PPP (D) released the national D-vs-R matchups for New Hampshire yesterday, and although I generally don't focus on just one poll (precisely because it is only one poll), the internals from this one are worth a look, also because NH is at least expected to be a bitterly contested battleground. However, if these numbers hold through the year, it will not be. New Hampshire: PPP (D), released 08.01.2016: 1,036 RV, MoE = +/-3.0 Clinton 45 / Rubio 42, margin = Clinton +3 Clinton 46 / Bush 40, margin = Clinton +6 Clinton 48 / Cruz 40, margin = Clinton +8 Clinton 50 / Carson 39, margin = Clinton +11 Clinton 50 / Trump 36, margin = Clinton +14 Sanders 50 / Bush 38, margin = Sanders +12 Sanders 51 / Rubio 37, margin = Sanders +14 Sanders 53 / Carson 34, margin = Sanders +19 Sanders 54 / Trump 34, margin = Sanders +20 Sanders 55 / Cruz 35, margin = Sanders +20 Clinton 43 / Rubio 29 / Trump 20, margin = Clinton +14 Clinton 47 / Cruz 28 / Trump 18, margin = Clinton +19 The PPP (D) NH poll shows both Democrats doing better than they did in the December poll. They win all 12 matchups, 11 of them quite handily. Clinton wins with margins between +3 (over Rubio) and +14 (over Trump) in 2-way polling, and goes as high as +19 in theoretical 3-way polling. Sanders, who hails from neighboring Vermont, wins with margins between +12 (over Jeb!) and +20 (over both Cruz and Trump). Clinton's second smallest margin, +6 over Bush, is just somewhat above President Obama's +5.58% win over Romney from 2012. Her +8 over Cruz and +11 over Carson are roughly 1.5 points below or above Obama's 2008 +9.61% win over McCain, respectively. Sanders STARTS at +12, above where Obama landed in 2008, when all was said and done. What is really standing out, grabbing my attention, something I have never seen in my adult life in polling for New Hampshire for either party, is such a slew of large double digit margins all in one poll. That is new, very new. 9 of 12 margins in this poll are D+10 or more margins. THAT IS NEW. So, to verify, I checked the 2012 polling, Obama vs. Romney, just to see what it looked like, discovered that out of 42 polls taken in that state in 2012, from February until election day, only three showed double digit margins for Obama (+10, +12 and +15), but most of the others were low-to-middle single digits, also some mathematical ties. And the polling for Obama vs. GOP from 2010 through the end of January, 2012, with 9 more polls (total: 51 polls for NH for the 2012 cycle) and 31 or 32 matchups, showed mostly single digit margins, the exception being the matchups against Sarah Palin. It was in February 2012 that I moved to an excel-table system of recording the polling data and for this reason, you need to links from me to get to all of the 2012 polling. So, at this stage in the game 4 years ago, there had only been 9 polls from New Hampshire. This time around, there have already been 27, so the polling game for 2016 has radically intensified over 2012. And it it likely that 3 or 4 more NH polls will come in before Febuary, 2016. Not only that, if you check out the New Hampshire polling for 2008, you will see that there were 47 polls for this state, and among the margins, 15 double digit margins, 14 of them for Obama, 1 for McCain, but most all of those margins happened in the last 3 weeks or so of the campaign. So, if this kind of polling continues through 2016, looking more and more like 2008 did, I would say that it is pretty certain that the Democrats will put this state away and it won't even be a battleground. Honestly, aside from all the crazy buzz from 2008, it wasn't a battleground back then, either. And since Obama won NH both times by a margin about 2 points higher than his national average, that same is very likely to happen for Hillary if she is still ahead in late October. If Hillary is averaging +14 in NH right before the November election, then more likely than not she would be at +11 or above nationally. Compare that to the 36 New Hampshire polls recorded by RCP in 2004. Virtually all of them are low-single-digit margins, many of them absolute ties. There is only 1 double digit margin, for Kerry, from early in the game. But to my knowledge we have never before seen a Democratic candidate score two +20 wins over two GOP candidates in the same poll, esp. the 2 who are the most likely to get the GOP nomination. However, the 2004 polling also proves that a Democrat can start with a huge double digit margin and end up winning by only +1 on election night. Just to remind: Pres. George W. Bush (43)'s relection in 2004 shifted just three states over 2000: the President narrowly picked up Iowa and picked up New Mexico by a good margin, but lost New Hampshire. In this respect, his sucessful 2004 re-election looked somewhat like Ike's 1956 re-election, where he picked up two states (Kentucky, W. Virginia) but lost one state (Missouri). Just a cool electoral tidbit for the observant eye... You are welcome. And PPP's (D) track record in New Hampshire, well, actually, everywhere, is excellent. Do not let the (D) as part of it's designation fool you into thinking that PPP is biased to the Left. Mathematically, it is ever so slightly biased to the Right, by about one point on the average. I checked out the internals for this poll and noticed some very interesting things: Clintons's favorability in NH is not good (39-53, -14), but Trump's and Cruz's values are far worse: Cruz is at 31-54, -23 and Trump is at an eye-popping 30-64, -34. Wow. Now, FAV/UNFAV is no guarantee of a a win or a loss, but I have never in my life seen a candidate with such an upside-down FAV/UNFAV as I see with Trump - actually go on to win the state, ever. I am talking about D-vs-R in November, not the primaries, to be clear. Rubio, on the other hand, has a FAV/UNFAV similar to Hillary's: 34-49, -15. And Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate in this poll with a positive FAV/UNFAV: 55-35, +20. When you go deeper and check out these FAV/UNFAVS, broken down by gender, the picture is even more stark: Even among women, Clinton is underwater in New Hampshire, by -5. You might say, "well that sounds terrible", and honestly, it is not good. But look at Trump's values among women: he is underwater by -46! Cruz is underwater by -31 and Rubio comes the closest to his overall value, at -17. Bernie Sanders is soaring among women when it comes to FAV/UNFAV: +28, a 33 point difference to Hillary. Does FAV/UNFAV translate to electability? Well, I would say that it's a matter of perspective and relation. You can also see that in the graphic above, Hillary beats Bush by 15 points in the women's vote and is only behind him by 3 in the men's vote. Here's more of that data: Hillary against Rubio: +14, against Trump: +30 (Sanders is at +32 over Trump). So, women in New Hampshire are not necessarily thrilled by Hillary Clinton, but given the choice of her or one of the GOPers named, she does decidedly better. Why is this important? Well, NH has been a coveted battleground state now since 1988. Dukakis made a hard play for the state (it was in his 20-state plan, but dropped in late September, so the plan became a 19-state plan), but against quasi-favorite-son Bush 41, it was hopeless. One of the first signs for the Bush 41 campaign that it was losing four years later was the fact the Bill Clinton pulled ahead and stayed ahead in NH, although Clinton just squeaked by in 1992. He landslided here in 1996. Ever since then, lots of attention and money has been poured into this state, especially by the GOP, since Republican statisticians consider this to be the one single NE state in the Union where they could have a real chance of winning. If they are not winning here, than they can forget the rest of the NE corridor. Here the stats for the last 7 presidential cycles: 1988: Bush 41 +26.16% (R-retention) 1992: Clinton, Bill +1.22% (D pick-up over 1988 ) 1996: Clinton, Bill +9.96% (D retention) 2000: Bush 43 +1.27% (R pick-up) 2004: Kerry +1.37% (the only D pick-up of 2004) 2008: Obama +9.61% (D retention) 2012: Obama +5.58% (D retention) 2016: ??? Again, I want to accentuate that this is just one poll, but the claims that Trump is winning big are simply not true. In fact, they are lies. If the best Trump can do is to lose by between 14 and 20 points in the only state in the NE corridor where a Republican has a real chance, then G-d help him in the rest of the so-called "Blue Wall", because NH is one of the weakest links in the Democratic chain. Losing here guarantees that he is losing big in VT, ME, CT, MA, RI, DE, MD, NY and NJ - all part of the NE corridor going into the Acela region. Many like to call PA a NE state but in reality, it has more in common with the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois) than it has with the NE corridor. I keep an excel spreadsheet for every state and go through each one with a fine toothed comb. In posting no. 2, you will see a set of screenshots of all of the polling for NH to date, every single matchup, including matchups against candidates who either were never in the race but polled, or candidates who pulled out. I am talking only about Hillary vs. GOP matchups here. I am not keeping excel-data on Sanders. I would say that with this huge amount of information, I should not even need to list a justification for this thread, but just to be safe, and to avoid Rule-11-itis: I created this thread here in the election section because it contains relevant polling information concerning the GE in November. It remains to be seen if these numbers hold, but I think it is worth it to really dissect the numbers and not just blindly accept the toplines without knowing what is generating them. And as usual, this stuff should be less about my opinion (of which I give some, but not much), but rather, more about hard, cold reality. -Stat Derideo_Te mertex perotista Gaius_Marius bois darc chunk Doug_yvr PARTIZAN1 Margot2 Pax Aeon cupAsoup Bran Muffin Cosmo CourtJester DEnnis Tate Guno justonemorevoice liberalminority Paperview Pardy MMC Alucard toddwv TomFitz
There is one more internal from the poll I felt was good to share, and that has to do with some social issues: When it comes to Pres. Obama's positions and now, actions on gun background check and also barring people on terrorist watchlists from getting a gun, New Hampshirites are strongly behind the President. In both cases, they are for these things by an incredible +72 margin. That is enormous. Slightly more than 4 out of every 5 NH RV, according to this poll, supports these things, and that can only mean that a goodly number of Republicans and/or Conservatives also support it as well. As a matter of fact: Also, the data about the EPA was most interesting. 81% of New Hampshirites support some kind of minimum wage hike. That's also a huge number.
I think the gap between Clinton and all other GOP contenders is likely due to some Trump residue staining all the other candidates as they attempt to emulate him to some degree. I have to wonder if the Republicans can pull it together in time. Unless they can rally behind someone who's going to moderate a bit the Presidency will be the least of their problems. If Republicans are so disgusted by a distasteful candidate, such as Trump, and stay home they could lose a substantial number of seats.
The one thing that has remained constant over the last 2-3 months is that Trump does worst against Clinton than almost any other Republican potential nominee. Then when it comes to the independent voter and how they view both Clinton and Trump, they give both an unfavorable rating between 55-60% in almost every poll I have seen over the last couple of months. The rest of the Republican field outside of Jeb Bush have low unfavorable ratings from independents, some of that is that they really are unknown to a lot of voters. Now I like to use the breakdown between Republican, Democrat and independents to come to my conclusions. That breakdown includes all demographics. I usually keep my eye on the independents, not so much on the others. But right now there is a dissatisfaction out there among independents about the possible choices of a Trump vs. Clinton match up. They do not like either. This was reinforced in that if that is the match up for next year, 16% of independents stated they would not vote or vote for a third party candidate. I have never seen it that high. I am one who would vote third party is the choice boils down to Trump and Clinton, I do not want either one in the White House. I'll be danged if I will do anything to anything at all to put either one in the oval office. Love for these two are within their own parties, not with the average American Joe or Jane.
Clinton will be the new president, this is all a gimmick to appease the radical side of the population so they don't become unrest civilly. Donald trump is an outlet for nationalist anger, though it will fade as they are not a powerful bunch without a political party behind, and the Republican camp has split with them out of principles,dignity, and morals sake.
