There are two big stories in today's smattering of Thursday polls. One is that the crew at Quinnipiac gave the House of Ras a giant shitburger to eat with their Senate polling. You might recall that in the past few weeks, the Ras-sies claimed that Republican Josh Mandel was tied with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and that GOP challenger Connie Mack IV was up by several points over Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida.
Today, the Q poll was released, and their retort was clear: "Meh. Not so much."
Then, the House made some news of their own, with their most recent numbers in Wisconsin. After showing such a dramatic shift in their Senate numbers (a shift that our own David Nir mocked as "clown-ass bullshit"), it perhaps should not come as a surprise that they also now have the president laying waste to all Republican comers, dropping all of them by double-digit margins.
Will the real Rassies please stand? And ... now ... today's numbers.
GOP (PRESIDENTIAL) PRIMARY NUMBERS:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 39, Santorum 28, Paul 11, Gingrich 10
NATIONAL (YouGov): Romney 31, Santorum 31, Gingrich 11, Paul 9
MARYLAND (Rasmussen): Romney 45, Santorum 28, Gingrich 12, Paul 7
PENNSYLVANIA (Wenzel Strategies): Santorum 46, Romney 26, Paul 10, Gingrich 9
(PRESIDENTIAL) GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (46-44); Obama d. Santorum (45-43)
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Paul (44-42); Obama d. Santorum (47-45); Obama d. Romney (46-43); Obama d. Gingrich (51-40)
WISCONSIN (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (52-41); Obama d. Santorum (51-39)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
CA-39 (Tulchin Research for Chen): Rep. Ed Royce (R) 50, Jay Chen (D) 33
FL-SEN (Quinnipiac): Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 44, Connie Mack IV (R) 36
MD-06—D (Garin Hart Yang for Delaney): John Delaney 49, Rob Garagiola 23, Milad Pooran 10
OH-SEN (Quinnipiac): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 46, Josh Mandel (R) 36
PA-SEN—R (Wenzel Strategies for Citizens United): Tom Smith 26, Sam Rohrer 18, David Christian 4, Steven Welch 2, Marc Scaringi 2
A few thoughts, and a question about the House of Ras, await you after the jump.
Hey, maybe Rasmussen's right and the rest of the polling world is wrong, but there are two things in their recent data that I find to be more than a little strange, and I share them here with you now:
- Let's start with that bizarre dichotomy between their presidential polling and their Senate polling. I have absolutely no idea what to attribute this to, but has anyone else noticed that their state-by-state presidential polling has actually been more or less in-line with the rest of the polling community, while their Senate polling has been considerably more amenable to the GOP than their polling contemporaries?
Consider the following: Quinnipiac had Obama +6 in their presidential poll of Ohio, and they had Democrat Sherrod Brown +10 in the Senate poll of Ohio. This means that Brown, the incumbent Senator in the Buckeye State, was polling a few points ahead of Obama in Ohio, which is what every pollster to date (that looked at both races) has basically had. Rasmussen, for their part, had Obama +8 in the presidential poll of Ohio this week, and had Brown tied with Republican Josh Mandel. In other words, they had Brown running eight points behind the president. No one else has had that variance between the presidential and senate contests.
- Another odd data point with the House of Ras: how the hell can they reconcile their national tracking poll with their state polling? This week (though the dates don't match exactly), they had the president beating Romney by 11 points in Wisconsin, by 8 points in Ohio, and yet losing to Romney by 2 points in today's national tracking poll.
President Obama, by way of comparison, ran about four points behind his national numbers in Ohio in 2008. Most polling data this time around, when compared to contemporaneous national polling numbers, have Barack Obama running at about the same margins in Ohio as he is nationally, give or take a point or two. Rasmussen, inexplicably, has the president running ten points ahead of his national margins in the Buckeye State. Weird.
Rasmussen, in recent weeks, has shown the president with leads in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. I find it pretty difficult to believe that the president would be trailing nationally, and carrying that trio of states.
- In non-Rasmussen polling news, anyone interested in the value of endorsements should perhaps cast an eye or two on the potentially competitive Democratic primary in MD-06 next week. Today's poll (conducted by GHY for wealthy financier John Delaney) gives Delaney a 26-point edge over state senator Rob Garagiola. However, the big news out of MD-06 today was the late-in-the-game endorsement of Garagiola by none other than Maryland's Democratic Governor, Martin O'Malley. Allowing a little hedge for the often optimistic nature of internal polling, it will be interesting to see how close Garagiola comes to Delaney, or if he pulls off the come-from-behind win. If he wins, or it is close, Garagiola will know the value of O'Malley's imprimatur, and will no doubt wish it came a week or two earlier.