Epic-MRA has a new Michigan poll. Now, the horserace numbers are interesting, but I want to focus on some other things. But first the numbers. They gave us both fav/unfavs among Republicans:
| Don’t Know |
very |
Gen |
Total |
Gen |
very |
Total |
undec |
|
|
George W. Bush |
0% |
30% |
43% |
73% |
15% |
7% |
22% |
5% |
|
Jennifer Granholm |
0% |
5% |
14% |
19% |
30% |
46% |
76% |
5% |
|
John McCain |
2% |
15% |
50% |
65% |
16% |
3% |
19% |
14% |
|
Rudy Giuliani |
3% |
19% |
53% |
72% |
9% |
4% |
13% |
12% |
|
Mitt Romney |
12% |
22% |
29% |
51% |
7% |
5% |
12% |
25% |
|
Newt Gingrich |
5% |
14% |
33% |
47% |
23% |
14% |
37% |
11% |
And ballot test/horse race numbers:
|
30% |
John McCain |
|
26% |
Rudy Giuliani |
|
21% |
Mitt Romney |
|
16% |
Newt Gingrich |
|
2% |
Fred Thompson [volunteered] |
|
1% |
Sam Brownback |
|
4% |
Undecided |
First look at Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. 22% of the people in the poll are highly favorable to Mitt, and he gets 21% in the horserace. Hypothesis: the people who support Mitt support him because they like him, not because he is the "best of the rest". A similar hypothesis applies to Newt, who gets 14% highly favorable, with 16% supporting him. There is a corollary, however. People who are not highly favorable do not support them for President in the horse race.
Contrast this with Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Rudy Giuliani is more popular than John McCain, but McCain beats him in the horse race numbers. These two have In other words, there are things inhibiting people who like Rudy and, to a lesser extent, McCain from supporting them. What is going on here? What questions should pollsters start asking to figure out why people who are positive on McCain and Rudy are not supporting them?
I think that this suggests that Romney and Newt, who Dick Morris calls "corpses", have to keep convincing people they are great, while McCain and Giuliani have to convince people that they are "good enough" and that the others are not that good. McCain and Rudy have the easier job.
2 Comments
eyeon08.com » New Hampshire is weird: The importantance of guns · March 21, 2007 at 3:02 PM
[…] eyeon08.com Watching the 2008 pre-election « What are the ballot questions: Looking at the Michigan polls. […]
eyeon08.com » Big changes with Thompson in the race · March 23, 2007 at 2:43 PM
[…] First, Rudy Giuliani loses a lot of support to Thompson. That is a surprise, but not entirely. I suspect that these are the people who like Rudy, don’t like McCain so much and want someone more conservative. I mentioned this kind of possibility when looking at a recent Michigan poll. […]
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