pbrower2a
Atlas Star
Posts: 26,859
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« on: July 24, 2014, 08:10:48 PM » |
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(posted elsewhere)
It is a severe outlier by Q standards.
I know! Hillary Clinton seems highly likely to win the state, but perhaps by 5% over one of the stronger R candidates. A margin greater than 10% suggests that
(1) Florida has become about as strong a D state as Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania, which makes no sense in view of recent polls -- some available within the last couple of weeks. If Florida were that strongly D, then Governor Rick Scott would be staring into a landslide loss, which he is not doing even in a Q poll of the Governorship.
(2) Hillary Clinton has basically revived the Jimmy Carter coalition and grafted it onto the Obama coalition. For that to make sense I would need to see Clinton winning just about everything in the South. Carter won the state by 5% in 1976 (his fifteenth-best state); Obama won it by less than 3% in 2008. Florida has usually been a tough state for Democratic Presidential nominees to win; it was the second-weakest win for LBJ in 1964. Bill Clinton, the strongest Democratic nominee since LBJ in a Presidential election, barely lost it in 1992 and won it by 6% in 1996. We know about Florida in 2000.
Possible -- but not likely. It's not likely to contradict recent polls.
(3) Something has happened, all of a sudden, to mess up Republican chances for election or re-election nationwide. Has anyone seen anything to create such an effect? Such would show in approval ratings for President Obama, which remain awful. The Malaysian jetliner being shot down is just about neutral news for American politics.
(4) International concerns have begun to trump other concerns, and Hillary Clinton is in an excellent position to become more desirable. Q shows the favorability of Hillary Clinton very stable -- and so are the ratings of favorability for potential R rivals. There is nothing there. The downing of the Malaysian jetliner in dangerous airspace is just about neutral news for American politics.
Barack Obama's approval rating in Florida is in the range in which, were he running for re-election, he would barely win the state again.
Quinnipiac is usually one of my preferred pollsters, in view of its prior achievements, but this time the results seem terribly out of line. We can count on seeing frequent polls about Florida hereon. In fact, I expect to see lots of polls from neighboring Georgia from now until November because of hotly-contested Gubernatorial and Senate races. Show Hillary Clinton up 5% against just about everyone in Georgia, and I will accept this Q poll. Show another pollster concurring with these results and I will accept it.
Pollsters can have bad days -- or bad samples -- any day. That includes Quinnipiac, which rarely has them.
If you want my assessment of the 2016 Presidential election so far -- Hillary Clinton has gone from being marginally qualified to be President in 2008 to being one of the strongest candidates that we have known for a long time. Should she win Florida 55-45 she wins nationwide at least 58-42 with over 400 electoral votes -- 440 if she gets Texas, which would probably be the closest state in that scenario.
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