Which of these ~great Americans~ has the best chance at beating President Barack Obama in 2012, according to a new PPP survey?
Ya rly.
2012 President Survey
Is it too early to poll Barack Obama against potential opponents in 2012? Sure. But that doesn't mean people don't find it interesting, and it gives us something to track against moving forward so here goes:
On our newest national survey we looked at Obama against Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney.
Huckabee fares the best of the top Republican contenders at this point in time, trailing Obama 49-42. That margin is basically the same as what Obama won by against John McCain in November. Huckabee also has the best favorability numbers of the Republican quartet at 42/34. Even after running for President last year a quarter of the country doesn't have an opinion about him one way or the other.
Sarah Palin's numbers are an interesting conundrum. She easily has the best favorability among Republicans voters, with 76% saying they have a positive opinion of her. The other three range from 60-67 with the party base. But she also has the largest percentage of GOP voters- 21%- who say they would vote for Obama if she ended up being the party nominee. So for the folks in the party who don't like her that feeling is strong enough they'd rather vote for a Democrat. It adds up to a 12 point deficit for her, 53-41. Overall the electorate has a negative opinion of Palin, 42/49.
The low 60% favorability rating among GOP voters belongs to Mitt Romney, certainly an indication that securing the nomination is likely to once again be a struggle for him. He is viewed favorably by the largest numbers of Democrats for any of the Republican candidates in the survey, at 27%. He trails Obama 50-39.
The weakest of the potential Republicans at this very early stage is Newt Gingrich, who despite being out of the national spotlight for ten years still appears to have a lot of people who don't think much of him. 36% of voters in the country have a favorable opinion of him with 44% saying it's unfavorable. It's interesting that more voters have a take one way or the other on Gingrich than on Huckabee and Romney who ran for President just last year. Gingrich earned his fame as a partisan warrior and perhaps as a result of that he gets the lowest level of crossover popularity from Democrats, as only 15% of them say they view him positively.
Obama's approval is at 53% with 41% disapproving. Those might not be as good as some of his numbers earlier in the year but he's certainly in solid shape politically overall.
Source Poll: Toughest match-up for Obama in 2012 is … Huckabee
Seems logical. Who better to champion the small-government vogue that’s sweeping the right than a guy who once supported a federal ban on smoking in the workplace?
Say, wasn’t McCain hypothetically the toughest match-up for Democrats prior to last year’s election?
Huckabee fares the best of the top Republican contenders at this point in time, trailing Obama 49-42.
That margin is basically the same as what Obama won by against John McCain in November. Huckabee also has the best favorability numbers of the Republican quartet at 42/34. Even after running for President last year a quarter of the country doesn’t have an opinion about him one way or the other.
Sarah Palin’s numbers are an interesting conundrum. She easily has the best favorability among Republicans voters, with 76% saying they have a positive opinion of her. The other three range from 60-67 with the party base. But she also has the largest percentage of GOP voters- 21%- who say they would vote for Obama if she ended up being the party nominee. So for the folks in the party who don’t like her that feeling is strong enough they’d rather vote for a Democrat. It adds up to a 12 point deficit for her, 53-41. Overall the electorate has a negative opinion of Palin, 42/49.
Crosstabs here. Interestingly, of the four Republicans included in the poll - Huckabee, Palin, Romney, and Gingrich - the first three pull fully 18 percent of the black vote head-to-head with Obama. (Newt pulls nine.) As for Sarahcuda:
It’s women who are killing her, not men. In fact, only Gingrich does worse among women against The One than she does. As for this:
Not only are her numbers among young voters the worst of the four, but Mitt, Huck, and even Newt are actually net favorable among that group. I don’t know how to explain that except to blame it on Tina Fey for turning her into such a joke among SNL’s target audience. Any other theories?
Source Why Doesn't Mike Huckabee Get More Respect?
Mike Huckabee, in spite of having a weekly show on Fox News, is getting very little attention these days. Over the last month, Huckabee has 271 Google News hits, as compared with 1,209 for Mitt Romney, 3,292 for Newt Gingrich, or 9,653 for Sarah Palin.
But when it comes time to actually poll these candidates, Huckabee comes out looking pretty good. A new PPP poll, for instance, for the 2012 (!) Presidential Election shows Huckabee being more competitive than his Republican rivals against Barack Obama.
Huckabee gets the highest percentage of Democratic support (17%) among any of the four candidates PPP tested. He also does the best job of consolidating Republican voters, getting 77% of their support.
Yes, it's ridiculously early to be polling an election four years into the future. Still, one wonders whether the Republican establishment will notice that the same things that make Huckabee unpopular with them (such as his 'unorthodox' positions on cap-and-trade and education) may make him more appealing to actual voters, and whether the media establishment will notice that he's every bit as likely to become President someday as someone like Palin.
Source