Three Dems Even with or Outpolling Clinton Vs. Top GOP Candidates

[Time for change]

Though Hillary Clinton is currently running ahead of other Democrats in head to head polling against them, a series of Rasmussen polls shows that she is not doing very well compared to some other Democrats in head to head polling against the two top Republican candidates, Rudi Giuliani and John McCain.

According to a February 20th Rasmussen poll of the Democratic field, the four top Democrats are:

Clinton – 28%
Obama – 24%
Edwards – 11%
Gore – 10%

Yet, the current Clinton lead could be deceiving, since it does not translate into indications of better performance in a general election. Most important, in head to head polling against Giuliani:

Edwards: -2 (Feb 1)
Gore: -3 (Dec 21)
Obama: -6 (Feb 1)
Clinton: -6 (Jan 30)

And similar results are seen in head to head polling against McCain:

Edwards: +1 (Feb 15)
Obama: Even (Feb 15)
Clinton: -1 (Jan 30)
Gore: -5 (Dec 18)

The favorability/unfavorability ratings paint a similar picture:

Obama: Favorable 50% – Unfavorable 34% (+16)
Edwards: Favorable 53% – Unfavorable 38% (+15)
Gore: Favorable 50% – Unfavorable 47% (+3)
Clinton: Favorable 50% – Unfavorable 48% (+2)

Some other issues that are important to note are:

Democrats are rising in the polls versus the Republican candidates, especially against McCain, who has been tanking in the polls lately. As Rasmussen recently stated about McCain’s plummeting poll numbers:

These numbers just go to show that the public is paying attention to McCain's cynical games on Iraq, first supporting an unpopular increase in American troops then trying to back away from that exact plan by claiming it is not sufficient. The more Americans learn about John McCain -- particularly now that the media is not giving him a free pass, as they largely did eight years ago -- the less they like him.

All other Democratic and Republican candidates not mentioned above do poorly in head to head polls against the 4 Democratic and 2 Republican candidates mentioned here.

Gore is at a disadvantage in these polls, since he has not declared himself to be a candidate, and since the two polls cited above (against Giuliani and McCain) are from December. Also, I believe that if Gore ever does decide to run, he will come out swinging against a corporate media that lambasted him at every turn in 2000. I believe that his campaign will be very well served by such a policy.

Wesley Clark is also at a disadvantage in these polls, for much the same reason that Gore is, having not declared himself to be a candidate. I expect that if and when he declares and begins to campaign he will fare much better.

That’s not to say that any of the other candidates couldn’t pull off a surprise either.

The most striking thing about this series of polls is the vast discrepancy between Hillary Clinton’s apparent lead in the Democratic field on the one hand, against her relatively lesser performance in head to head polling against the leading Republican candidates. Perhaps her relatively high unfavorability rating partially accounts for this. But whatever the reason for this strange phenomenon, I think that it should give people pause before assuming that she has the inside track on the Democratic nomination.

[jobycom]

1. Looks to me like the polls are nuancing a tie.

A race with this many candidates all this close together would be considered a tight race if this were close to the election. By this time next year, there will be one, maybe two, in each party with a shot. Then we can see what the numbers look like. With more than two candidates, loyalties are spread around so much it's hard to read. At some point after Iowa and New Hampshire, if not before, both parties will be down to essentially two candidates. The supporters of those who dropped out will have to pick one of the remaining ones. So it's hard to tell from polls like this who is really winning. Back in 88 and 92, as the other Dems began to drop out, their followers fell in behind the second place candidate (Jackson and Browne, respectively), giving both candidates a surge against the frontrunners (Dukakis and Clinton). In 2004, the followers of the also-rans all fell behind the leader, Kerry, giving him a tidal wave effect.

No telling yet what will happen next year. Gore or Clark could get in the race, some scandal could emerge about Clinton or Obama or Edwards, one of the candidates could get squeezed out of the fundings race. Heck, Christopher Dodd (a highly underrated candidate, IMHO) could surge for some reason we haven't seen yet.

The one person I don't think will disappear is Hillary. She's too experienced, too positioned, too funded, and too unique. Not saying she will win or even be the front-runner by then, but she'll be one of the top two. I think.

[Time for change]

3. Right, no telling what will happen next year

My concern at this time is that a Clinton bandwagon effect is taking place, and lots of people are jumping on, thereby threatening to shut out the other candidates early. I believe that these polls should caution people not to do that.

I think that these polls are quite remarkable. Normally, a candidate running for the Democratic nomination who runs towards the center, as Clinton has been doing (with respect to the Iraq war, which is perhaps the major issue of the times) can be expected to gain standing in the general election at the expense of standing in the party primaries. Here we are seeing just the opposite. As far as she has moved to the center, she is not doing well compared to the other candidates, in polling against the Republicans, whereas she is way ahead of them in intra-Democratic Party polling. That seems quite striking to me, and I think that what it indicates is that her candidacy is deeply flawed in comparison with some of the other Democratic candidates, and that mere name recognition and familiarity is a major reason that she is currently leading the pack. It does not bode well for November 2008 if she gets the Democratic nomination.

The fact that there are a lot of candidates in the race now should be expected to affect the polling within the Democratic Party, but not individual comparisons against Republicans. If a pollster asks someone (me, for example) who I would vote for if Clinton ran against Giuliani in the general election, the fact that there are several candidates that I prefer over her does not affect my answer one bit. I would pick her in a heartbeat over Giuliana, regardless of how many Democrats are running, even though there is almost no chance that I will vote for her in the primaries.

[jobycom]

5. That's a very astute analysis that I don't completely agree with.

:) Not saying you are wrong, just that I don't completely agree.

I understand your point, that she's not picking up votes from the center though she is campaigning towards the center. But I still say, it's way too early, and more than that, the numbers are way too small, for that to be significant. If she was down by 15 points, that might be an issue. But we are talking about 6 point differences in polls whose +- is four points, and the other candidates--one of whom is a "rock star" at the moment and one of whom ran as the VP candidate on a national ticket two years ago--are far from unknown, and are not faring any better.

The majority of people have not heard Hillary speak, don't know what she feels on many issues, if any issues, and many couldn't pick her out of a lineup. A sizeable portion of those voters are going off whatever they heard on the news that morning. In other words, Hillary's numbers are not based on what she is saying or doing, they are based on the opinions people already have of her, and on the opinion of the last reporter they heard discussing her.

If she had been campaigning before the public constantly, had been speaking and preaching her platform so that the people voting in these polls knew that she was centrist (if she indeed runs as a centrist), I would agree that her inability to take a lead could be a problem. As it stands, it's too early, people don't know what they are voting on, and for that matter, we don't even know who is voting against her in this poll. It's not controversial to suggest that the people who dislike her most are the extremes of both parties--the conservatives because she is too liberal, the liberals because (they think) she's too conservative. One of those impressions will have to give, and when it does, she will pick up votes accordingly. It's also not hard to believe that there are liberals who buy all the Drudge swiftboating of her, and are saying they would vote for a Republican over her, just to keep from padding her poll numbers.

It's just too early for these numbers to mean anything yet. Now, if there are polls detailing public perceptions of her, and these polls all declare that the majority sees her as a centrist and don't like her because of that, then there is more information, and my opinion has to adjust to that. But right now I think a poll would show that her image is equally split between people who think she is too liberal, too conservative, and too centrist.

She's a tabula rasa, despite her name recognition. That could turn out to be a problem. It could also turn out to be her greatest strength, because people aren't seeing her as she is now, and will change their opinions when they do. Keep in mind that at this point in the 2004 cycle, Gore was way, way behind Bush (whom no one even in Texas had ever heard speak), despite strong name recognition for Gore, and in the 92 cycle at this point Clinton wasn't even the Dem frontrunner (the media saw him that way, but public attention was on Tsongas). Neither Gore nor Clinton led in the polls, or were even close in the polls, until around the time of their conventions.

I'm only focusing on Clinton because that's who we were discussing; I could make the same basic argument to support Gore, Edwards, or Obama, though Gore's image would be more lefty to start with than the others. Still, most voters don't think in terms of left and right, they just vote on what ideas they think sound good, and on what the media tells them they should think. I had a friend once who told me shortly after Clinton was elected that he voted for Clinton, but wouldn't have if he had known Clinton was going to start allowing gays in the military or trying to provide national health care. Those were two of his key issues during the campaign, but this idiot friend of mine didn't even know that.

[Time for change]

6. I dont' disagree with you

I may not have made myself clear enough.

I agree that the fact that Clinton is currently slightly behind Giuliani by no means suggests that she can't make up that difference over the next year and a half. As a matter of fact, I believe that Giuliani will lose a lot of ground after he gets more exposure. Right now, I believe he's doing as well as he is only because the media has made him out to be some sort of hero simply for being able to speak some coherant sentences following 9-11. Hell, Hillary could make up that 6 point difference in a week, let alone a year and a half.

Rather, what I meant to convey was a comparison of her with some of the other leading Democratic candidates. I've heard a lot of talk about her being unstoppable, having the inside track, etc. -- and that kind of talk tends to be self-fulfilling. My main point was simply to point out that there may be some stronger candidates in the Democratic field (and I believe there are), and that Democrats should consider some of these things before jumping on her band wagon.

[papau]

2. LOL - about a year ahead of first go rounds - no one has "inside track"

Rasmussen poll is not all that reliable and favors GOP by random amounts.

But polls are always fun! :-)

[skipos]

4. Ras was the most accurate in 2006

but their Bush approval ratings are bunk.