Barack Obama is stronger than he was in 2008 in a key state.
Or, maybe, he's a lot weaker than he was in 2008 in a key state.
Mitt Romney is still nowhere in Iowa.
Or, maybe, Mitt Romney has a semi-respectable lead in Iowa.
As was the case on Tuesday, Wednesday brought us another data load of pure discord. It was, once again, "choose your own meme" day in the polling world, with numbers so disparate as to once again leave experienced polling observers to conclude that either (a) someone is way the hell off, or (b) this election cycle is simply making no sense whatsoever. In all probability, some truth can probably be divined from both of those statements.
Exhibit A in our case comes from Wednesday's GOP primary polling:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Gingrich 25, Romney 23, Paul 12, Perry 8, Bachmann 7, Santorum 4, Huntsman 2
NATIONAL (Reason/Rupe): Gingrich 27, Romney 25, Paul 7, Bachmann 6, Perry 5, Santorum 4, Huntsman 2, Johnson 1
NATIONAL (YouGov): Gingrich 27, Romney 21, Paul 13, Bachmann 8, Huntsman 6, Perry 5, Santorum 4, Johnson 1
IOWA (Iowa State U.): Paul 28, Gingrich 25, Romney 18, Perry 11, Bachmann 7, Santorum 5, Huntsman 0
IOWA (Rasmussen): Romney 25, Paul 20, Gingrich 17, Perry 10, Santorum 10, Bachmann 6, Huntsman 4
IOWA (We Ask America--R): Paul 19, Romney 18, Gingrich 16, Bachmann 15, Perry 11, Santorum 9, Huntsman 4
NEW JERSEY (Rutgers/Eagleton): Romney 28, Gingrich 20, Paul 5, Bachmann 2, Christie 2, Bloomberg 1, Huntsman 1, Santorum 1
VIRGINIA (Quinnipiac): Gingrich 30, Romney 25, Paul 9, Bachmann 6, Perry 6, Huntsman 4, Santorum 3
As for exhibit B, that one looks like a simple case of one polling looking way too optimistic for the blue team, and the other one looking more than a little pessimistic for team Obama:
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Romney (47-40); Obama d. Gingrich (50-37)
NEW JERSEY (Rutgers/Eagleton): Obama d. Romney (51-32); Obama d. Paul (50-29); Obama d. Gingrich (54-27);
VIRGINIA (Quinnipiac): Romney d. Obama (44-42); Obama d. Gingrich (46-41)
Not that anyone could make a hell of a lot of sense of this, but I'll give it a shot after the jump.
What to make of these Iowa polls? Simply put: it's hard to say.
Look, I don't want to play conspiracy theorist here in the Polling Wrap, but watching the air come rushing out of the Gingrich balloon in Rasmussen's polling (from up a couple points against Obama to down double digits in two weeks? Really?) makes me wonder if their filter is catching a caliber of Republican that is simply predisposed to like Romney more.
I base this not on generic suspicion of all things Rasmussen, but rather on the fact that no one is showing Romney leading in Iowa. Other pollsters have had Gingrich clinging to an edge, or Paul pushing into a narrow lead, or a three-way tie. But no one other than Rasmussen has given Romney even an inch of breathing room in the Hawkeye State. So, yeah, call me a skeptic.
But I am not sure I buy Iowa State or We Ask America here, either. One has Bachmann basically out of it, while the other has her making the caucuses a legit four-way battle. Someone has to be off the fairway there. But who? It's hard to know.
Meanwhile, on the general election front, this smells a little bit like a tale of two pollsters with very different ideas of who will participate next November. The Rutgers/Eagleton poll in New Jersey doesn't pass the smell test (and not just because of the curious decision not to include Rick Perry in the GOP primary test, while including both Chris Christie and Michael Bloomberg, though I suppose the latter two could have been volunteered responses). Newt Gingrich might not be America's sweetheart electorally, but it is hard to believe that a state that would elect Chris Christie would turn around and let a Democratic president with middling job approval double up his Republican rival. It's New Jersey, not Hawaii.
As for the Virginia poll, my guess is that it is an inch or two pessimistic for team Obama, but only an inch or two. Despite the emergence of NoVa as a place where Democrats can clinch statewide wins under the proper conditions, it is still a state that is divided enough to make a coin flip between Romney and Obama eminently believable.
Finally, a quick word about that YouGov national poll showing the president with respectable leads over either Romney or Gingrich. With the caveat that YouGov is an internet-only poll (with all of the sample issues therein), I have to point out something fascinating. The president's lead with that YouGov sample comes despite having absolutely horrid approval numbers with that self-same sample (42/50). If that isn't a sign that Obama could be potentially saved by the caliber of his opposition, I don't know what is.