The poll we told you over the weekend was in the field from automated polling firm Public Policy Polling is out, and to whatever extent these early numbers say anything, it’s good for Democrats–especially if Republicans keep nominating “Tea Party” candidates. Is this evidence of the ‘crazy fatigue’ Dick Wadhams mentioned when announcing he was done with the Colorado GOP?
President Obama looks strong enough to win Colorado regardless of the name or ideology of the GOP’s headliner next year, but new results from PPP show that a candidate with a less conservative image would certainly have a better shot than one who embraces the Tea Party. [Pols emphasis] A generic Tea-Party Republican would fall to Obama in Colorado by a 53-41 margin, a bigger win for the president than the overall 51-44 he posts against any old generic Republican-but still closer than his leads over the two most conservative named candidates, Sarah Palin (19 points) and Newt Gingrich (14).
A moderate Republican, however, would pull the president under 50%, lagging only 48- 42, very similar to the generic ballot test and to moderate Mitt Romney’s six-point deficit. This matchup would send 14% of independents who were in Obama’s column against a Tea Partier to the undecided category, giving him only a 43-33 lead over the GOP’s more moderate nominee. But a centrist Republican would also cause slightly more Democrats to cross the aisle, and a few more Republicans to stay true to their party.
When asked if the GOP should nominate a moderate or conservative, independents favor the former by a 48-33 margin, but two-thirds of Republicans want a conservative, to only a quarter who prefer someone toward the center. [Pols emphasis]
Today’s memo quoted above, and yesterday’s, which summarized:
“Colorado is one of the states Republicans have to flip if they want to take the White House next year,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But right now, President Obama looks just as strong in the states he won last time as he did then, and Colorado continues to show that it’s trending toward Democrats.”
Voters generally, and pivotal independent voters particularly, want a moderate: but Colorado Republicans want a hardcore conservative by a two-thirds margin. It’s deja vu: you’ve seen this exact same situation before, haven’t you? Before every election in this state since 2004, actually–and if that’s where we’re headed, you already know how the story ends.
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Interesting in the generic re-elect poll, Obama’s worst numbers are with the youngest people, he polls only 48-48. Yet when matched up with named candidates, he beats them all in this demographic by at least 10 points. What this means is that younger liberals aren’t happy with the guy. Seems to me that this may understate Obama’s generic re-elect numbers here in Colorado.
The poll does seem to over state the number of Democrats who answered. This would make it closer than the poll seems.
I think Romney loses more Republican votes than that, though they won’t go to Obama, just to the dustbin. There are lots of Morman haters in the Republican Party. So I would say that the undecided Republicans might just take a walk on Romney rather than elect someone they believe is immoral.
Gee, thought Laughing Boy would be all over this one. Guess not. There isn’t any good news here for him. But since he does seem to love the numbers when they favor his position, thought I’d just rub it in here.
I still think the sample pool is flawed though:
It just doesn’t represent current Colorado voter registration numbers, which show Republicans with a slight advantage statewide.
Here are the raw numbers from the last SoS report:
You could make the case that the oversampling of Dems is from voters who are registered unaffiliated or 3rd party, but tend to self-ID as Democrats. But if that was the case, you would think that there would be a significant upswing in Us who self-ID as Rs, yet it’s only a 2.3% difference between the sample and the reality. The numbers do add up if you take away 11% from the Ds, the ~3% from the Rs and add it to the Us. I just think that’s a dubious result.
I will say that PPP has consistently been one of the most accurate pollsters in Colorado, and they did predict the US Senate races very accurately.
almost all of them registered as “independents” when they were intending to vote for Obama. People are suspicious of the two parties and do not want the phone calls. Ironically, both parties and all campaigns see “independents” as fair game, so they will get more calls, not fewer.
I’m gonna go home and cry. There is clearly no point in even trying to win Colorado next year.
(haha)