CO-PPP: Obama, with 50% disapproval, leads Romney by 7, others by more

[Ban my account ffs!]

I love how people think MN will go for Bachmann or Pawlenty just because they're from MN.

Umm.. Obama got 55% in Minnesota.  Pawlenty never got even close to 50%... 46% was his best.  And Bachmann?  She gets reelected with small margins in the most conservative district in the state.  Obama will outperform his 2008 margin in MN if she is chosen.

[backtored]

It's always funny to see people talking about Californian migration.

When people are leaving California, they're hard-working conservatives escaping liberal tyranny. But when they arrive in their new state, they've suddenly become liberal invaders importing their evil coastal culture.

That's absolutely true.  Conservatives here love to complain about how Californians turned Colorado blue.  The irony is that they actually made a libertarian state a much more socially conservative, right-leaning state.  In the 90s evangelicals from Orange County and beyond moved here in droves to places like El Paso and Douglas Counties (the two beating hearts of the state GOP), and changed the political climate completely.  Here's what happened:

Social conservatism became the new force in GOP politics and libertarians like Hank Brown and Ben Campbell became dead in the nominating water.  The state turned to the right on social issues, and the GOP turned way to the right, because more like Texas than Wyoming, its traditional political sibling.  That really ticked off liberals and especially gay activists like Tim
Gill, who dumped millions of dollars into electing Democrats who would fend off social conservatives' agenda items.  It worked, and the state's independents started voting Democratic and Democrats had the money they didn't have before to win key legislative races.

Because social issues are less important given the economic problems in the country, the GOP is experiencing a lot of growth statewide and their future is actually brighter than Democrats.  But it is true that Californians turned Colorado more purple.  But only because they were conservatives, not liberals.

[backtored]

I love how people think MN will go for Bachmann or Pawlenty just because they're from MN.

Umm.. Obama got 55% in Minnesota.  Pawlenty never got even close to 50%... 46% was his best.  And Bachmann?  She gets reelected with small margins in the most conservative district in the state.  Obama will outperform his 2008 margin in MN if she is chosen.

I don't think that most people believe that.  Obama's numbers in the Gallup poll were very strong in Minnesota, as I'd expect.  The state is very liberal and Republicans who would rather target it and other midwestern states (or Pennsylvania) than Virginia or Colorado are only buying into the Obama headfake.  It makes no sense to go for perennially blue states that might have done well for the GOP in 2010 at the expense of perennially red states like Colorado and Virginia.

But Reince Preibus and the rest of the GOP's strategy team doesn't ask my advice, so who knows how 2012 will shake out.

[Eraserhead]

Republicans may want to give up on CO, barring a GOP landslide. It seems to be out of reach for now. Hell, look at what happened in 2010...

[pbrower2a]

It is too early to figure who will be the registered voters of 2012. Democrats and their political associates will do everything possible to register as many new voters as possible in Colorado and elsewhere -- as in 2008. I am satisfied that the McCain-Obama gap is a fair representation of the likely split.

Voter registration figures are readily available. The fact that some choose to ignore them is more a sign of the bias of the ignorer than reality.

So people who voted for President Obama are moving out of Colorado? To what states? I can accept that explanation of Pennsylvania drifting R, with what used to be liberal Pennsylvanians moving to Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia and voting there.

 

[cavalcade]

Without Colorado, and assuming nothing crazy like Rs winning MI or NJ or WI, the Republican candidate will need one of

- IA + NV
- VA
- PA

And those are all really, really tough.

[pbrower2a]

Without Colorado, and assuming nothing crazy like Rs winning MI or NJ or WI, the Republican candidate will need one of

- IA + NV
- VA
- PA

And those are all really, really tough.

Add Ohio, which is far from a slam dunk for Republicans.

[Brittain33]

I'm surprised at how fast and how much Colorado has moved to the Democrats. It has become the opposite of West Virginia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._States_by_Education_attainment

I'm not making any kind of snarky point about the electorate, but this is predictive of how social issues, broadly defined, can trump economic issues.

[cavalcade]

Without Colorado, and assuming nothing crazy like Rs winning MI or NJ or WI, the Republican candidate will need one of

- IA + NV
- VA
- PA

And those are all really, really tough.

Add Ohio, which is far from a slam dunk for Republicans.

Actually, I'm assuming for simplicity that the Republican candidate has already won Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and New Hampshire, all of which are far from a slam dunk for Republicans.  After that, if he doesn't get Colorado he must win one of those three combinations, or something crazy like New Jersey.

That's how hard 2012 will be for whoever gets the nomination.  

[krazen1211]

It is too early to figure who will be the registered voters of 2012. Democrats and their political associates will do everything possible to register as many new voters as possible in Colorado and elsewhere -- as in 2008. I am satisfied that the McCain-Obama gap is a fair representation of the likely split.

Voter registration figures are readily available. The fact that some choose to ignore them is more a sign of the bias of the ignorer than reality.

So people who voted for President Obama are moving out of Colorado? To what states? I can accept that explanation of Pennsylvania drifting R, with what used to be liberal Pennsylvanians moving to Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia and voting there.
 

There's nothing to suggest they moved out of Colorado.

[Devilman88]

The new N.C. Poll numbers are out.

[pbrower2a]

I'm surprised at how fast and how much Colorado has moved to the Democrats. It has become the opposite of West Virginia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._States_by_Education_attainment

I'm not making any kind of snarky point about the electorate, but this is predictive of how social issues, broadly defined, can trump economic issues.

It could also be that people in hock for student loans are more likely to be liberals on economic issues because as debtors they are the ones who might have to surrender the "pound of flesh".  This may be much of the explanation for Democrats getting the young-adult vote in recent years. Creditors (even if they are simply net savers with a small insurance policy, bank accounts, or bonds) tend to be conservatives and debtors tend to be liberals.   

[Umengus]

Garbage poll again...

Sample party id: D +8

gallup party id amongst CO adult population: R +1

[CARLHAYDEN]

It really interesting to look at the PPP opinion polls.  Since they have become the in-house pollster for the Daily Kos they have pretty consistently produced poll results more favorable to the Democrats than most other polls.

Take for example their recent poll of Colorado voters.  (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_CO_08101118.pdf)

First, let’s contrast the composition of their respondents with the results of the 2008 Exit poll for Colorado. (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=COP00p1)

Ideology
                                        PPP          Edison
Liberal                            35 %          17 %
Moderate                       27              46
Conservative                 39              36

Second, let’s compare their partisan identification compared to Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/poll/148949/Hawaii-Democratic-Utah-Republican-State.aspx#)

                                        PPP          Gallup
Democrat                        41 %          42 %
Republican                      33              43

Looks like PPP is a R2K reprise.

[Niemeyerite]

There's always someone who says PPP is biased.... You said it in 2010, and yes, you were right. PPP favored the GOP

And, really, I think PPP is, by far, more reliable than Gallup.

[Umengus]

ppp is better than gallup for some things. PPP gives sometimes good polls, sometimes bad polls. Here it's garbage.

The reweighting of the sample  by party id is for me a "must do it". The definition of the party id of likely voters is of course the key.

[CARLHAYDEN]

ppp is better than gallup for some things. PPP gives sometimes good polls, sometimes bad polls. Here it's garbage.

The reweighting of the sample  by party id is for me a "must do it". The definition of the party id of likely voters is of course the key.

As I have said before, PPP is an interesting firm.

It uses significantly smaller samples than most of its competitors.

Before becoming the DailyKos/SIEU pollster, they were one of the more accurate pollsters.

They still can produce quite reasonable surveys, as well as 'laughers' that even Zogby would be ashamed of (the Colorado poll is an example).

While the 'internals' (such as partisan makeup) of a sample is one thing to check, it is not the only thing to check.  Question order (as well as subtle differences in phrasing) can modify results.

What I am making fun of is the almost religious reverence some pollsters have for PPP.

[backtored]

I'm fairly confident that Obama will lose Colorado.  There is plenty of room for optimism for the Obama campaign--for one, things can't get much worse, and for another, states like North Carolina and Virginia are still surprisingly competitive.  But I really think that the west is where Obama will struggle most, and Colorado happens to be the most conservative of the big three western swing states--NM, CO, and NV--and will thus be the most likely to flip.

[mondale84]

Obama vs. Perry

LOL....and he's the right's savior?