP field: Rubio 21%, Huckabee 14%, Paul 13%, Bush 11% , Ryan 11%, Christie 9%, Perry 4%, Jindal 4%
Ted Cruz favorability 36%-34%-30%
Cornyn job performance 34%-36%-30%
Cornyn leads potential Democratic foes in his reelection race: Bill White 45%-42%, Julian Castro 48%-41%, Annise Parker 47%-36%, Wendy Davis 48%-37%
Texans support the assault weapons ban 49%-41%
Rick Perry job approval sits at 41%-54%, while 31% say he should seek reelection and 62% said step aside



The fact that you refuse to acknowledge legislative realities because you'd rather live in a comfort bubble doesn't mean that the electorate hasn't taken notice of enacted policies and are responding to them this way.

This post was edited by JayKwik on Mar 3 2013 02:46pm

The fuck? Legislative realities like Obamacare? You are aware that it is driving prices higher? You also realize that your party's gun bans don't curb gun violence? Come on Mr I Work in the Business, link us to these mythical "legislative realities" to which you allude.

PPP's attention turns to Louisiana, and finds Hillary Clinton stable here as well
The same high favorability and high name recognition factors that made Hillary Clinton formidable in other states have made her formidable in Louisiana as well. Clinton's favorability sits at 46%-44% and she ties Wisconsin Rep Paul Ryan at 46%-46% in a hypothetical 2016 presidential matchup. Clinton leads Marco Rubio 46%-43% and current Governor Bobby Jindal 48%-45%, who 66% of voters do not want to run for president. When given the choices of Bush, Christie, Huckabee, Jindal, Martinez, Paul, Perry, Rubio, and Ryan for possible GOP 2016 nominees, Louisianna voters broke 21% for Rubio, 18% for Huck, 14% for Jindal, 11% for Christie, with everyone else in single digits.

Popular New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu headlines the possible 2015 gubernatorial candidates if he wants to run. He's tied with current Senator David Vitter 44%-44% and leads Jay Dardenne 44%-42%. His favorability is +23 (49%-26%-25%). David Vitter's job approval is surprisingly high at 46%-38%-16%, while Bobby Jindal's job approval rating has plummeted to 37%-57%, down from 58%-34% two years ago.

Mary Landrieu, the often-vulnerable Democratic Senator, leads all of her named competition at this point. She leads Jindal 49%-41%, and leads 6 other challengers by margins ranging from 3-12 points. Her favorability has climbed back to 47%-45%, up from 41%-53% in the summer of 2010. Landrieu currently benefits from the low name recognition of her potential challengers, but she's sitting near 50% and is much stronger than many considered she would be given her role as one of the most vulnerable Democrats seeking reelection in the 2014 midterms.



Do you really need to be linked to something that talks about the years of solvency added to Medicare, the 30-40 million people that will receive access to healthcare under the Affordable Care Act, the restrictiveness of the Obama administration's policies on the border, or any of the other policies that have been discussed over the last four years? I know you live in a bubble but hopefully it doesn't come as a surprise to you that more people are gaining access to healthcare and there are more illegal immigrants being deported. These are established facts. People want these things, that's why they respond positively to them actually happening. Your resistances to empirical truths prove to be nothing more than a comical recycling of opinions that contradict simple, knowable facts. I do think it's amusing that you attribute the fact that insurance companies are no longer able to employ predatory practices long used to keep rates artificially low on some people to Obama doing nothing to keep health insurance from becoming more expensive. "Hurr durr, must be Obama."

As usual, you offer up some delusion about "open borders," only for reality to smash it into a million pieces. Your views still reflect the typical "I don't like what's happened since 2007 so I'm just going to shut my eyes and pretend that nothing's happened" attitude. It's not as if Obama's administration spent $73 billion in his first term on border security (more than all other federal law enforcement budgets combined, and more than double the $37 billion spent by his predecessor), or if there's 650 miles of fence (doubled since 2009), with over 18,000 border agents even drones surveying the border, and there sure weren't a record 1.5 million people deported. Oh wait, all of those things are true. And regardless of all of those pesky little facts getting in the way of your bubble story, no one's pushing for "open borders" in new immigration reform proposals either. The bipartisan gang of eight's proposal is a carbon copy of Obama's prior proposals in that they both advocate the same exact security and processing measures. The people that ignore the progress made on border security are doing so either because they already know the border is more secure and they're just waiting to argue what the timeframe will be on the path to citizenship, or they're delusional. Trying to focus all immigration reform on more border security is silly, because at best it's entirely symbolic and at worst it's an excuse to not do anything.

I perfectly understand that you're too detached to accept polling findings, but get back in your bubble if they bother you so much.

This post was edited by JayKwik on Mar 4 2013 04:15pm

The 8 "years of solvency" that come at the expense of care providers refusing service for not covering costs? And 8 whole years to 2024? My kids will just be finishing college by then. Yay! Medicare is saved! (Just don't ask your doctor to stay in business.) In case you haven't figured it out yet, medical costs are skyrocketing for everyone, not just people on Medicare. But those people don't count right? They're not on the dole. They can afford it, right? (Must be Republicans, eh?) I bet you missed the IRS projection that an "acceptable" plan under Obamacare for a family of 5 will cost $20K in 2016? I don't know about you, but my family coverage isn't anywhere NEAR 1667/month. And forcing 30-40 million people to buy insurance at the point of a gun doesn't mean they have any more care than they already have, it means they have insurance to pay for it. You also must have not gotten the memo in your meetings that your pals want to add 24 million new Demcorat™ voters "citizens" to the to the Social Security system.

I use "open borders" because the de facto state of affairs of an amnesty is "open borders." Are they de jure open borders? No. Just de facto.

Massachusetts Senate
Another poll out of Massachusetts reaffirms Representative Ed Markey's solid lead over fellow Representative Stephen Lynch. PPP had the race at 43%-28% two weeks ago, and a new Garin-Hart poll puts the race 42%-28% still in Markey's favor. Markey has the better favorability ratings in the case of the primary voters, and it looks like Massachusetts will predictably back it's more liberal representative than it's moderate.

Montana Senate
This race may be the most confusing Senate race in the entire cycle. Max Baucus has a job approval rating of 45%-48%, and while he leads in hypothetical matchups against the second-tier GOP candidates (46%-43% against Tim Fox, 45%-38% against Corey Stapleton, 47%-37% against Champ Edmunds), he trails the top-tier GOP candidates. Newly-elected Representative Steve Daines leads Baucus 47%-42% and former two-term Governor Marc Racicot leads Baucus 47%-42%. Baucus is somewhat vulnerable but will be much stronger than the early numbers indicate. Racicot hasn't campaigned in over 10 years and has close personal ties to both George W. Bush and his administration, and Montanans don't really care for his lobbying over the past decade. Steve Daines is popular, winning the MTAL seat 53%-42% after taking 70% in the Republican primary, but he's never been involved in a major campaign and his first act on the main stage in the state was backing down to Denny Rehberg after originally making it known that he wished to challenge for John Tester's Senate seat (Tester won his race over Rehberg 48%-44%). Daines is the GOP's first choice but without Romney's coattails and facing the possibility of being outspent it'll be a dogfight.

While all of these candidates appear to be even-money, they all are looking up at popular outgoing Governor Brian Schweitzer. If he wanted to enter the race he leads Baucus 54%-35% with the Democratic primary voters and holds leads over all GOP challengers outside of Racicot who he ties with. Schweitzer's personal favorability with state Democrats is extraordinary (86%-9%), which is higher than Baucus' job approval with the same group (76%-18%). Schweitzer's overall favorability is 56%-37% and if he enters the race then it will Lean Democratic but if he passes it will remain a tossup.

North Carolina Senate
Freshman Senator Kay Hagan is looking surprisingly strong at this early stage, leading all of her named opponents by between 5 and 12 points. Hagan holds leads of 46%-38% over Cherie Berry and Thom Tillis, leads Renee Elmmers 47%-36%, and Representative Virginia Foxx trails Hagan 38%-48%. This will be a "climate" race. Hagan's job approval remains 39%-38%, and with her sitting at or around 47% in most hypothetical matchups based mainly off of the low name recognition of her opponents this race will be one of three that'll primarily be decided by the political climate in Summer 2014.
On the plus side for hopeful Republicans Hagan isn't at 50% yet. On the plus side for Democrats she doesn't have to be because North Carolina Democrats enjoy a higher turnout in midterm years compared to the national average and popular stereotype of lower turnout in off-year elections. Hagan is arguably the most vulnerable incumbent in 2014 (The Democratic seat in WV is open, and expectations are South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson will announce his retirement this month thus making the Democratic seat in SD will be open as well), so if the Republicans aren't able to make a pickup in North Carolina they are likely in for an underwhelming 2014 midterm.

Georgia Senate
While no one was really surprised to hear Georgia's Senior Senator Saxby Chambliss hang it up (his personal favorability had dropped to 35%-41% and he had become a big target of the anti-tax wing of the party), it looks like the race for Georgia's open seat could actually be competitive with the right mix of candidates. Saxby's colleague, Johnny Isakson, also has underwater favorability numbers currently sitting at 37%/39%. Unsurprisingly Barack Obama's personal favorability is also low in the state (45%-53%) given that Georgians don't really like any of their politicians.

Democrats are hoping to turn to former Senator Max Cleland, the man that Chambliss defeated in the 2002 general election in the famous fear-mongering/patriotism-questioning campaign of that cycle that featured a Chambliss campaign ad that used Saddam Hussein and OBL to paint Cleland's voting record as "against homeland security." If Democrats could drag Cleland back into the arena he would be the instant frontrunner, with 48%-29% favorability and the only candidate that enjoys name recognition above 50%. Cleland would lead in all hypothetical matchups against the Republican primary candidates, enjoying leads over Paul Broun (+7), Phil Gingrey (+5), Karen Handel (+7), Jack Kingston (+3), and Tom Price (+1). If Democrats couldn't get Cleland then they'd hope to get Representative John Barrow to step up to the challenge. He leads Gingry and Handel (+1), ties against Broun, but trails Price (-1) and Kingston (-3).

Unfortunately no one has any idea at this point who will win the nominations for each party. The Republican primary field is crowded and without a frontrunner, Handel and Kingston sit at 15% and all other candidates come in somewhere between 10%-13% support. If the Democrats nominate Cleland then the race would be a tossup, if they have to move on to Barrow then the race would lean Republican, and if the Democrats have to move down the list to third-option Jason Carter or anyone else then the race would be Likely Republican unless their candidate collapses.

Wisconsin Senate and Governor
Wisconsin voters seem to be regretting their 2010 decision to oust popular former Senator Russ Feingold. He leads 52%-42% over Senator Ron Johnson, who faces reelection in the presidential year of 2016, and Feingold also leads Scott Walker 49%-47%.in a hypothetical 2014 gubernatorial race. Feingold's 53%-37% personal favorability rating (combined with Scott Walker's job approval rating at 48%-49% and Ron Johnson's nickname in the state "Our Idiot Senator") seems to indicate that he's a clear favorite to take whichever job he wants to run for. The 2014 matchup against Scott Walker would be noticeably more difficult both for Feingold and other Democratic hopefuls in the state, but Feingold clearly has the fundamentals to win either race.




I'm sorry, but I can't read this same Breitbart/Newsmax-themed whining and the misrepresentations of policies and governance that ensue. I understand that public polling findings aren't going to coincide with what you believe in your own little bubble, but I don't really want to waste any more time on this. Facts are what they are, and so is public opinion, regardless if they hurt your feelings or if you don't feel the same way. Your only real options are to either learn how to acknowledge the legitimacy of these things or return to the place where the facts that destroy your criticisms are not an issue. This thread is nothing but numbers and evidenced-based assertions, I really have no appetite for narrow and/or factless interpretations. If you think polling findings contradict established conclusions then analyze away, but I'm not seeing anything other than "these conclusions aren't the same as what I think, so they're bad!" No appetite for that whatsoever.

This post was edited by JayKwik on Mar 6 2013 07:30am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

I'll let you connect the dots. It's sad that you and your party are more concerned with being popular than being right.

Top lines
Rasmussen's weekly Generic Congressional Ballot has Democrats +3, which is a downgrade from the +5 the previous week. Gallup's rolling 3-day average of Obama's approval rating was down to 46%-46% before rolling off a day and jumping back up to 48%-44%. This is down from the 53%-40% around a week ago. Rasmussen had Obama's job approval at 51%-47% before inching up to 51%-48%. A FOX News poll has it at 46%-47%. Unfortunately these are three of the most-flawed polling firms and they all come with their own individual quirks and flaws, so they aren't good for a whole lot other than measuring trends. We're sort of in between waves of good firms putting out polls but there is a distinguishable trend where Obama loses between 1-3 points off his job approval. Job disapproval is nearly impossible to measure with the bad polls, we'll need the good ones to get the full picture. I could see Obama's job approval at or around 52%-43% when the strong polls come out again. He's taking a hit on sequester happening and we'll just have to see if it rolls off or sticks until he "wins" another battle.

A University of Texas poll placed Ted Cruz's favorability at 39%-28%-17% (similar to the PPP poll's findings that put it at 36%-34%-30%). The UT poll had the other Texas Senator, Cornyn, with a favorability rating of 32%-28%-21%, which is similar to the job approval rating that PPP found (34%-36%-30%).

The "Direction of Country" and "Right Track/Wrong Track" numbers took a step backwards towards the end of Feburary, bouncing around between -27 (NBC/WSJ) and -24 (Rasmussen). They were -22 and -17 a few weeks earlier. FOX and it's shill, Reason-Rupe, did it's best to inflate Congress' approval rating, but the numbers are still at or around -63.




Stop embarrassing yourself, seriously. Call your inability to acknowledge the legitimacy of public polling for what it is, and do the same for your other obvious inabilities. If I were you I'd just beat it, honestly. I understand why public polling would piss you off because it might just pop your bubble, but you don't even bring entertainment to this anymore. Before I could at least get a laugh out of reading your posts but they're not funny anymore, they're pitiful.

This post was edited by JayKwik on Mar 6 2013 04:08pm

Quinnipiac
The holy grail of polling has released at 15-page monster, and the main story is Hillary Clinton's dominant leads in hypothetical 2016 matches. She leads Chris Christie (45%-37%), Paul Ryan (50%-38%), and Marco Rubio (50%-34%). Joe Biden doesn't run as strongly, trailing Christie (40%-43%) but holding leads over Ryan (45%-42%) and Rubio (45%-38%). The #3 option for Democrats, Andrew Cuomo, ties Rubio (37%-37%) and trails Ryan (37%-42%) and Christie (28%-45%). There's noticeable breaking of independents depending on the matchup. Independents break evenly between Clinton and Christie (36%-36%), but break for Christie 44%-32% if he's matched up against Biden and 47%-20% if running against Cuomo. It'll be interesting to see where these numbers are 18 months from now.

Obama's job approval is 45%-46% (down from 46%-45%), with him +6 with women and -10 with men. His job approval is right-side up concerning most individual issues however, as he's +4 on handling the economy, +5 on handling health care, and +5 on handling immigration. Job approval ratings for both parties in Congress were horrible, with the Democrats (32%-60%) edging out the Republicans (20%-71%). The difference is independents (17% approve of the job Republicans are doing, 22% approve of the job Democrats are doing). Congressional Republicans are only 1% higher than their all-time low of approval (in Quinnipiac polls) that occurred after the Debt Ceiling debate.

The issue section was light and only really focused on guns. There's still 88% support for universal background checks including 85% support from gun-owning households. The support for banning assault weapons remains strong (54%-41%) as does banning magazines with more than 10 rounds (54%-42%). A Gallup poll recently included a question about the Minimum Wage increase proposal and found that support for it is still enormous with 71% of respondents backing the increase (91% of Democrats support it, 50% of Republicans).

Invisible primary
I'm quite surprised at how poorly some 2016 presidential hopefuls are running in the "invisible primary," particularly Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley and even Chris Christie. O'Malley is polling in single digits in most individual states (those important to the Democratic primary and presidential swing states), and his name recognition is even lower than Cuomo's. He was long considered a top-tier candidate but his early numbers indicate he's probably at the top of the second tier instead, joining candidates such as outgoing Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Virginia Senator Mark Warner, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. To not even be included in Quinnipiac's poll (who chose 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats only) is surprising, unless they just decided on that format and went with it no matter what. They would have been much better served including O'Malley and Jeb Bush as fourth options and I'm not really sure why they didn't.

Christie is sailing on pure name recognition at this point. He polls in either single-digits or the low-teens in some of the most important states, and I wonder just how weak he is at the moment despite probably being the best choice for the party if they want to win in 2016. I wonder if Rubio and Bush's hogging of the spotlight might derail Christie's chances before he even seriously starts campaigning.

Anyone actually reading these?

Anytime someone says something JK doesnt like they are "embarassing themselves"

How dare anyone mention his precious polling doesn't bring legitimacy to terrible policies and people.