Poll Watch: Quinnipiac GOP PA Primary, General Election Matchups

13 Responses to “Poll Watch: Quinnipiac GOP PA Primary, General Election Matchups”

1. JasonJack Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 10:04 am

   mirrors national Ramussen trend w/Local biases.

2. UGADawg Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 10:07 am

   I know a little here and there about PA politics. Does the Republican primary turn into a battle between who can turn out the support among Central PA conservatives v. Philadelphia suburb/LeHigh Valley moderate (trending democrat) republicans?

3. Adam Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 10:26 am

   UGADawg,

   I think you’re on the right track with that idea. It’s important to note that the Pocono Mountain region is growing because of the influx of new residents from New York and New Jersey who commute daily to work in New York City (I wouldn’t want to do that but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to live in PA). These people behave like NJ and downstate NY residents and would strongly favor Rudy in the primary.

   On the other side of the coin (Steeler Country) in the more culturally conservative central and western area of the state, Republican Primary voters behave more like those of WV, KY and rural OH.

4. JohioW Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 10:43 am

   Another poll showing that McCain and Giualini are slowly (more slowly in Rudy’s case) losing to FDT and Romney (who have gained).

   Romney is not losing votes to FDT.

5. Aron Goldman Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 11:05 am

   The good news from this poll for the Giuliani campaign is the fact that not only does Rudy remain in first place, but that his lead over the competition has dramatically increased by nearly 42%, from 12 to 17 percentage points.

6. Adam Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 11:07 am

   JohioW,

   The poll does NOT show that Giuliani lost support to Romney. With a margin of error of 4.1 %, 28 and 29 mean the same thing. I don’t know how that anyone can say that Romney won’t lose votes to Thompson. They’re going after the same constituency. If you have a McDonalds restaurant in one section of town that has sales of $1M per year and you build another one a block away, they aren’t both going to have $1M.

   Anyway Chris Cilliza of the Fix blog on Washington Post (among several others I’ve read this morning) agrees.

7. SGS Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 11:33 am

   Even thoug McCain has lost the voters who want to vote first for him, the unfavorable rating against him has not flared up to the point where they won’t vote for him if he somehow do win the nomination. His position on immigration has not destroyed him, but simply drive the voters away. I think this is a good news, of sort, in that his ship has not been completedly sinked as claimed by a few bloggers.

8. Matt Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 11:45 am

   Adam,

   This has been shown repeatedly, in numerous cross-tabs, across numerous polls: Romney’s supporters are only marginally more conservative then McCain and Giuliani supporters. He is not going after the same people as Thompson is. He’s going after a wide-array or Republican leaning voters, who favor competence, experience, and transformation. Of course, of the three front-runners, he’s the most natural destination, ultimately, of very conservative voters, but most of these people had a more conservative first choice (Hunter, Brownback, etc) before Thompson decided to enter the race. They weren’t going to vote for Romney initially regardless of his entry. To the extent that they would have helped him, it would have occurred only after numerous candidates had dropped out of the race (likely after the Iowa caucus for instance), and Romney became the second choice for these conservatives. But, that’s entirely different from suggesting that Romney’s support is exceedingly conservative, and therefore he’ll be significantly hurt by a “true” conservative candidate. It’s not and he won’t be.

9. HeavyM Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 11:53 am

   Adam,

   When Fred was included for the first time in Rasmussen’s polling, Romney’s numbers went from 8% to… 8%. Rudy’s numbers went from 35% to 26%. Fred isn’t taking from Romney, he’s taking Rudy’s soft support.

   Even more to the point, when Zogby added Fred Thompson to his NH polling, Romney’s numbers went from 13% to 25%. When Fred Thompson was added to his Iowa poll, Romney’s numbers went from 5% to 11%.

   It’s pretty clear from the empirical evidence that Thompson is not drawing his support from Romney. To say so would be to argue that Romney’s support in NH is really around 41%, and his support in Iowa is really around 30% - and I don’t think anybody here believes that.

10. David B Says:
    May 31st, 2007 at 12:06 pm

    I’ve posted over and over: Fred does not take from Romney. The Romney folks are fight, many polls have substantiated this.

    Fred may take 1 or 2% of Romney’s most recent supporters. More in IA and NH where Romney’s got a temporary bump from tons of ads.

    Some of those will pull back when they start noticing what Joe Klein has:
    http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1626721,00.html

11. Adam Says:
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:41 pm

    Guys,

    I agree that Rudy’s “softer” supporters went to Thompson. They had to, otherwise he would still be in the mid 30’s. But outside of a few northeastern states I don’t think it’s going to continue to be the case. Put it this way: Romney has no traction anywhere south of a line drawn from Iowa to New York. We can’t really cite NH as evidence because it really is Romney territory with all of those people that commute to Boston. All the state polls show that too. His numbers are bad in CA, PA, NJ, SC, NV and FL. And to whatever extent Rudy’s original soft supporters went to Thompson when he first got thrown into the polling mix, we haven’t seen any evidence of a continued slide. And If Thompson continues to climb, I can’t see it coming any other way than at the expense of Romney. Rudy is never going to be the candidate for those whose biggest concerns are social issues. Romney and Thompson very well could be and in many cases are, and that’s where there pool of potential voters overlap.

12. Adam Says:
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    Oh yeah, and obviously Romney is not going to take delegate-rich NY either.

13. Campaignia.org Publisher Says:
    May 31st, 2007 at 9:39 pm

    Per the Pennsylvania numbers, from Quinnipiac (which is a highly reliable poll, one which is frequently right on target on PA campaigns):

    First, the primary polling for both parties is really only of academic (or perhaps new-media) interest. Pennsylvania votes so late, that the nominations on both sides will be long since decided.

    That having been said, I would attribute Giuliani’s lead in a GOP primary to several factors:

    1) Due to its proximity to NYC, Giuliani was well-known and admired in PA political circles well before 9/11 ever took place, beginning when he was elected in 1989. Visitors from PA saw firsthand the difference between pre-Giuliani NYC and post-Giuliani NYC.

    2) The state is loaded with ethnic voters (economically liberal, socially and culturally conservatives). In the four suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia (Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, and Delaware), there are many registered Republicans of this type, and they heavily support Giuliani. Similar pockets exist in the regions surrounding Pittsburgh, Erie, Scranton, and the Lehigh Valley.

    What I think is much more interesting, is the general election, which might very well decide the victor nationally. Bush lost the state by only 4.8% in 2000 and only 2.5% in 2004. It should be noted that Bush’s approval/disapproval is a staggering 29/67 (the lowest numbers he’s posted in PA since he’s been president, according to Quinnipiac).

    One would think that with Bush’s numbers so low, that the GOP candidate would be toast, but all three major Republicans are in statistical ties with all three major Democrats. (Thompson loses to all three Democrats, but once his campaign gets rolling he would likely move into a statistical tie as well.)

    It’s a state that the GOP nominee has to vigorously contest, given how few other major states are competitive nowadays. The crux of the GOP problem in PA has been the fact that the Philadelphia suburban vote has been heading south since 1992 in presidential races. To illustrate, the four suburban counties are all registered majority Republican. However, the only one to vote Republican in 1992, 1996, 2000, or 2004, was Chester County. (In other words, the Democratic candidates swept Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware Counties in all four of those contests.) Simply put, the Republican “T” (the north-central part of the state) and the trending-Republican Allegheny/Westmoreland/Butler (greater Pittsburgh) cannot offset the losses in the SE part of the state.

    For a Republican to win statewide in Pennsylvania, it is imperative that even if they can’t win all of the suburban counties, that they at least cut down their margins of defeat. It didn’t help that two of the three suburban GOP congressmen (Mike Fitzpatrick in Bucks and Curt Weldon in Delaware/Chester) were defeated in 2006 and the third (Jim Gerlach in Montgomery/Delaware/Chester) barely escaped defeat in a district explicitly drawn for him by GOP allies in Harrisburg.