Talk Elections

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Giuliani-R: 50%
Clinton-D: 40%

Clinton-D: 45%
Thompson-R: 45%

Arizona Senator John McCain leads Clinton by just three points while the former First Lady is essentially even with former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. However, Clinton doesn’t attract more than 45% support against any of the GOP hopefuls.

Sixty percent (60%) of Colorado voters say that Democratic Governor Bill Ritter is doing a good or an excellent job. Twenty-six percent (26%) say fair while 10% believe Ritter is doing a poor job.

Those numbers are much stronger than President Bush earns in the state. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of the Colorado’s voters give the President good or excellent marks while 18% say he’s doing a fair job and 45% say poor.

As for the 2008 hopefuls, Clinton is viewed favorably by 46% and unfavorably by 52%.

Giuliani is the best liked of all the candidates, 58% favorable and 39% unfavorable. Thompson’s numbers are 44% favorable and 38% unfavorable. McCain is viewed favorably by 44%, but another 51% have an unfavorable opinion of the man once viewed as the GOP frontrunner. Romney is viewed favorably by 41% and unfavorably by 45%.

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/giuliani_leads_clinton_in_colorado

First impression:

1) Yehaaa, finally a poll from Colorado ! :)

2) Meeeh, Clinton suxx ! :(

3) Thumbs up to Bill Ritter ! :)

4) No Senate poll ! :(

New updated GE election map with all the latest state polls (Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA, R2000 etc.):

Giuliani vs. Clinton:

Clinton: 241 EV
Giuliani: 147 EV

Changes: First CO poll with Giuliani ahead, OH flips from toss-up to Giuliani, Clinton keeps NH and FL

()

There were other polls in Ohio, Colorado and Florida?

These polls and that map are all useless, I hope you know that. It doesn't matter who's ahead now, no matter who it says is ahead. Wait until after the nominees are chosen, then you can start going crazy about polls. We should all focus on the nomination polls, not the GE ones.

Bubba was unpopular in Colorado IIRC.

Agreed that until people start focusing on the race (months away) these polls mean little.  Giuliani is no more going to win Colorado by 10 than he will lose Florida by 5.  Polls now are interesting but still don't tell us a lot at this time.

Well Thompson has a tough fight and Bush is doing worse in CO than in OH by a point or two. There could be possible more discontent for liberals to lock into in CO. Then again, Rudy would probably sweep the west but lose NM. Heck, I am considering voting for him. Rudy really takes out the umph from the bedroom dems, which what most dems are in the west. Then again, the hispanic vote will be much harder to get.

Pretty good analysis. 

Ok, these maps are definitely uninformative as to the final result: the nominees haven't been chosen, they're from different sources, they use different samples, etc. But they're hardly useless.

Even taking this composite with a grain of salt a few conclusions can be reasonably drawn:

1. The Democrats have a tremendous advantage at this point. They are expanding at the Republicans' expense in all corners of the country while Repubicans have failed to make any inroads into Democratic strongholds, CT notwithstanding.

2. Guiliani's moderate stances aren't swaying the masses. Guiliani, on paper at least, should be gutting the Democratic faithful on the issues. With so much crossover appeal, especially in places like California and Florida, a moderate Republican should be at least tied with a Democrat like Hilary Clinton. But he's not.  He's made barely a dent in the Northeast, nothing on the west coast, and only just slipped past the post in the midwest.

3. Clinton's target audience is listening. I haven't seen WV flip Democrat in the map since 2000. Clinton's whole strategy in the primaries is to get chummy with the lower income, salt-of-the-earth, populist types in the Democratic Party. From this map it looks like she's done that and managed to snatch some Republican voters too.

I'd actually go even farther than you do, and say that, even after the nominations have been decided (which will presumably happen in February), the polls will still not be very useful in predicting who will win and by what margin.  Frequently, the race doesn't really crystallize until after the conventions, so we might not have a good indication for another year.

However, leaving aside what the polls tell us about who would win nationally, what about the question of relative strength of the two parties between different states?  If, hypothetically, we got a bunch of polls showing the Democrats stronger in Florida than Ohio or stronger in West Virginia than Colorado, then might that not tell us something interesting about what the electoral map might look like next year, depending on what the overall national popular vote margin is (which we won't be able to guess for a long time yet)?

Thanks. Also the fact that Guiliani is an Italian-American might sway me to vote for him. I, for one, am half-Italian.

Not so negative Master. What should we do in the next 1 year instead of interpreting all the polls that pop up ? Baking cookies and cakes ? ;) I know that it is way too early now and even a week can be a looong time in politics, but I´ll keep updating this map no matter what anyone says (at least I´m updating it until early next year when www.electoral-vote.com takes over my job ...) :P

Yep.  The halcyon days of the CO GOP.  Of course, no other polls validate this result.

I'll make a couple of comments here as to the four Rasmussen polls received today:

The Ohio and NH polls essentially match "fairly" recent iterations by other companies - thus, I see no reason to believe they're not true.  Giuliani tied with Hillary in OH, Hillary with a slight lead in NH.  Thompson performs better in Ohio and worse in NH.  Romney is the opposite (may have something to do with constant advertising).  Ohio and New Hampshire are not places where the polling tends to go faulty (2006 NH excepted) - that adds another layer of believability.

The Florida iteration comes close to matching Q - and that would in turn show a slight Clinton lead over Giuliani (and larger leads over the others).  Of course, Florida polling has more problems than answers - and this poll's internals looks pretty strange to me for a couple of reasons (not listed here).  And the usual Florida polling Dem lean would likely push that result towards a tie (Giuliani only).  Anyway, I'll simply wait for M-D here - if it validates this, then this is probably correct - if not, then no.

And if you think this Florida commentary is confusing, just wait until we get to general election polling from New Mexico and Wisconsin.  ;)

I agree with Sam that MD will give us a very good handle on Florida even this far out.

... if they ever do GE polls additionally to their primary polls.

They will.  Give them time - the election isn't tomorrow.

Hillary has some inherent strengths, and some inherent weaknesses.

Pushing Colorado off the table is one of those weaknesses.

I´m wondering now if the Clinton campaign will actually go for Colorado if these numbers stay this way until early 2008 when she´s the DEM candidate and Rudy the Republican one ...

Why would you spend time in money in Colorado when you could mop up the election in Ohio and Florida?  Hillary's style and politics play far better in places like Florida and Ohio.  She can pour loads of money and spend lots of time here, she still won't clear Kerry's 47%.

Hillary would have a much easier time winning states like Missouri, West Virginia, and Arkansas.  She could probably win the damn election with nearly 350 EVs and still not carry Colorado.

Although the polls in CO usually favor GOPers by 3 or 4 points. This probably means that Thompson is gonna get beat in CO and that Guiliani is going to win by 46-53.

So am I...what's your other half? Mine is German.

Fred Thompson is not going to be the nominee.  But if he some how were to win, he's still not losing Colorado to Clinton.

I don't think so!  Fred Thompson isn't even in the race yet, and he's already tied with the already well known Clinton.  In most states Romney and Thompson are running behind Clinton.  The fact that these two unknowns are actually tied with Hillary in Colorado tells me that the GOP should be spending their time on the senate race--not the POTUS race.  The GOP could win Colorado by ten points and still lose the senate race....

Not really that surprising. Hillary can't win Colorado. Bill wasn't very liked in Colorado either.

Thompson an unknown? Maybe if you were making this argument in April...

Among the low-information type swing voters who usually decide at the last minute, his name recognition approaches 0%.

Not really.  That was a 2004 phenomenon only (as far as we know).  Prior to that, in every race I can remember since 1994, the polls in Colorado consistently understated GOP strength by about 3-4 points.  Granted, Colorado hatred of Clinton, esp. among the evangelicals, may have fueled this. 

In 2006, the polling average was dead-on for the Governor's race - although the individual polls varied greatly.  Same with the two major House races.

...In which case polls won't change as they get to know him anyway.

I really wonder how Udall could win and Clinton could lose. Their politics are similiar.



Also, 2004 was an altogher different scenario than the more consistent elections. I really don't see how Hillary could win Wva and not Colorado. Unless, of course, she plays to more communitarian audiences. One thing I do not understand is how Clinton could be so hated in Colorado and actually do well in places like Arkansas.


Mine is Hugonaut (however you spell it)


Anyways, upon viewing the performance rating of BUSH at RR, I see that-
He is at 39 in Ohio
  37 in Colorado
  36 in Florida
  36 nationally
  27 in New Hampshire ...

and with Thompson, Hillary has a one point lead in Ohio, tied in CO and leading by HUGE margins in the east. Also, Florida is less willing to support tax hikes than Colorado... wow.....as conducted by this survey...the toplines are very interesting. I think that Florida might flip and that NH will be as dem as Maine in the next election while it comes down to Ohio and Colorado.

Is that why Strickland beat Allard by a bigger margin than anticipated?

Good time now to answer some of your quotes from the "John Elway for Senate" thread:


It seems my prediction was right for the most part, except when it comes to Giuliani vs. Clinton. I didn´t think Clinton would suck that badly against Giuliani in CO since she was about tied with him in FL, a state Bush won with the same margin as CO.

I thought Clinton would start CO in the 45% range in her first poll rather than 40%, because it trended DEM in 2004 contrary to FL. But I already had a bad feeling about Clinton´s standing in CO  when I saw this article about Clinton dragging congressional candidates down. (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=61098.0)

It seems Giuliani has quite an appeal to moderate COans, probably ahead 60-40 in this group right now, while the other Republicans (Thompson, McCain, Romney) won´t have it in that range. Clinton will have to gain 5% in the next year and Giuliani lose 5% and I don´t know if that´s likely. As I´ve said in this thread before, Clinton´s campaign probably won´t focus on CO at all if she´s still behind Giuliani by 10% after Super-Tuesday. If she can bring Giuliani´s lead down to 3% until September next year, I think it´s still possible for her to win 49-48-3. And I still think CO will be the tightest race next year ;)

BTW: Where do you get Schaffers internals from ? Do you work for his campaign ?

One thing I don't understand is how Udall would be doing better than Hillary and how Hillary is being singled out in the polls.

Also, other polls show a similar story to Ohio. Could it just be that Guiliani is just really strong in Colorado? His politics match up pretty well except for the sole issue of gun control in Colorado but he could lose the Hispanic vote.

Cause Colorado hates, Hillary, but not enough so that Romney will win 60%+ against her ::)

Why would they hate Hillary but not Udall? Was it because of Hillary care?

It's just not a populist state, and the Clintons are populists.

What do you mean by "populist"? Big Government Social Conservative idelogy or just the political style?

Because Udall is no less liberal than Clinton....but appears to work on issues like the environment and sportsmen while Hillary is more interested in violent video games (probably why so many don't like her) and health care.

The political style, not the upper-left political ideology (though Clinton has a bit of that, too). The Clintons have always been about big, cheering crowds who weren't enthusiastic because of the issues, just because it was the Clintons they were cheering. Gore wasn't about that, nor Kerry, and they did much better than Bill Clinton in Colorado. Bush 43 has some of that, but Dole certainly didn't, and Bush 41 also didn't.

Of course, that suggests that populism is generally a winning strategy, just not in Colorado, an assessment I can agree with.

Whoa, whoa, Udall hasn't been elected Senator yet.  We have yet to see how fond Colorado is of Udall.

If there is this much talk about one poll that has not been substantiated by anyone else, I can only imagine where we'll be in a few months.  Once again, the lack of understanding wrt Colorado on this forum is breathtakingly amusing.

Why is he expected to do so much better?

Wonder why...

It IS amusing!  Oh well.  Who am I to burst anyone's bubble.  I leave that to the candidates. 

Colorado is actually not that hot for Rudy.  I don't think he plays well here at all.  His positions on gay rights and gun control will probably be the killer for him.  Rudy leaves Colorado's hefty social conservative base at home and leaves the door open for even Hillary to win by a point or two.

But Rudy won't be the nominee so I'm not getting terribly energized about this poll.  One poll is interesting to look at, but I wouldn't read much from it.  I think Colorado stays red but it won't be 60-40 for Rudy. 

As far as the Senate race, who knows?  Schaffer plays well to Colorado's politics but the national environment may kill him.  It may all come down to how well the GOP POTUS candidate does in bringing downticket races with him....

the only interest of this poll. All people know Hillary Clinton and nobody will change his position. Colorado will be GOP in 2008 (except if the republican candidate is a very bad candidate doing mistakes, mistakes and still mistakes)..

The favor. of giluiani will be down in next months. Thompson has still a margin.

This actually goes AGAINST the showing that Rudy is doing AMAZING in CO against the national records in terms of favorability. I was down the entire I-25 corridor weekend and things look better for the dems than last time. My moderate republican father-in-law doesn't like Schaffer that much at all and he has voted for the winning candidates since at least 2004 on all levels. ..and remember, while there are neo-cons in Colo Springs and on the plains, there are tons of traditional western conservatives in the burbs, mountains, and on the plains as well.