Is the Palmetto State really purple territory for 2012?!
New numbers out midweek from NBC News (now employing Marist as their pollster in key states) reinforces one of the most enduring memes of the 2012 cycle: the president may be unpopular, but he is quite competitive when paired with GOP alternatives.
Such is the case in the swing state of Florida, and the nominally red state of South Carolina, where President Obama runs either right at, or slightly better than, his 2008 performances. This, despite the fact that Barack Obama's job approval ratings in the states in question are languishing in the low 40s.
Let's begin with a look at the Sunshine State:
Marist for NBC News (PDF). 10/10-12. Florida voters. MoE 2.1% (no trendlines)
Barack Obama (D): 45
Mitt Romney (R): 43
Barack Obama (D): 47
Herman Cain (R): 41
Barack Obama (D): 47
Rick Perry (R): 39
Worth noting: this is hardly a doe-eyed and optimistic electorate. The right track-wrong track metric here is woeful (20 percent right track, 70 percent wrong track), and a majority of Floridians polled think that the worst is yet to come.
That said, the president still leads the GOP field, including their most electable option in Mitt Romney. Against Herman Cain and Rick Perry, he approaches the margin Bill Clinton enjoyed in seizing Florida from the GOP in 1996 in his landslide win over Bob Dole.
As for the question of which Republican will get the nod to face Barack Obama, the verdict in Florida is decidedly mixed. Here, as elsewhere, Herman Cain has forged this into a two-horse race:
Marist for NBC News (PDF). 10/10-12. Likely voters w/leaners. MoE 4.3% (no trendlines)
Mitt Romney: 33
Herman Cain: 32
Rick Perry: 9
Newt Gingrich: 6
Ron Paul: 6
Michele Bachmann: 3
Jon Huntsman: 2
Rick Santorum: 1
Gary Johnson: 1
In a telling sign of how fast Perry's star has faded, even the elimination of the rest of his primary competition fails to revive him. Marist tested a three-way tilt between Romney, Cain, and Perry. In that scenario, the rest of the support shifts to the two frontrunners (who lock into a 40-40 tie). Perry only gets a fraction of the remaining support, inching up to 10 percent of the GOP vote.
In the Palmetto State, meanwhile, the GOP actually markedly underperforms their 2008 numbers, when John McCain carried the state by a reasonably comfortable 54-45 margin.
Marist for NBC News. 10/10-12. South Carolina voters. MoE 2.1% (no trendlines)
Mitt Romney (R): 46
Barack Obama (D): 40
Herman Cain (R): 44
Barack Obama (D): 42
Rick Perry (R): 43
Barack Obama (D): 42
Like many southern states (Mississippi comes immediately to mind), race plays a factor undoubtedly in the reasonably strong numbers for the president here. South Carolina has nearly double the proportion of African-American voters as does Florida (African-American voters account for 25 percent of the South Carolina electorate). This gives Obama a pretty high floor in the state. However, given the fairly high level of hostility between southern whites and the president, it also probably means he has a pretty low ceiling. The net result? Obama will probably not get blown out in a state like South Carolina, but a path to victory is going to prove to be awfully hard for him to navigate.
On the Republican primary front, this is one state where the implosion of Perry has a clear and distinct beneficiary, in the person of Cain:
Marist for NBC News. 10/10-12. Likely Republican voters with leaners. MoE 3.9% (no trendlines)
Herman Cain: 31
Mitt Romney: 28
Rick Perry: 10
Newt Gingrich: 7
Michele Bachmann: 5
Ron Paul: 5
Rick Santorum: 2
Jon Huntsman: 1
Gary Johnson: 0
Unlike in Florida, Perry actually would be a bit of a beneficiary in a narrowed Republican field. He'd shoot up to 16 percent of the vote, though he'd still badly trail both Cain (who would bump up to 37 percent) and Romney (who would be elevated to 35 percent of the vote).
On the GOP side, these two state polls are among the clearest indication yet that, for the moment, the Republican electorate sees this as a two-candidate race.