The good news from Iowa and New Hampshire
[Posted by Karl]
Lost amid the GOP’s internal squabbles is the good news on the other side of the ledger: Pres. Obama is not faring well in either Iowa or New Hampshire.
According to the NBC/Marist poll, “[v]oters divide about President Obama’s job approval rating. 45% of registered voters in Iowa approve of the job the president is doing in office while 43% disapprove, and 12% are unsure.” Oh, sure they’re unsure. His approval rating is only 39% among Iowa independents, who are the largest bloc in the state.
NBC/Marist finds worse results for Obama in New Hampshire. Only 40% of registered voters in the Granite State approve of the job Obama is doing, while 49% disapprove (10% are “unsure”). Only 41% of New Hampshire independents approve. Again, that’s the largest bloc in the state.
For all of the criticism Iowa and New Hampshire get, it seems like some forget they are swing states. PPP’s Tom Jensen, looking at a potential Obama vs Romney contest in swing states including IA and NH, tried to be optimistic, but added an important caveat:
[O]ur polls and probably everyone’s polls are actually worse for Obama than they look right now. That’s because a disproportionate number of the undecideds in Obama/Romney polling are Republicans. Romney’s not their first choice for the nomination so they’re being stubborn and saying they’re undecided for the general, even though it’s pretty much a certainty that they’ll end up voting for the GOP nominee in the end.
We saw this situation in reverse in 2008, where strong partisans of Obama and Clinton refused to say in early polls that they’d vote for the party nominee if their favored candidate didn’t get it. Of course pretty much all of those folks ended up voting for Obama in the end.
Right now when you look at the undecideds in Obama/Romney nationally only 18% of them approve of Obama while 63% disapprove…
I also suspect Jensen’s analysis — that Obama will only need just one out of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania or North Carolina to win — is overly optimistic for Obama. He used PPP’s numbers from all of 2011, while the most recent USA Today/Gallup Swing States poll had Obama losing to Romney (and Gingrich), even before adjusting for the “undecided” factor.
Some pundits have cutely quipped during and after various GOP debates that the winner was Obama. The polls in Iowa and New Hampshire suggest otherwise.
–Karl
Ding!
Karl (5a613f) — 1/9/2012 @ 6:31 amBased, of course, on debates watched by relatively few of the up for grabs voters… and on MSM recaps which are watched by fewer and fewer voters.
steve (369bc6) — 1/9/2012 @ 6:47 amHis electoral map is way overly optimistic for Obama. If Pennslyvania is only +1 for Obama, he is in serious trouble. And Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Michigan are either not in Obama’s column at all, or tossups. I haven’t seem an legit poll that had Florida or Ohio going to The One spare Dem hack jobs.In fact there have been stoires of Obama writing off Florida as hopeless. And there probably still is a smalle but still real Dinkins effect, which Obama also experienced in 2008. White people, to appear nominally polite, worldly and decent to a pollster, will tell said pollster they would vote for Obama when they ahd no intention of doing so.
And having said all that, the GOP can still always make a mess and lose.
Bugg (ea1809) — 1/9/2012 @ 6:49 amIf the EU implodes, taking a few US banks with it, all of the efforts to prop-up Wall Street and the financial community will have been for naught,
AD-RtR/OS! (bd4dc3) — 1/9/2012 @ 7:37 amand just further expose the fiscal policies of this administration as the fraudulent crack-dreams that they are –
then where will his re-election chances be (somewhere outside the margin of fraud, one thinks)?
Nader is abandoning his push to primary Obama, no Dimmi wants any part of a scorched wasteland.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:56 am4. ECB just loaned 600 Billion to its Banks 1%for three years in the hope of spuring sovereign debt purchases and at least holding down rates.
But EU banks, a much larger market than the US, have loose rules on collateral, extensive cross holdings and CDS. Total sovereign and financial debt in the UK is 1000% of GDP.
Our banks are exposed $1 Trillion in Europe and a Greek hard default is virtually assured at the end of March.
We are well and truly hosed.
You know who this helps.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/9/2012 @ 9:06 amIt would appear that the Iowa poll must have significantly oversampled democrats. If only 39% of the largest voting block (Independents) approves of Obama, I don’t see how overall he gets to 45% approval. From what I understand, Democrats hold only a slight advantage in registrations in Iowa. Assuming they cancel each other out, there’s no way to get to an overall approval of 45%. Infact, more democrats disapprove of Obama than Republicans approve of him so any small voter registration advantange would likely be eliminated.
Jim Bruni (0684e8) — 1/9/2012 @ 9:11 amI have a question for Obama why does Iran get away with having no public transportation?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 9:14 am8- It is not Written!
AD-RtR/OS! (bd4dc3) — 1/9/2012 @ 9:35 amPres. Obama is not faring well in either Iowa or New Hampshire….For all of the criticism Iowa and New Hampshire get, it seems like some forget they are swing states.
They switched places – both of them – between the year 2000 and 2004. The only other satate to have a different result was the very clsoe New Mexico.
Iowa flipped from Gore to Bush. New Hampshire – which Gore had taken for granted and later on the Gore people kicked themselves for ignoring it, because when he lost it he lost the presidency with it, flipped from Bush to Kerry. New Mexico went from Gore to Bush.
Bush had (with Florida, which was not so close in 2004) 271 Electoral votes in the year 2000. He gained 7 from Iowa and 5 from New Mexico = 12, and lost 4 from New Hampshire = 8, and gained a net 7 from reapportionment for a total gain of 15 and a Electoral College vote of 286 to Kerry’s 251. Gore should have gotten 267 but one Electoral Vote from DC went missing – it wasn’t cast.
The Obama people are using the 2004 election results as their template.
In 2008, Obama carried the following states that neother Gore nor Kerry did: Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina plus the city of Omaha (1 electoral vote in Nebraska)
This gave him 365 Electoral votes – reapportionment (with the same states) would cost him 5 I think.
Iowa just lost one Elctoral vote. It now has 6.
Sammy Finkelman (d3daeb) — 1/9/2012 @ 9:44 amMore good buggery from Greece via Monty and zerohedge:
If they get the 80 Billion scheduled for March, much will be spent on new defense contracts in Germany. Seems they’re worried about the Turks.
They are trying to up the approved 21% write down on 200 Billion in debt held by banks, 80% Greek, to 50%.
This assumes the 150 Billion owed to the EU and IMF will just go away.
Then they’re certain a remaining debt of 120% of GDP will be no prob.
Greece currently spends 150% of revenues on operations. Suck it up Kraut.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/9/2012 @ 10:06 amFollowing the bang up performance with hog farmers, Romney cutting his losses to a couple million or so for the same result as in 2008-24%.
Romney polling today in Suffolk at 33%, ’bout the same as 31% in 2008, after living with Yanks for four.
In that vein, pull the chain.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/9/2012 @ 11:11 amReal Clear Politics has always had a pretty good estimate, and their compendium of polls shows that Obama is slightly ahead, needing 41 electoral votes from the toss-ups:
Colorado (9)
Florida (29)
New Hampshire (4)
North Carolina (15)
Ohio (18)
Pennsylvania (20)
Virginia (13)
Wisconsin (10)
Republicans would need 89 of these, barring upsets.
Kevin M (563f77) — 1/9/2012 @ 12:14 pmSorry. RCP link
Kevin M (563f77) — 1/9/2012 @ 12:14 pmRepublicans would need _79_ of these, barring upsets. My bad.
Kevin M (563f77) — 1/9/2012 @ 12:16 pmI have a question for Obama?
If Michelle Obama strips down naked and the world falls off its axis and hurdles towards the sun……………..will you quit?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 1:22 pmTime to restate Mojo’s Law:
People lie, especially to pollsters”
mojo (8096f2) — 1/9/2012 @ 2:07 pmPeople lie, especially to pollsters
Especially when one of the candidates is black, lest they be seen as racist.
Kevin M (563f77) — 1/9/2012 @ 2:16 pmChuckie Johnson-GOP are racists……………….dayamn look at that bootay on Mah girl Michelle.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 3:01 pmI would think the results of the last election would have put an end to the supposed “Bradley effect”. People told pollsters that they were going to vote for Obama, and, guess what?, they voted for Obama. No Bradley effect.
Milhouse (d3fd53) — 1/9/2012 @ 3:25 pmWhy do Chuckles Johnsonless think the GOP is waaaaaaaacist?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 3:38 pmKeep bashing capitalism and corporate profits, “true conservatives” and leave the defense of same to the only guy willing to do it while onstage.
What a bunch of RINOs.
Colonel Haiku (b486eb) — 1/9/2012 @ 4:42 pm___________________________________________
No Bradley effect.
Moreover, in 2008 it was pretty much the flip side of the notion that voters who are more comfortable with what they’re familiar with — in terms of another person’s race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality — will be tougher on a non-conforming candidate than the one who has characteristics (particularly superficial ones) they’re accustomed to. Or the turning on its head the observation of the past that when two people were competing for the same job, the one who had non-conforming traits (ie, race, ethnicity, gender, etc) not only would have to be as good as his or her competitor, he’d have to be much better.
I don’t know if any other person running for the presidency in US history — all of them being white (although some have said Bill Clinton was America’s first black president) — has ever had the disreputable, extremist background of Obama and yet somehow skated into the White House.
From a purely symbolic standpoint, there has been an odd “goddamn America” nature to recent history and a sense that the US did go through a sea change (and not a good one) in November 2008.
Mark (411533) — 1/9/2012 @ 4:44 pmYeah, I agree with Mark and Milhouse. Folks can be hard on Obama if they want to be, now. Those who would hesitate to criticize him because they worry it would sound racist are probably going to vote for him anyway.
I worry about short term economic manipulation that might prop Obama up a bit. I also worry that whoever the GOP nominates is going to be unable to overcome the negativity. romney’s recent gaffes only make him like the other guys who already had baggage (or other electability problems). And most of all, I worry about a third party candidate as I have noted for about a year now. That is Obama’s ticket.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/9/2012 @ 4:50 pmYes, they cooking those figures, like the best Louisiana gumbo, facts really don’t matter, just
narciso (87e966) — 1/9/2012 @ 4:58 pmthe worst possible impression that someone can concoct.
“King Henri IV of France called his fellow monarch, King James I of England, “the wisest fool in Christendom,” because James’s vast erudition so seldom kept him from doing really dumb things.
King James, meet Newt Gingrich.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/09/gingrich-group-bain-capital-video-more/
Colonel Haiku (b486eb) — 1/9/2012 @ 5:27 pmGood news indeed. Well made point, often overlooked, are that Iowa and NH are swing states. Anything that causes a little anguish at the White House these days is a good thing. Like the Chief of Staff kerfuffle today. Don’t buy the White House spin on this one, folks. This one has been in the cards for a while … http://bit.ly/qVdDUt
ombdz (2a81ef) — 1/9/2012 @ 6:27 pmI would rather tear out my brainstem, walk into the middle of the nearest 4 way intersection and skip rope with it than vote Ron Paul.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 7:11 pmKing James, meet Newt Gingrich.”
Comment by Colonel Haiku — 1/9/2012 @ 5:27 pm
So, let me get this straight: education and intelligence are a handicap as president, and what we really want is an ignorant idiot? And you favor Romney? Isn’t that a bit harsh?
Kevin M (563f77) — 1/9/2012 @ 7:14 pmYou could listen to Vogon poetry, Doh.
narciso (87e966) — 1/9/2012 @ 7:22 pmRomney believes in big government or die.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:08 pmKeep at it, Kev.
Colonel Haiku (b486eb) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:23 pmWith all due respect:
I worry also about the current negativity I keep seeing. But then, when I say that, people get angry.
Simon Jester (bc884f) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:25 pmAnd being booed because of your honest opposition to gays is evil.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:39 pmalso suspect Jensen’s analysis — that Obama will only need just one out of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania or North Carolina to win — is overly optimistic for Obama.
The 2004 election results, in today’s reapportionment would give a result, in the Republican’s favor, of 292 to 246, compared to the actual result of 286 to 251 (should have been 252, but one Elector in Minnesota voted for John Edwards as both President and Vice-President, possibly by mistake)
If you add New Mexico, as you should, this takes Obama back up to 251. Adding Nevada takes this to 257 (6 Electoral votes for the one-time pocket borough, one more than West Virginia) and Colorado takes this to 266. with that, Obama needs just one more state to win, unless the state was Alaska. If he loses New Hampshire, he needs a bit more.
. This calculation starts with Pennsylvania in the Democratic column, which although Tee Republican Party has tried to win for President for a number of elections, is a state that shouldn’t go for a Republican for President before other states.
I don’t really know enough but my impression is that Santorum as the Presidential or Vice Presidential nominee wouldn’t help very much, because he lost big in 2006, unless he can correct whatever went wrong in 2006. There was something there about his schooling his children with money from Pennsylvania, (computer distant earning “cyber-school”) while they physically present in Virginia (like all members of Congress he legally remained a resident of the place he represented) and this was made into a great big scandal – and there were other things basically arguing he had moved way from Pennsylvania and maybe forgotten the state. After he lost the election, he like Gingrich seems to acquired Potomac Fever in that he lives there, although it is not clear. He did write a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, so absent more information, there’s no real reason to think he could help, and he maybe might hurt. Of course Santorum has an intimate knowledge of Pennsylvania, and that could help.
Ohio is harder for a Republican to carry, and Florida is probably considered lost and North Carolina is not yet a Democratic state in Preesidential elections, although they Democratic Party is making a big push, even locating its convention there in the hopes it would help. There are many former Northeasterners now living in North Carolina.
Sammy Finkelman (a99f25) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:48 pmColonel Haiku keep on calling anyone who disagrees with you your enemy.
People like you are polluting the earth.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:49 pmComment by Mark — 1/9/2012 @ 4:44 pm
I don’t know if any other person running for the presidency in US history — all of them being white (although some have said Bill Clinton was America’s first black president) — has ever had the disreputable, extremist background of Obama and yet somehow skated into the White House.
Maybe not radical (or what would have been radical or extremist in the previous generation) but for disreputable associations we have Chester A Arthur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Arthur
But he was merely elected Vice President and became President only because Charles J. Guiteau shot President Garfield, and because of incompetent doctors.
Maybe out of embarrassment, Arthur signed the Pendleton (Civil Service) Act in 1883. His attempt at nomination in 1884 went nowhere. He was actually very sick from some kind of a metabolic disease and died in 1886. (Although the finishing touch was a cerebral hemorrhage, the day before he had it, he had ordered nearly all of his papers, both personal and official, burned. )
Sammy Finkelman (a99f25) — 1/9/2012 @ 9:10 pm35. “one Elector in Minnesota voted for John Edwards as both President and Vice-President”
In Minnesota we don’t spank babies at birth, that would be cruel, we drops them on they heads.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/10/2012 @ 2:18 am36. “People like you are polluting the earth”
To be recycled on Kolob.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/10/2012 @ 2:26 amAs Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story, that AOL’s red headed step child, and Carlos Slim’s
charity case left out;
Forstmann’s criticism of Kravis (and much of the rest of the financial industry during the 1980s) centered on the issuance of high yield “junk” bonds to finance mergers and acquisitions. (Forstmann referred to junk bonds as “wampum”) When the junk bond market later fell into disfavor as a result of scandal, Forstmann’s criticism was seen as prescient, as his more conventional investment strategy had been able to maintain nearly the same level of profitability as companies such as KKR and Revlon that built their strategy around high-yield debt.[citation needed]
[edit] Credit crisis
Forstmann accurately predicted the worsening of the credit crisis in July 2008, when most pundits believed the crisis had reached its peak. Forstmann argued that the excess of money pumped into the economy after the September 11 attacks in 2001 distorted the decision-making abilities of nearly everyone in finance. With an oversupply of money, bankers and other financiers took on more risk with less return. While this allowed many to make money for a time, eventually this risk accumulated, and the consequences led to the credit crisis.[6]
narciso (87e966) — 1/10/2012 @ 4:31 amI bet you a donut that if Obama loses Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, but wins TarHeel country, he is toast and heres why, imo:
Wither goest Ohio and Pennsylvania, so followeth the Rust Belt. Wherever goest Florida, there likely also goeth the Sun Belt.
Mike D (6f2ada) — 1/10/2012 @ 2:22 pmIf Obama gets hi way and the cola industry is bankrupt it will cost a lot more on your electricity bill.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/10/2012 @ 2:36 pmhis*
coal*
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/10/2012 @ 2:36 pmOh, that makes a whole lot more sense. But I liked it better the first way 🙂
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/10/2012 @ 7:37 pmIm grateful for the blog. Want more.
Joana Groce (e49339) — 1/15/2012 @ 5:51 am