Archive for the ‘polling’ Category

I need to listen to more V-103.

This is in the way of a small confession. One of the few surprises in Georgia ballot tallies on Tuesday was the startling support given by African-American voters to Amendment One, the measure to permit the state to create a commission that will directly license charter schools.

This despite a very loud continent of black lawmakers, not to mention the state Democratic party and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who declared the proposed constitutional amendment would result in the resegregation of public schools.

What I didn’t know – and neglected to discover until Wednesday — was that these voices were being drowned out by the biggest name in black politics: President Barack Obama.

Two Democratic strategists – one of them Cabral Franklin, son of the former mayor of Atlanta – created this 60-second radio spot that aired exclusively on radio stations with African-American audiences:

The script:

Obama: “I call on states to reform their charter rules…When I …

Continue reading Your daily jolt: How Obama pushed Georgia’s charter school measure to victory »

Pick-your-poison season is already underway, with three national polls released Monday that tell at least two stories. We’ll deal with them in chronological order.

First, from the Gallup organization:

Mitt Romney is supported by 47% of national registered voters and Barack Obama by 45% in the inaugural Gallup Daily tracking results from April 11-15. Both Obama and Romney are supported by 90% of their respective partisans.

But before Republicans could do any serious rejoicing, CNN released its own survey:

…52% of registered voters say if the presidential election were held today, they would vote for the president, with 43% saying they would cast a ballot for Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is making his second bid for the White House.

The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, a few days after former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania suspended his bid for the GOP nomination…

The survey indicates women voters back Obama over Romney by 16 points (55%-39%), …

Continue reading Three presidential polls with at least two stories to tell »

President Barack Obama is at parity in Georgia when matched with three of the four remaining GOP candidates, according to an automated poll conducted last night by 20/20 Insight for the progressive group Better Georgia.

Given the survey’s 3.5 MOE (773 registered – rather than likely — voters polled), any of these November general election match-ups would qualify as a toss-up:

– Mitt Romney, 46 percent; Obama, 45 percent;

– Newt Gingrich, 46 percent; Obama, 45 percent;

– Obama, 47 percent; Rick Santorum, 44 percent;

Click here to check all the top lines, methodology, and question content – all of which can have an impact on survey results. On other topics:

– Drug testing: 64 percent of those polled support drug-testing for those who receive welfare and unemployment benefits. But 83 percent support drug-testing of state elected officials and senior government appointees. Slightly less popular (68 percent) is drug-testing for CEOs and senior executives with corporations that …

Continue reading Obama at parity with three GOP candidates in Georgia »

Updated at 4:30 p.m.: Yet another poll of the presidential primary in Georgia, again showing Newt Gingrich in the upper-40 percentile, has just been dropped by CNN/ORC International.

The poll also shows, like two others today, Santorum dangerously under 20 percent — the amount needed Tuesday for a share of 34 at-large Georgia delegates. The CNN top lines:

– Gingrich, 47 percent;

– Mitt Romney, 24 percent;

– Santorum, 15 percent;

– and Ron Paul, 9 percent.

More interesting is the portion of the CNN poll that looks at a general election contest with President Barack Obama. Asked whether they would vote for the Republican nominee or the incumbent Democrat in November, 1,775 registered Georgia voters were split, 48 to 48 percent.

Updated at 12:15 p.m.: In the wee hours this morning, following on the heels of a weekend AJC poll, Public Policy Polling of North Carolina came out with yet another survey that shows GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich creeping toward the 50 percent …

Continue reading CNN/ORC poll: Barack Obama tied with GOP nominee in Ga. »

We told you last night that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum will make his first post-surge appearance in Georgia on Sunday. This morning, The Hill newspaper in D.C. reports that Santorum has included this state in a first round of TV ads – to match frontrunner Mitt Romney:

The campaign is making the purchases in Arizona, which votes Feb. 28., and in Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and Oklahhoma — all Super Tuesday states except for Arizona — according to Santorum senior campaign adviser John Brabender. The campaign did not disclose any more details about the ads, such as the cost or exact markets where they will air.

Another sign that Santorum will present a full-court press on Super Tuesday: The Times-Free Press today reports that the former Pennsylvania senator will be the headliner at a Chattanooga tea party gathering. A recent poll has Santorum leading in that state.

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Meanwhile, financially pinched Newt Gingrich – or at least, his affiliated super PAC — this morning …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Rick Santorum will join TV war in Georgia »

On Wednesday evening, NBC and the Wall Street Journal released a national survey that declared Herman Cain had climbed to the top of the GOP presidential heap.

Many called it the first poll to say so.

But Matt Towery of InsiderAdvantage beat the New York team to the punch by a matter of hours, declaring Cain to be the GOP frontrunner at 1:08 p.m. Wednesday, on behalf of the conservative website, Newsmax.

The poll put Cain at 26 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 24 percent – a virtual tie when a 4.4 percent MOE is present, but still.

Towery, a Georgia operative, has sent over his crosstabs, which can be found here.

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While we’re on the topic of polling, Public Policy Polling of North Carolina has chosen one of its stranger topics – a study of Democratic and Republican attitudes toward the various states. Among its findings, which can be found here:

— There are three states that Republicans have a negative opinion of: Illinois (15/44), Massachusetts …

Continue reading The first poll to place Herman Cain at the top was… »

Five months after Republicans swept every statewide seat in sight, 151 days after Democrat Roy Barnes was given that ungentle push back to the courtroom, the manager of Barack Obama’s re-election campaign this weekend expressed what many would dismiss as a fantasy.

“If you look at the new census numbers, you would think that Georgia would be in play,” Jim Messina told The New York Times. “You would definitely think that Arizona would be in play — as I think it is. Those are states where we didn’t play in last time.”

Sunstroke is one possible explanation for the young man’s remarks, except that temperatures in Chicago haven’t yet escaped the 50s.

An easy diagnosis was further complicated on Tuesday by a survey of Georgia voters conducted by Public Policy Polling — a respectable North Carolina outfit. It declared that former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich, who has not yet formally announced his Atlanta-based GOP candidacy, could lose the state in a match-up with Obama.

The …

Continue reading Barack Obama’s campaign takes a serious look at Georgia »

Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin is looking to better her record in Georgia.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin/AP

Late Monday, Palin included Ray McKinney, the Republican running against U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Savannah, in a list of endorsements posted on her Facebook page:

We can count on Ray McKinney to be a strong, independent voice for Georgia’s 12th Congressional District. As Ray says, “If you like the way things are going now, vote for the other guy.”

Palin also gave mention to Barrow’s absence at a Sunday debate televised by Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Her choice of McKinney might be evidence that the 2012 presidential presumptive is seeking endorsement targets that would allow her to claim a good deal of the credit on Nov. 2 – something she enjoyed when Republican Karen Handel became the frontrunner coming out of the GOP primary for governor in July. Handel, of course, lost the August runoff.

The GOP has actively pursued the 12th District seat since Barrow’s …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Sarah Palin dips into a Georgia congressional race »

The consortium of 11Alive and V103-FM are out today with a Survey USA poll that shows former secretary of state Karen Handel within reach of a runoff berth with state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine in the Republican primary race for governor.

But both former congressman Nathan Deal and state senator Eric Johnson of Savannah are close enough for concentrated TV campaign to change the line-up.

In the Democratic contest, former Gov. Roy Barnes has a 56 percent lead that – if it holds through the next 12 days – would allow him to claim the nomination without a runoff.

The GOP standings:

Oxendine, 32 percent;

Handel, 23 percent;

Deal, 12 percent;

Johnson, 12 percent;

Ray McBerry, 5 percent;

Jeff Chapman, 4 percent;

Otis Putnam, 1 percent;

And undecided, 17 percent.

The automated poll, on the Republican side, has a margin of error of 3.2 percent. Survey USA has a workable crosstab feature here that shows Handel – who went up on TV only today – with a potential (but not yet …

Continue reading 11Alive/V103 poll: Karen Handel moves up on GOP side, Roy Barnes above 50 percent »

On Monday, we told you that Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com had ranked the nation’s pollsters.

Matt Towery’s InsiderAdvantage came in second to last.

In his company’s defense, Towery pointed to some kind words that Silver had said about his firm’s polling in 2008 during a presentation at Fordham University. And then issued a challenged. “Ask him to show me the races that we’ve missed,” Towery said.

And so, today, Silver did:

Consider that InsiderAdvantage, which has just 74 polls in our database, has 10 cases in which they missed the final margin between the candidates by 15 or more points.SurveyUSA, by contrast, has 11 such misses — even though they have 634 polls.

In fairness to InsiderAdvantage, we should note that this is not an entirely apples-to-apples comparison. InsiderAdvantage focuses on primaries, and moreover, Southern primaries, which are very difficult to forecast. However, our method accounts to the extent possible for the degree-of-difficulty that …

Continue reading 538’s Nate Silver on InsiderAdvantage, Part II »