Marist: Obama leads by 17 in WI

One of the sad, delusional narratives that many wingnuts insist on is the idea that Republican Governors mean that a State will vote Republican in the presidential race. It's just one of the elements of the "It's still 2010!" mindset that conservatives have completely immersed themselves in. It's very easy to play this game: just pick a few solid "red" States, note that these States have Republican Governors, and it becomes 'obvious' that having a Republican Governor guarantees that a State will vote for Republican nominee. 

And this is how the wingnut commentary machine 'proves' that Wisconsin will never vote for Obama in the general election. Never mind that the State hasn't gone "red" in decades, nor that the current Republican governor is only narrowly ahead in polling of the recall election, nor that the current Republican Governor's promise of 250k new jobs is in the negative. Nope, it's still 2010, and "anybody" can beat Obama. 

When you have one side so completely invested in an alternate reality, polling becomes the only way to counter these delusions with facts. This is why conservatives hate polling; because they hate facts. To movement conservatives, facts are just beliefs that a lot of people agree on. Therefore, if conservatives believe in something, it becomes a fact. Likewise, disbelieving something means that it's no longer a fact. If this sounds an awful lot like a religion, it's because the current Republican Party operates very much like a quasi-religion. Anything can be turned into a "fact" if people believe in it - especially if "real Americans" believe in it. 

This is why conservative-leaning pollsters are settling for a tie in so many of their skewed surveys. A tie means a win in the conservative mind, because "the polls" are 'known' to be wrong, and the vast numbers of un-polled voters are already 'known' to side with them. Besides, "the polls" include Democrats, and they 'know' that Democrats don't vote. 

With that in mind, let's examine the latest Marist poll of Wisconsin (2792 RV, ±1.9% MoE, 3/26 - 3/27). What little attention the media has given to this survey has been on the subject of the primary results, which shows Romney ahead by 7 among 740 likely primary voters. Of course, since conservatives are unable to distinguish between primary polling and general election polling, this has been read as meaning that Romney will win WI over Obama by seven points. If you are one of those people, then it probably won't matter if I pull the actual results out of the actual release, because your mind is made up.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president? 

Registered Voters
Approve       50
Disapprove   40
Unsure         10
Total            100

Once again, we see that the 'hated tyrant' is in positive ground on job approval. Surely this is impossible, because Wisconsin has a Republican Governor, and it's still 2010.

If November's presidential election were held today, whom would you support if the candidates are:

Registered Voters
Barack Obama, the Democrat     52
Mitt Romney, the Republican       35
Undecided                                  13
Total                                           100 

If you are one of those people who actually believes in arithmetic, 52 minus 35 equals 17. Of course, that would indicate that Romney is losing to Obama by 17 points, so arithmetic is obviously part of the liberal academic conspiracy. 

Ron Paul loses WI in a match-up with Obama 51/36 (O +15). Paul doing better than Romney obviously means that Paul would 'win'. His win would just be on negative margin, of course.

Santorum comes out the strongest in a match-up with Obama, losing by only 13 points (51/38). When a double-digit loss is the best outcome in a match-up, it seems like that State is not going "red". With Santorum established as the "social conservative" candidate, let's look at how that position stacks up with voters in WI:

Which party comes closer to your views on social issues such as abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage:

Registered Voters
The Democratic party    45
The Republican party     41
Unsure                          14
Total                             100

Which political party do you think currently does a better job of appealing to people who are not among its hard-core supporters: 

Registered Voters
The Democratic party    48
The Republican party     32
Unsure                           20
Total                              100

If you read those numbers and think that focusing on the hard-core Republican base will win over the general electorate, then you are a wingnut. But let's look at the numbers for that Republican Governor, whose election surely guarantees that Wisconsin will go "red" in November:

Switching topics... Do you approve or disapprove of the job Scott Walker is doing as governor?

Registered Voters
Approve       48
Disapprove   48
Unsure          4
Total             100 

If the recall election for governor coming up in the next several months were held today, whom would you support:

Registered Voters
Governor Scott Walker, the Republican   46
The Democratic candidate                       48
Undecided                                              6
Total                                                      100

Okay, so the 'hated' Obama only has 40% disapproval, but the 'popular' Walker has 48% disapproval among WI voters. And 48% of the WI voters want to remove that 'popular' Governor from office. Now, after you are finished ranting about 'union thugs', socialism, conspiracies and the like, please explain how these numbers indicate that the current Republican Governor helps the Republican Party win the presidential election in Wisconsin. 

It's also interesting that only 25% of Wisconsin's registered voters consider themselves to be supporters of the Tea Party, with only 7% describing themselves as "strong supporters". 67% of the voters say that they do not support the Tea Party. However, 54% of the likely Republican primary voters consider themselves to be supporters of the Tea Party. Does this sound like the WI Republican Party is in line with the rest of the general electorate? 

Wisconsin, and it's 10 electoral votes (EV), is considered to be part of Obama's solid 239 EV base. In 2008, Obama won the State 56/43.

Previous polling for WI:

• Rasmussen (500 LV, ±4.5% MoE, 2/27)        47/42 (O +5)
• Rasmussen (500 LV, ±4.5% MoE, 3/27)        52/41 (O +11)
• PPP (900 RV, ±3.27% MoE, 2/23 -2/26)        53/39 (O +14)
• PPP (1170 RV, ±2.9% MoE, 10/20 - 10/23)    46/43 (O +3)

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Pollster ratings from fivethirtyeight.com, based on 2010 elections: 

PPP: Obama "doing well" in WI

The latest PPP survey of Wisconsin (900RV, ±3.27% MoE, 2/23 -2/26) is out, and it's no longer 2010. The poll also included 556 likely Republican primary voters (±4.16% MoE) to round out their conclusions on where the Party is at. 

Let's look at what PPP's Tom Jensen has to say regarding the Republican field in WI: 

All the Republican presidential challengers are suffering from negative favorability ratings of 50% of more. Santorum’s rating among Wisconsin voters comes in at 37% favorable and 50% unfavorable, and it only gets worse from there: Romney is at 25/61, Ron Paul is at 23/59, and Newt Gingrich is at 19/68.

“Wisconsin was a swing state in 2000 and 2004,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But in 2008 it shifted to being safely Democratic and it looks like that trend is going to continue in 2012.”

Even among just Republican voters, only Rick Santorum is viewed favorably by a majority of voters in his own party with a 67/18 rating. The three other Republican candidates have worse ratings among Wisconsin Republicans: Newt Gingrich is at 35/48, Mitt Romney is at 49/34 and Ron Paul is at 29/53.

This is what pollsters (e.g. Ann Selzer) and pundits are missing when they focus on Obama's weak job approval numbers: the Republican candidates are even less popular than Obama. Even Gallup says so. 

There just isn't a strong "anybody but Obama" sentiment outside of the Republican base, but these pollsters and pundits are fixated on the Republican base. Polling continues to show that this base is out of the mainstream in opinion. Even Rasmussen says that 52% of "likely voters" consider the Republican agenda to be "extreme", and only 35% consider that Party to be "mainstream". Yet, many keep on pretending that 35% is a majority, and they mindlessly contend that Obama's lack of appeal to that 35% dooms him in some nebulous way. 

Further, these same people put forth the odd idea that approval is very important when determining if people will vote for Democrats, but relatively meaningless when it comes to voting for Republicans. This is part of the entire narrative that disaffected voters will rally to the Republican nominee once he is chosen, and forget about how they never really liked that guy very much before. 

How out of touch does a person have to be to imagine that a considerable number of non-Republicans are simply waiting for the Republican Party to tell them who to vote for? 

Having dealt with that, let's look at the highlights of the Wisconsin poll:

• Obama's job approval is at 52%, with 44% disapproving. But he's a hated tyrant, right?
• Obama leads Romney in a match-up 53/39, with 8% undecided. Even if every undecided voter went for Romney, it wouldn't overcome Obama's 14% lead. And, even if the MoE broke entirely in Romney's favour, it wouldn't result in Romney winning.
• Santorum would be the long shot here: 49/43 in a match-up, with 8% undecided. If undecided voters break strongly in Santorum's favour, and the MoE falls to the Republicans, Santorum could have a narrow victory in WI.
• WI went 56/43 for Obama in 2008. This poll's sample breaks 52/40 on those who voted for Obama/McCain in 2008, so it's one point tilted in the Republicans' favour. This pretty much lays to rest any claims of Democratic bias in the sample.
• Moderates strongly approve of Obama (67/27), leaving that Republican base out in the cold. In a match-up with Romney, moderates break similarly (67/24). This makes it difficult to believe that voters who are not already firmly in the Republican camp would "jump ship" once a nominee is chosen.
•  There is no real gender gap in Romney's "favourables". He is unliked by about 60% of both men and women, yet he wins 42% of men in a match-up with Obama. 11% of women who do not see him favourably still break for him in a match-up with Obama.
• Obama wins Independent voters 57/33, with only 10% undecided, in a match-up with Romney. How does this reinforce the current Republican narrative that voters outside of the Republican base are simply waiting for the nominee to be chosen? It looks as if there's not enough "undecided" Independents to swing this election.
• Santorum loses Independent voters 51/38 to Obama in a match-up, with 11% undecided. 
• Obama wins a slim majority of white voters (51%), while Romney only gets 41% of that crucial Republican demographic.
• Obama has a majority approving his job performance in all ages under 65. Those 65+ only break a mere 4% to the "disapprove" side.
• In a match-up with Ron Paul, Obama wins the 18-29 age group by more than 3-1 (!). Yet another State where that Paul "youth vote" is non-existent.
• The 65+ age demographic is the strongest for Republicans in a match-up between Obama and either Romney or Santorum. Yet, either Republican merely breaks even with Obama in this crucial Republican demographic.
• Voters who are not in a union merely break even (45/45) in match-up between Obama and Romney. Yet, the Republican narrative is that "only the unions" support Obama. Santorum has only a narrow 4-point edge over Obama in this same demographic in a match-up with Obama.

Among the likely Republican primary voters, Santorum is the favourite, but his support is soft:

Q5 If the Republican candidates for President
were Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney,
and Rick Santorum, who would you vote for?
Newt Gingrich ................................................. 10%
Ron Paul ......................................................... 8%
Mitt Romney.................................................... 27%
Rick Santorum................................................ 43%
Someone else/Not sure .................................. 12%

Q6 Would you say you are strongly committed to
that candidate, or might you end up supporting
someone else?
Strongly committed to that candidate.............. 38%
Might end up supporting someone else .......... 62%

 The Tea Party loves Santorum. 82% of Santorum's 67% Republican favourables self-identify as Tea Party members. Romney just breaks even with the Tea Party.

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Pollster ratings from fivethirtyeight.com, based on 2010 elections: