It's "make your own meme" Tuesday in the world of political polling. Depending on your favored candidate in the 2012 White House sweepstakes. Tuesday brought a mini-deluge of national polling, with no less than seven different well-established pollsters throwing around either primary or general election numbers.
And the only consensus for this set of data is that there is virtually no consensus. Either Mitt Romney has completely caught up to Newt Gingrich, or Gingrich is still ahead by double digits. On the general election front, we can conclude either that Mitt Romney is even money with Barack Obama, or we can conclude that the president is going to roll up Romney by a margin similar to the one he dispatched John McCain with in 2008.
Even the vaunted electability gap is in question, if you buy stock in the latest Gallup polling of the general election.
Needless to say, there's something for everyone. So, let's start with the primary election numbers:
NATIONAL (ABC/WaPo): Gingrich 30, Romney 30, Paul 15, Bachmann 7, Perry 6, Santorum 4, Huntsman 2
NATIONAL (CBS News): Gingrich 20, Romney 20, Paul 10, Perry 6, Bachmann 4, Santorum 3, Huntsman 1
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Gingrich 25, Romney 23, Paul 12, Perry 8, Bachmann 6, Santorum 4, Huntsman 2
NATIONAL (PPP): Gingrich 35, Romney 22, Paul 11, Bachmann 7, Perry 6, Santorum 4, Huntsman 3, Johnson 1
On the general election front, expect Democrats to be tweeting those CNN numbers like crazy. And, Mitt-loving Republicans would just love to hype those general election nums from PPP, but that would (a) also bring light to those primary poll numbers and (b) force them to give up their silly jihad against the pollster, whose numbers they frequently decry despite having paper-thin evidence for doing so (see: Oregon and New Mexico).
Again, these numbers are wide open for interpretation. Yet again.
NATIONAL (ABC/WaPo): Obama tied with Romney (47-47); Obama d. Paul (49-44); Obama d. Gingrich (51-43)
NATIONAL (CNN): Obama d. Romney (52-45); Obama d. Paul (52-45); Obama d. Gingrich (56-40); Obama d. Perry (57-39); Obama d. Bachmann (57-38)
NATIONAL (Gallup): Obama d. Romney (50-48); Obama d. Gingrich (50-48)
NATIONAL (PPP): Romney d. Obama (47-45); Obama d. Paul (46-41); Obama d. Gingrich (49-44); Obama d. Bachmann (50-41); Obama d. Perry (50-40)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Obama d. Gingrich (48-37)
On the primary front, we get a really interesting data point from PPP, and kudos to them for being the first ones to consider this concept. They cut the Republican field in half, ridding the field of the four candidates most likely to drop out or bolt the race for another party (Gary Johnson, that'd be you). In other words, they pared the field down to the four candidates liable to be there till very late in the game: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman. In that tabulation, Gingrich's lead extended slightly (remember, they were on an island showing Gingrich well ahead). Gingrich led Romney 43-28, with Paul at 14 percent and Huntsman still largely irrelevant at 5 percent.
One other thing we have started to see in these presidential polls, with two prominent examples today, is pollsters opting to run ballot tests including third-party options. On one level, of course, this makes sense: satisfaction with both parties is at a historic low.
ABC/WaPo elected to install a three-way option with current GOP candidate Ron Paul cast as the third-party alternative. In that scenario, Barack Obama predictably moves into a solid lead, with a ten-point edge over Mitt Romney (42-32, with 21 percent for Paul) and an eleven-point edge over Newt Gingrich (43-32, with 21 percent for Paul).
PPP decided to get more creative, testing an Obama-Romney matchup with a total of over a half-dozen potential third party challengers, ranging from the plausible (Rocky Anderson and Gary Johnson) to the semi-farcical (Donald Trump). What follows is a table for how those numbers break down. Of note, even when paired against third-party challenges from the left, the net result is improved Obama performance vis-a-vis Mitt Romney:
With Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): Obama 42, Romney 42, Sanders 7
With former Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson: Obama 44, Romney 43, Anderson 4
With former Gov. Gary Johnson (R-NM): Obama 43, Romney 41, Johnson 9
With NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R): Obama 43, Romney 41, Bloomberg 8
With Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX): Obama 42, Romney 37, Paul 17
With former Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-UT): Obama 43, Romney 37, Huntsman 11
With blowhard Donald Trump (R): Obama 45, Romney 31, Trump 19
Of course, the third-party thing is difficult to gauge. Of the list above, the two likely candidates will be left-leaning Rocky Anderson (who has launched a new political party with an eye on a presidential bid), and Gary Johnson, who coincidentally announced tonight that he will leave the GOP and seek the Libertarian nod, instead.
The likelihood that one of the more well-known players on the list (Bloomberg, Trump, or Ron Paul) mounts a third-party bid is considerably more remote. But, as PPP showed, even the lower-tier guys like Anderson or Johnson can have a pretty sizeable impact on the race. Expect more pollsters to follow PPP's lead and start polling three-way and four-way tabulations as we head into 2012. This presidential election, with a possible multitude of candidates, could be a pollster's paradise, but a pundit's nightmare.