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September 24, 2006
Iowa Poll: More Reasons To Pick Edwards
There's some interesting new 2008 presidential polling today. All the data comes from a sample of Iowa voters, so take it with a grain of whatever seasoning you like on corn.
The pollsters took 4 Democratic candidates (Hillary, Edwards, Vilsack, and Kerry) and 4 Republican candidates (Giuliani, McCain, Frist, and Romney), and asked voters who they would choose in each of the 16 possible head-to-head matchups. Unsurprisingly, Giuliani came out as the most electable Republican candidate, beating Edwards by 8 and beating all the other Democrats by 13 or more. McCain was next -- he leads Edwards by a mere 1% margin, and no other Democrat is anywhere close. Kerry falls to McCain by 14, Vilsack by 15, and Hillary by 17. Overall, Edwards is easily the best Democratic candidate against all Republicans, beating Romney and Frist by double-digit margins. The other Democrats have single-digit leads at best. Hillary loses to everybody.
They also asked people which candidates they had favorable impressions of. This is one of the rare polls where any Democrat has a higher net favorability rating than Edwards, but here it's just a matter of home-field advantage -- Iowa Governor Vilsack's favorable-unfavorables run at 63-35, while Edwards runs at 54-30. Edwards does top all Democrats in the "Very Favorable" category, with 22% of all voters professing intense Johnny love. Favorability numbers were collected for lesser-known candidates too -- Feingold stands at 19-14, Bayh at 17-11, and Warner at 15-7.
On the Republican side, Giuliani is destroying everybody at 71-18. McCain sits pretty at 59-24. But not that pretty -- his 59% are divided between 14% with "Very Favorable" impressions and a whopping 45% with "Mostly Favorable" impressions.
If you want to see the raw results yourself, they're tucked away at the bottom left of the page under a lot of other stuff.
September 24, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
I see this as presenting some interesting challenges for the Republicans. I believe that Giuliani has no chance at all to get the nomination, none at all. The Christian Right will or already does loathe him for his heterodoxy on abortion, gay rights, divorce, and for going on SNL in drag. It won't help that he's a papist and in league with the antichrist.
But Giuliani's popularity with the rest of the Republican primary voters should get some really excellent sub-rosa campaigning going. The South Carolina campaign should be a riot if there hasn't been a clear winner yet.
Posted by: NBarnes | Sep 24, 2006 4:44:49 PM
Direct link to the numbers....
Posted by: Petey | Sep 24, 2006 4:53:05 PM
Of course, since Guliani is not a Senator and does not have to vote on the Torture Bill, the question arises whether McCain's support for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" tacit support for torture is a positive or a negative in the Republican primary.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Sep 24, 2006 5:12:42 PM
please...PLEASE pick Edwards.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Sep 24, 2006 5:47:18 PM
Fred, just out of curiousity, which Democrat concerns you the most (in terms of his or her chances of winning, not how they'd govern)?
Posted by: djw | Sep 24, 2006 6:00:03 PM
I endorse the Edwards/Clinton ticket. Al Gore for Secretary of Energy, Rangel for Drug Czar (he got the escalation in crack penalties over 'whitie' coke), William Jefferson Clinton for Secretary for Labor, Gore Vidal for Sec. Defense (perhaps he and Al can have the same story about meeting each other for once), Noam Chomsky for Sec. Education and Bernadine VanDorne for Sec. Homeland Security.
Posted by: Guy Montag | Sep 24, 2006 6:01:07 PM
Shorter Montag: There's not a Democrat other than Zell Miller, or maybe Joe Lieberman that I won't happily smear.
Posted by: paperwight | Sep 24, 2006 6:07:22 PM
"please...PLEASE pick Edwards."
Fred, please...PLEASE attack Edwards.
Posted by: Petey | Sep 24, 2006 6:19:26 PM
Sometimes I enjoy our trolls.
A big part of Fred's MO is making whatever comments will be the most annoying to the political views of posters on this blog. On the spot, he couldn't really come up with anything substantive that was sufficiently annoying. So he decided to fake the reverse psychology. (Sounds like some kind of trick play in football.)
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Sep 24, 2006 6:25:07 PM
Hillary, Edwards, Vilsack, and Kerry
Why these four? Neither Vilsack nor Kerry strike me as prime frontrunner/backup-candidate material. I'd pick Clark, Feingold, or Warner as potential "Anybody But X" alternatives before Vilsack (who?) or Kerry (still cursed by '04). And if Gore runs, all of these people are toast.
Posted by: Christmas | Sep 24, 2006 6:27:13 PM
Well, Hillary's the automatic front-runner, and the poll is going on in Iowa. I don't know about Kerry, but he at least has enough name recognition to make the poll interesting. Feingold and Warner have really low name recognition in Iowa, if those favorability numbers are right. They didn't ask about Clark.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Sep 24, 2006 6:29:31 PM
Guiliani's stronger than you think.
Two little words -- Amadou Diallo -- and a lot of Republicans will overlook Guiliani's heterodoxy on social issues.
He's not famous in the heartland for 9/11, he's famous in the heartland for making New York safe for White People again, and his willingness to shred the Constitution to do it.
He has a proven record of keeping Those People in their place. This, and not religion, or 'security', or even taxes, is the core mission of any Republican candidate.
47 shots, baby.
Posted by: Davis X. Machina | Sep 24, 2006 6:43:23 PM
Bernie Kerik and he wouldn't win his home state make Giuliani a bit less formidable.
The Democrats in the Senate could assure a DOA McCain candidacy if they would just quit letting him use them to provide cover while he kisses up to the far right.
Posted by: Stephen | Sep 24, 2006 6:56:59 PM
Davis, I think you'll find that a great many Democrats and liberals supported Giuliani's anti-crime policies. You may hate him and those who would support him, but you probably didn't live or work in the high crime areas of NY before he came on the scene. Diallo will only be an issue for the most desperate opponents, not supporters of Giuliani.
Having said that, putting aside your smears on him and the voters, you have a good point that his record in NY may go some way to making up for his moderate views on social issues with conservatives, but I doubt it will be enough to win the nomination. He'll be portrayed as the liberal in the Republican field.
Posted by: Sanpete | Sep 24, 2006 7:12:32 PM
Giuliani really is fascinating. I have no idea how someone who doesn't make common cause with the forced pregnancy movement could possibly win the nomination. Diallo doesn't matter - it's Alito/Roberts on the Court or nothing with a huge percentage of primary voters. But polls like this make me wonder just how pragmatic Republicans can be. (On the other hand, I don't see Giuliani as a particularly good politician once he's on the trail, and he could easily self-destruct anyway.)
Posted by: DivGuy | Sep 24, 2006 7:23:28 PM
Well, Hillary's the automatic front-runner, and the poll is going on in Iowa. I don't know about Kerry, but he at least has enough name recognition to make the poll interesting. Feingold and Warner have really low name recognition in Iowa, if those favorability numbers are right. They didn't ask about Clark.
I understand why they asked about Hillary, Edwards, Kerry, and Vilsack. My point was that Kerry and Vilsack, despite whatever name recognition they've got right now, are not going to hold up as major vote-getters a year and a half from now. This campaign isn't even fetal, and drawing conclusions from poll numbers at a point when name recognition will dominate all else is silly. As I've noted before, Joe Lieberman was polling pretty well back in 2002.
As for Giuliani: does anyone seriously think he stands a chance of getting the GOP nomination once Christian conservatives start circulating that photo of him wearing a dress?
Posted by: Christmas | Sep 24, 2006 7:28:06 PM
"I don't see Giuliani as a particularly good politician once he's on the trail, and he could easily self-destruct anyway."
Yup. I don't think he's disciplined enough to survive a national campaign. At the end of the day, I don't think he'll actually run.
"Giuliani really is fascinating. I have no idea how someone who doesn't make common cause with the forced pregnancy movement could possibly win the nomination."
I think most folks on our side don't have any clue how much 'fighting the Turk' has become the organizing principle of the right over the past 5 years.
If you watch C-SPAN, you'll notice that the young conservative congressmen don't regularly end their speeches by saying "We must repeal Roe v Wade". Instead they regularly end their speeches by saying "We will never forget 9/11".
Giuliani, by historical accident, is in a position of possibly being able to claim the mantle as Chief Crusader, which could make him acceptable to folks on the right despite his other heresies.
Add in the possibility that he could possibly assume the role of The Only One Who Can Stop McCain, and while I wouldn't call his nomination likely, it's not as impossible as some seem to assume.
If he does get the nomination, it will be because of the far right, not despite the far right.
Posted by: Petey | Sep 24, 2006 7:50:36 PM
If he does get the nomination, it will be because of the far right, not despite the far right.
Yeah, because the Republican Fundie base will really turn out for a guy known to wear drag, associate on an intimate (by which I don't mean sexual) basis with homosexuals, and who installed his mistress in the official residence before he was divorced from his wife.
Speaking of "fighting the Turk", how does Edwards' social justice agenda play there? Just curious.
Posted by: paperwight | Sep 24, 2006 7:54:38 PM
The name recognition point is important, which is why I like to sort these kind of polls based on net favorability ... ranking based on "highly favorable" is heavily dominated by name recognition.
The main poll, of course, is not a Presidential race, but a "feelings toward national politicians" ... but of course the Des Moines Register is smart enough to provide the silly head to head match up to improve the commercial value of publishing the results of the poll.
On the Republican side, the net favorability ranking (number in parentheses is percent stating a view, * means featured in match-ups):
Guliani* +53% (89%)
McCain* +35% (83%)
Condi +31% (95%)
Pataki +18% (52%)
Huckabee +5% (23%)
Romney* -1% (31%)
Brownback -3% (19%)
Bush -6% (98%)
Frist* -10% (58%)
On the Democratic side:
Vilsack* +27% (97%)
Edwards* +24% (84%)
Lieberman +10% (78%)
Warner +8% (22%)
Bayh +6% (28%)
Kerry* +5% (89%)
Feingold +5% (33%)
Biden +4% (52%)
Clinton* -6% (92%)
Posted by: BruceMcF | Sep 24, 2006 7:56:16 PM
When it comes to Guliani, papism and feather boas don't hold a candle to the massive, pterydactly-sized albatross around his neck: HE'S PRO-CHOICE!!!!!!!! I would bet dollars to pesos that most of the Republican voters who hear Guliani's name think one thing: 9-11!! They don't know his position on anything. As soon as Guliani's position on abortion becomes common knowledge among primary voters, he is finished. Abortion is a non-negotiable issue for presidential candidates of both parties. It's a waste of time even talking about it.
And I'm starting to think Gore is going to get the nomination for the simple fact that it will be incredibly easy for him to do so. If, come November of 2007, the situation stands thusly: Hillary has bought herself twenty to twenty five percent support, with the ten or eleven other candidates with a few points each and the vast majority of primary voters agreeing that they hate Hillary but unable to decide on an alternative, Gore will be able to secure the nomination without raising or spending a dime on a campaign. He just has to go on Larry King and announce his candidacy. The next day, a huge chunk of voters, from lefties who hate Clinton's centrism and are probably supporting Feingold to centrists who like Hillary's positions but don't think she's electable and are probably supporting Warner, all stampede to the Gore banner and he can spend the entire schedule on vacation while he rolls to victory.
Posted by: Matthew Christman | Sep 24, 2006 7:56:58 PM
I agree that Edwards could be a formidable candidate, but I think polls at this point are really just contests of name recognition.
Posted by: Unstable Isotope | Sep 24, 2006 7:59:09 PM
"Two little words -- Amadou Diallo -- and a lot of Republicans will overlook Guiliani's heterodoxy on social issues."
This above is paranoid nonsense. Petey calls it correctly above on Giuliani.
Posted by: RobMoore | Sep 24, 2006 8:54:39 PM
Word to what Stephen said about Bernie Kerik. Giuliani may just be able to wave the bloody 9/11 shirt and get past the fundies, but remember that he came up in the same machine as Bernie Kerik, who was just as sainted after 9/11, and that guy turned out to have more dirt on him than even Fox News could overlook. The graft, backscratching, and philandering that's tolerated as the price of doing business in big city politics will sink you on the national stage. Once Rudy's primary opponents and the start digging into the NYC days he's toast.
Posted by: Justin K. | Sep 24, 2006 8:56:42 PM
Also, it must be repeated over and over again for those who don't know.....polling this far out is totally meaningless. Yes, Lieberman was "looking strong" in polls at this time in 2002.
What matters is how good these people are out on the trail and on the stump. That's why a stiff will go nowhere, and a candidate with talent will rise from nowhere. Nobody knew who Edwards was in 2000, yet look at his stature now. Nobody knew who Bill Clinton was other than wonks in 1990. Nobody knows who Mark Warner is now.
Posted by: RobMoore | Sep 24, 2006 9:00:55 PM
Also, it must be repeated over and over again for those who don't know.....polling this far out is totally meaningless. Yes, Lieberman was "looking strong" in polls at this time in 2002.
I think the Edwards numbers are different, though. The people of Iowa already know Edwards, and they love him.
Other numbers are unfixed and could easily go in any direction - who knows, maybe Warner will get popular, and we all know that most of the electorate will avoid Feingold. Even McCain and Hillary are somewhat untested and their numbers should be taken skeptically.
But Edwards' numbers reflect a real thing - that to know John Edwards is to love John Edwards. He's running strong after having run in Iowa, and he's running strong after being slimed by the GOP in a national election.
I agree we should be very careful about comparing numbers between candidates in very different circumstances. But John Edwards' numbers are pretty freakin' great, and they are solid evidence of his strength as a candidate.
Posted by: DivGuy | Sep 24, 2006 9:07:29 PM
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