Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Obama v. Palin (2012 Trial Heats, July '10)

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As FHQ has not updated its 2012 presidential trial heat poll graphics since December, there is a lot of catching up to do. And what better place to start than with the most talked about candidate, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Let me make a few notes before diving in to all of this. First of all, I will spare you the mess of all the candidate data being dumped into one post by splitting this up into one post per candidate. We'll start with Palin and move on to the other candidates who have been surveyed multiple times in a hypothetical match ups against the president. I don't know whether I'll continue this practice in the future, but it makes sense in trying to synthesize all of the data from the first half of 2010. One addition I have made here is to add a table with all the past numbers included (dates, sample sizes, margin of error, etc.). [You'll find that at the conclusion of the post.] Such an inclusion likely works against the traditional -- all candidates in one -- presentation of the data if kept permanently (and I think it should be. There is too much data now not to.). The best course of action in future is likely to have timely breaking news-type updates when new polls are released followed by updated graphics for each candidate and finally a post discussing the trends across all candidates. That is how we will procede in the short term anyway.

There are a few other things to mention as well. Obviously, things are getting bunched up with so many polls having been conducted in the cases of some candidates. This is most problematic in terms of reporting the polling firms on the figure itself. It is really pronounced in the case of Obama v. Palin. I doubt this practice will be able to survive for much longer. FHQ is currently looking into some Flash- and Java-based alternatives that will allow users to simply hover over a data point on the graph and receive the attendant information. I'll keep you posted on that progress and in the meantime, if anyone has suggestions on how to do that relatively quickly and easily, please just drop a note in the comments section or shoot me an email.

And what of Obama and Palin?

For the sake of brevity, FHQ will confine this catch-up analysis to the overall trend throughout 2010. A poll-by-poll analysis eight months into the year seems like overkill. Public Policy Polling has surveyed this match up every month since March 2009 and as such is by far the most consistent player on the 2012 polling front. Palin has fairly regularly brought up the rear compared to the other three regulars (Gingrich, Huckabee and Romney) against Obama and yet, she, like the others has seen her share of respondents increase in 2010 as Obama's approval has declined. The one noticeable trend is that Palin does better in the PPP (and Rasmussen) surveys than she does in polls conducted by other firms. That is likely to elicit the classic robo-call versus live (phone) interview debate among some, but with so few polls from other outlets, FHQ will simply rate it as something to keep tabs on in the future. Palin's PPP presence has shifted from consistently in the 30s in 2009 to consistently in the 40s in 2010. Other firms are more likely to find her in the 30s in 2010.

The bottom line in this hypothetical match up is that Obama stays closer to 50% against Palin than he does against any of the other regular GOP names in the presidential race. I'll dispense with the straight averages comparison -- it is included in the table below -- but will mention the regression time series. Taking that trend into consideration, Obama leads Palin 49-41. That is all well and good, but none of this particularly matters until and unless the Republican nomination race in 2012 boils down to a two person race where general election electability becomes the argument a la Obama v. Clinton in 2008.

2012 Presidential Trial Heat Polling (Obama v. Palin)
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
ObamaPalin
Undecided
Politico [Internet]
July 9-14, 2010
+/- 3.1%
1011 likely voters
48
3616
Time
July 12-13, 2010
+/- --%
1003 adults/873 r.v.
5534
4
Public Policy Polling
July 9-12, 2010
+/- 3.8%
667 likely voters
46
46
9
Public Policy Polling
June 4-7, 2010
+/- 3.8%
650 likely voters
5041
9
Public Policy Polling
May 7-9, 2010+/- %
707 likely voters
50436
Public Policy Polling
April 9-11, 2010+/- 3.9%
622 likely voters
47
45
7
CNN
April 9-11, 2010
+/- 3.5%
907 reg. voters
5542--
Clarus Research
March 17-20, 2010
+/- 3%
1050 reg. voters
523414
Public Policy Polling
March 12-14, 2010
+/- 2.6%
1403 likely voters
49
41
10
Harris [Internet]
March 10-12, 2010
+/- --%
2344 adults
523513
Public Policy Polling
Feb. 13-15, 2010
+/- 3.5%
743 likely voters
5043
7
Public Policy Polling
Jan. 18-19, 2010
+/- 2.8%
1151 likely voters
49
41
9
Public Policy Polling
Dec. 4-7, 2009
+/- 2.8%
1253 likely voters
50446
Rasmussen
Nov. 24, 2009
+/- 3.5%
800 likely voters
46
43
3
Public Policy Polling
Nov. 13-15, 2009
+/- 3%
1066 likely voters
5143
5
Public Policy Polling
Oct. 16-19, 2009
+/- 3.5%
766 likely voters
5240
8
Public Policy Polling
Sept. 18-21, 2009
+/- 3.9%
621 likely voters
53389
Clarus Research
Aug. 14-18, 2009
+/- 3.1%
1003 voters
533413
Public Policy Polling
Aug. 14-17, 2009
+/- 3.3%
909 likely voters
523810
Marist
Aug. 3-6, 2009
+/- 5%
854 reg. voters
563311
Rasmussen
July 16-17, 2009
+/- 3%
1000 likely voters
48
42
3
Public Policy Polling
July 15-16, 2009
+/- 4.1%
577 likely voters
5143
6
Public Policy Polling
June 12-16, 2009
+/- 3.9%
638 likely voters
52408
Public Policy Polling
May 14-18, 2009
+/- 3.1%
1000 likely voters
56377
Public Policy Polling
April 17-19, 2009
+/- 3.7%
686 likely voters
53416
Public Policy Polling
March 13-15, 2009
+/- 3.7%
691 likely voters
5535
10
Average


51.239.54
--
Regression Average


49.1140.51--


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