I drilled down into the DailyKos/PPP weekly poll for the last two weeks and noticed something I believe is politically significant: President Obama is winning the vote of self-described "moderates" by extraordinary margins.
Look at this data:
FAVORABLES
Obama Favorable/Unfavorable (1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Moderates 65/29
Independents 44/52
Obama Favorable/Unfavorable (1/6-1/9 MOE 3.1)
Moderates 58/36
Independents 38/53
JOB APPROVAL
Obama Approve/Disapprove (1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Moderates 61/33
Independents 37/57
Obama Approve/Disapprove (1/6-1/9 MOE 3.1)
Moderates 56/38
Independents 40/54
Keep in mind that in this week's poll results, moderates were 44% of the sample. In the prior poll, moderates were 51% of the sample. Independents, however, were 27% this week and 24% last week.
As you can see, President Obama has improved his numbers substantially among moderates and independents over the past week, except for job approval among independents, which ticked down a bit. But of even more importance is how substantially different his numbers are among self-described moderates and self-described independents. How could this be?
Let's look at one more piece of interesting data:
RE-ELECT
Obama Obama/GOP Opponent (1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Moderates 60/30
Independents 40/43
The point here is that not all independents are moderates. In fact, a heavy plurality of moderates are already Democrats. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling noted this from our poll:
-Obama’s approval with moderate independents is 52/39
-Among moderates 44% are Democrats, 33% are independents, and 22% are Republicans
I dug a bit deeper into the raw data using MSXL. If you filter just those who are self-described independents, you discover even more juicy information about who the independents actually are:
INDEPENDENTS
(1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Liberal 7%
Moderate 56%
Conservative 37%
A majority of independents call themselves moderate, some call themselves liberal, and a substantial number call themselves conservative. Obama's approval numbers among moderate independents, as Jensen notes, are almost as strong as those among moderate Democrats. His job approval among liberal independents isn't nearly as strong: 37% approve, 58% disapprove. So the argument that Obama isn't winning moderate independents falls flat on its face. He's doing exceedingly well among moderates of both Democratic and independent stripe. If there is anywhere he could quickly bump himself up a point or two, it is among liberals.
The conventional wisdom in Washington is that if President Obama is going to win back "moderate middle-of-the-road" voters, he has to "move away from the left." The president, however, is winning moderate voters by substantial margins. It isn't even competitive. If the president is a radical lefty, the moderate middle-of-the-road voters don't seem to mind. He doesn't need to cut Social Security or deregulate to win the moderates. He doesn't need to eliminate important programs or even balance the budget to win them either. President Obama doesn't need to move to the center. He's already there!
I did even more digging and found out where all the moderates are located geographically and discovered that if Obama does need to win over anyone, it is independent Midwestern moderates. But the bulk of his disapproval numbers are all in places and among groups he has little chance of winning anyway, namely the South and Midwestern conservatives. Here are his numbers among Midwestern independents of all stripes:
FAVORABLES MIDWESTERN INDEPENDENTS ONLY
Obama Favorable/Unfavorable (1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Favorable 37
Unfavorable 52
Unsure 9
JOB APPROVAL MIDWESTERN INDEPENDENTS ONLY
Obama Approve/Disapprove (1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Approve 23
Disapprove 44
Unsure 14
RE-ELECT MIDWESTERN INDEPENDENTS ONLY
Obama Obama/GOP Opponent (1/14-1/16 MOE 3.1)
Obama 35
GOP Opponent 41
Unsure 25
He's actually got a bit of opportunity room among Midwestern independents to win some people over. His low favorables are much better than his low job approval ratings among that group. I speculate these numbers have everything to do with JOBS and very little to do with him being a "liberal." If Obama wants to win the Midwest, and the election generally, it will take JOBS and not any sort of "move to the center."
(I feel the need to wave the orange flag a bit. Is there any other major poll where an average citizen can dig into the questions, cross-tabs, answer key, and raw data this way? People in this community can do the same thing I did and gain deep insight into the sorts of intricate polling data that many people in the media only glance at. I encourage you all to dig into the DailyKos/PPP poll and have some fun with it just like I did.)
