Public Policy Polling has done a long series of state polls since Election Day 2010 in various states around the country. They’ve polled potential 2011 and 2012 gubernatorial and Senate matchups, Republican Presidential primary results, and several other issues, even including rematches of 2010 races.
One of the most interesting nuggets in their polling, however, is that they’ve polled President Barack Obama’s reelection against four Republican candidates—Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin—in all of these states (except Wyoming, which I think we can safely agree would have been a waste of time).
They have now gone through enough states that we can get a baseline idea of how President Obama would fare in virtually every potential swing state against each of these four candidates…and consequently, the chances of his winning reelection.
I’ve compiled the results in a Google spreadsheet which is publicly available; you can view the results here, and I’ve made a few electoral maps for illustration. I’ve split the maps into two categories:
1) with “tossup” states—any state where the candidates are separated by five points or less—in yellow, and assigned to neither candidate.
2) With all states assigned according to whoever is in the lead, whether it’s by 1 point or 21, and with the only tossups being states where candidates are actually tied.
The obvious conclusions are as follows:
- President Obama isn’t overwhelmingly popular and he could lose under the right circumstances (especially if the economic recovery stalls). But he’s favored for reelection anyway because he’s a lot more popular than even the best of the Republican candidates tested (Romney and Huckabee), and if the Republicans want to beat him they’ll have to find a candidate with more appeal to moderates than anyone they’ve got right now. It’s possible, of course, that someone flying under the radar right now could fit the bill, like Mitch Daniels.
- Romney and Huckabee would be underdogs but at least competitive; Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich would be wiped out. It’s going to be very difficult for any Republican to beat Obama if the economy continues its slow but steady improvement through next fall, but if the GOP winds up nominating a Palin/Bachmann/Gingrich type candidate they could be in for the biggest Democratic landslide since 1964. They make Obama competitive in places like Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota. Which is probably why the Republicans will come to their senses and pick someone less offensive.
The Republican path to victory basically involves nominating one of the less offensive candidates (Huckabee and Romney in this polling; people like Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman and Mitch Daniels probably also fit the profile), and secretly hope the economic recovery stalls badly. Without the latter, they’ll lose; without the latter or the former, they probably won’t come close.
PPP hasn’t polled 2012 head-to-heads in all 50 states, so projecting electoral maps requires a few assumptions. They have polled pretty much every state that could conceivably be competitive except for Indiana, North Dakota, Washington state, and if you want to stretch, Alaska.
I have assumed that all these states will vote as they did in 2008, except for Indiana, which I assume will go Republican barring a Palin or Gingrich nomination (or similar GOP disaster). Why did I make that assumption regarding Indiana? Because I’m the decider. So there.
North Dakota could be competitive or even go Democratic under the right (Palin, Bachmann) circumstances, but let’s leave it alone for now.
A couple caveats about reading too much into this polling:
1) It would be nice to call this a snapshot in time, but we can’t even really do that. Not all these polls were done at the same time! Some were done shortly after the 2010 election; others were done at a time when Democrats were enjoying a brief surge (Ohio was polled right after John Kasich's numbers tanked). Since the polls weren't all done at the same time, some may have
2) It’s just four people polled. We don’t really know how Trump or Bachmann or Pawlenty would do. We can guess, but we don’t know. They have been polled in some states though (Trump in NH, Pawlenty in MN, Jeb Bush in FL, Chris Christie in NJ) and there’s no reason to think they would definitely do better than Mittens or Huck. Usually they do worse.
Finally, I’ve used an arbitrary distinction to determine what states are “toss-ups”, that arbitrary distinction being “both candidates within five points of each other”. That doesn’t mean all tossups are created equal. I certainly think Mitt Romney has a better chance at New Hampshire than Obama does at Georgia, for example.
Against Huckabee
Huckabee was considered Obama’s strongest opponent a few months ago. He still might be.
But he’s lost ground to Obama in the key states of Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin. He’s compensated somewhat by picking up ground in North Carolina, and being within three in Pennsylvania (putting it in tossup status).
Obama has 307 electoral votes against Huckabee per PPP, with 163 for Huck and 68 up for grabs. (Ignore the EV counts at the bottom of the electoral maps. Those are using pre-census data).
Huckabee with tossups
Assigning toss-up states according to which candidate enjoys slight leads in PPP’s polling, Obama pulls in 333 electoral votes, to 189 for Huckabee and 16 deadlocked in North Carolina.
Huckabee, tossups assigned
That’s closer than 2008 (actually, if you give Obama North Carolina, it’s the same map minus Indiana for the Democrats, and with Democrats losing a couple electoral votes because of the census), but it’s a few big swing states shy of victory for Huckabee.
Against Romney
Arizona is more solid with Romney (he’s up six), and Florida is a tossup, as is Pennsylvania. Like all the other Republicans, Romney can’t quite pull away with Georgia (though he’s ahead).
Romney is now clearly the strongest potential GOP opponent for Obama, at least in PPP’s amalgamated state polling. He is within the margin of error in six states Obama carried—Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Those states are worth 81 electoral votes all told.
Further, he’s the only of the four Republicans who is keeping it relatively close in places like Maine and Massachusetts (not that he can realistically hope to win either). Finally, he’s got the best shot of any Republican at picking off Michigan, which is worth 14 electoral votes.
On the other hand, he’s quite weak in places Republicans shouldn’t be weak. He’s up only one point in Missouri and three in Georgia, and most surprisingly of all, he leads by only seven in Texas, the state which is obviously the sine qua non of Republican electoral strategy. He’s even within single digits (seven points) in Tennessee, which was a bloodbath in 2008.
With tossups excluded, Romney holds Obama to 267 electoral votes, meaning he could win if everything breaks right.
Romney with tossups
The problem for Romney is that if everything doesn’t break right, he’ll lose as badly as Huck will—or worse. With all states allocated according to leader, the map is exactly the same as the McCain map (except again, we’ve assigned Indiana to Romney without the polling data to back it up). That’s 348 electoral votes for Obama, a pretty solid victory.
Romney, tossups assigned
Romney’s better than any of the other Republicans at making inroads into Democratic-leaning states. His problem is that he isn’t actually carrying any of them—yet.
Against Gingrich
A Gingrich nomination would be a disaster for Republicans. In this scenario Obama would have 334 electoral votes locked down, with the potential for many more—states like Tennessee, South Carolina and even Texas would be tossups in this scenario. Gingrich would have only 78 electoral votes he could reliably count on—perhaps even less, if North Dakota or Alaska were competitive.
Gingrich with tossups
Assigning tossup states to leaders, it gets really ugly for Gingrich. Obama picks up 398 electoral votes, and that’s without assigning Arizona and Missouri (both of which are tied in PPP’s last poll).
Gingrich, tossups assigned
Against Palin
Well, we can only hope. Palin turns South Carolina blue. And South Dakota, and Georgia, and…hell, Obama’s up a point in Nebraska.
That pretty much says it. With tossups:
Palin with tossups
With tossups assigned:
Palin, tossups assigned
As even a Fox News poll this week shows, the Republican field is not well liked, not even among Republicans (only Tea Party members count themselves “impressed” by the Republican field.) That being the case, President Obama is in good shape for reelection despite middling numbers with independents. He’s not likely to lose to a more charismatic or compelling candidate, because no such candidate appears to be running for President. But he could lose if his own numbers take a dive—which will probably only happen with a major economic reversal.
It would be nice to have a Palin or Bachmann nomination—it would be great for party building in states where Democrats haven’t won lately—but it doesn’t appear to be necessary for President Obama’s reelection. That should depend far more on the state of the economy, and little else.
