Wednesday, February 16, 2011

PPP Polling: President Obama is Vulnerable. Especially against a Moderate

Despite his recent popularity spike there should be no mistaking it- Barack Obama is vulnerable for reelection. The problem for the GOP is that he's a lot more vulnerable against generic Republicans than the actual Republicans looking at the race. Nevertheless there's plenty of time for a lesser known GOP contender to rise from the back of the field and prove to be a strong contender, or maybe even for one of the current front runners to have an image makeover that makes them more viable in a general election.

Republican chances of taking down Obama are going to depend a lot on the type of candidate the party puts forward. Tested against a generic Republican we find Obama tied at 47%. When you ask about a couple more specific types of GOP candidates though the numbers move in different directions. Against a generic moderate Republican candidate Obama actually trails by 2 points at 46-44. But when you ask voters whether they'd go for Obama or a Tea Party conservative Republican he leads by 4 points at 49-45.
If the choices for president next year were Democrat Barack Obama and a conservative Republican candidate endorsed by the Tea Party, who would you vote for? (Obama/Republican)

Moderate Republican 44/46
Conservative Tea Party Republican 49/45

Would you describe yourself as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, or very conservative?

Very liberal 8%
Somewhat liberal 18%
Moderate 30%
Somewhat conservative 25%
Very conservative 19%

Favorable/Unfavorable/Not sure:

Mike Huckabee 36/30/34 (+6)
Jeb Bush 29/37/33 (-8)
Mitt Romney 33/42/25 (-9)
Ron Paul 24/45/31 (-19)
Sarah Palin 34/56/9 (-22)
Newt Gingrich 27/52/20 (-25)
Donald Trump 27/56/17 (-29)

Head-to-Head: (Obama/Candidate/Undecided)

Mike Huckabee 47/44/9 (-3)
Mitt Romney 46/41/13 (-5)
Newt Gingrich 49/40/11 (-9)
Ron Paul 48/39/13 (-9)
Sarah Palin 52/40/9 (-12)
Jeb Bush 50/36/14 (-14)
Donald Trump 48/34/17 (-14)
PPP surveyed 600 registered American voters from February 11th to 14th. The survey’s margin of error is +/-4.0%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

The full story is here.
To view the crosstabs click the PPP icon below:

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this the second poll in 24hrs that Palin comes in BEHIND Ron Paul?

Ouch!

Dave said...

When the time comes, relevant polls will be conducted among likely voters, not registered voters. That phase transition, by itself, would put Mitt and Mike over the top against Obama.

Of course, when the time comes, our candidate will need a lot of money to fight back against the Democrat attack machine and its hundreds of millions of dollars of attack ads.

Mitt has shown a capacity to raise a lot of money. Mike, not so much.

ellie said...

Weird. Huckabee is suddenly seen as 'moderate'?

OhioJOE said...

"Weird. Huckabee is suddenly seen as 'moderate'?" That is what you guys painted him as in 2008.

Anonymous said...

I would not consider Mike a moderate, except for perhaps immigration. On government size, environmentalism, and crime I would consider him to be a liberal. On social issues a hard line rightist.

DanL

OhioJOE said...

Liberal on some issues, Conservative on others, thus on balance, people think of him as moderate.

Ann said...

I'm more surprised in this poll as to Ron Paul's numbers.

Maybe it is the fact that there are 7 people being polled and he does have a small but solid base.

phil said...

Democrat ................... 42%
Republican.................. 38%
Independent/Other........... 20%

I think if more independents had been included, The gap would be greater.

Revolution 2012 said...

This is a wake-up call to the far right. You don't win it in 2012, unless we all come together and back the nominee who has the BEST CHANCE of winning. That includes appealing to independents as well.

kelly said...

I agree with the Rev.

Moderates and independents will be crucial in determining who the next President will be.

ConMan said...

I agree this will be but one of many WAKE-UP calls to the far right.

YOU'RE NOT CALLING THE SHOTS!