Public Policy Polling

NE supports awarding Electoral College votes by congressional district

Raleigh, N.C. – Yesterday PPP released numbers showing Barack Obama in position to again take an electoral vote in Nebraska despite losing the state badly by winning one of Nebraska’s three congressional districts. PPP asked voters if they would prefer to keep the current system of awarding their electoral votes by congressional district or switching to a winner-take-all system. By a 51-38 margin,voters said they’d like to keep the current system. Democrats (66-18) and Independents (60-23) support the current system while only Republicans (38-42) want to switch to a winner-take-all model.

With former Senator Bob Kerrey moving back to Nebraska from New York City to run for U.S. Senate, PPP asked Nebraskans if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Big Apple. A plurality of voters (42%) had a favorable view of NYC, compared to 27% who viewed it unfavorably and 32% not sure. Democrats viewed it favorably by a 54-16 margin, indepenendents were almost as favorable at 45-17, but Republicans dislike New York by a slight margin at 32-37.

Nebraska Miscellany

-Dave Heineman is the only sitting Governor in the country with an approval rating in the 60s in PPP's polling. 60% of voters think he's doing a good job to 27% who disapprove. What sets him apart from most of his peers is that even with Democrats he comes close to breaking even with 42% approving and 44% disapproving of him. That's a rare feat in this era of heavy partisan polarization.

-Nebraska might have the most popular Governor in the country, but it also has perhaps the least popular Senator. Ben Nelson has just a 36% approval rating with 53% of voters disapproving of him. That -17 spread is worse than we've found for any other Senator in the last 2 years. Sometimes when an unpopular politician announces their retirement they get a bounce but that's not the case here.

Nelson's junior colleague Mike Johanns on the other hand is one of the more popular Senators with 55% of voters approving of him to 30% who disapprove.

-The most popular person with Nebraska Democrats? It might be Warren Buffett. 85% of Democrats in the state see him favorably to only 7% with an unfavorable opinion. He's at 65/15 with independents and 46/35 with Republicans, giving him an overall rating of 63/22. Not too bad.

-Buffett's numbers are impressive but he still can't claim most popular person in the state honors. That would have to go to Tom Osborne who has a 79/10 favorability rating. 53% of voters support Osborne's decision to replace basketball coach Doc Sadler with 11% opposed and 36% holding no opinion.

Ben Nelson down only 4 points to Jon Bruning

Raleigh, N.C. – Ben Nelson may not be in as much trouble as previously thought.  The embattled Nebraska Democrat had been almost an assumed casualty on the way to a Republican takeover of the Senate, but with recent stumbles by likely opponent Jon Bruning, Nelson’s chances are revived—and with them, the Democrats’ chances of retaining the Senate.  That is even more true if Bruning manages to lose the primary.

PPP has not polled the state since January.  Then, Bruning led, 50-39.  That is now only 46-42.  This movement comes from incremental improvements with Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.  While Bruning wins 13% of Democrats, Nelson poaches 19% of the GOP, and he has a 49-29 lead with independents.

Nelson pulls closer to Bruning

An odd thing has happened in the Nebraska Senate race over the last 9 months. Ben Nelson, already unpopular in January with a 39/50 approval rating, has become even more unpopular. 36% of voters now give him good marks to 55% who disapprove. That ties him with John McCain for the most unpopular out of 87 sitting Senators PPP has done approval polls on.

When we polled the state in January Nelson trailed Jon Bruning by 11 points at 50-39.  So you would expect with Nelson's numbers worsening that he would have an even bigger deficit against Bruning now.  Here's the thing though- Bruning's image has taken an even bigger hit over the course of 2011 than Nelson's has.  Early in the year 42% of voters in the state had a favorable opinion of Bruning to 26% with a negative one for a +16 spread.  Now Bruning is at a -6 spread with just 32% of voters giving him good marks and 38% rating him negatively- so he has dropped 22 points in the last 9 months, much worse than the 8 point decline in Nelson's favorability spread.

What does it all add up to? Nelson has pulled to within 4 points of Bruning and now trails him only 46-42, representing a 7 point improvement for the incumbent since our poll of the state earlier in the year. Nelson actually leads 49-29 with independents.  And he's picking up a pretty healthy 19% of the Republican vote, although he may need more than that to win.  The big problem for Nelson is that he's losing 13% of the Democratic vote to Bruning.  Democrats running statewide don't have a lot of margin for error in GOP heavy Nebraska and it's going to be hard for Nelson to survive without a more unified base than that.

Nelson down to Bruning, Stenberg in Nebraska

Raleigh, N.C. – Among 21 Democratic senators up for re-election next year, there is little question that the most endangered is Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat in an even more conservative state.  Though he won re-election handily in 2006, his first race was decided by a mere two points, and Nelson would lose a rematch to his opponent that year, State Treasurer Don Stenberg, as well as the most likely matchup with Attorney General Jon Bruning.  Nelson would only defeat two unknown Republicans, Pat Flynn and Deb Fischer.

Nelson trails Bruning, Stenberg

Every poll released so far on the 2012 Nebraska Senate race has shown Ben Nelson in deep trouble and our numbers are no exception. Nelson trails Attorney General Jon Bruning 50-39 in a hypothetical contest and Treasurer Don Stenberg by a 45-41 margin.

It's not hard to peg the reason for Nelson's precarious situation: you need to have a lot of appeal to Republicans if you're going to win as a Democrat in Nebraska, and while Nelson had that in the past he doesn't seem to anymore. The 2006 exit poll showed him winning a pretty remarkable 42% of the GOP vote. Now his approval rating with Republicans is down at 26%, and he gets just 17% of their votes against Bruning and 16% against Stenberg. Nelson actually has a 9 point advantage with independents over Bruning and a 17 point one over Stenberg but that's not enough given his lack of crossover support in the heavily GOP leaning state.

Nelson's situation has drawn a lot of comparisons to Blanche Lincoln's but he's not in quite as bad a position as she found herself in a year ago at this time. Nelson does at least lead a couple of lower profile candidates. He's up 42-35 on state Senator Deb Fischer and 42-33 against conservative activist Pat Flynn. Lincoln was trailing no matter who you tested her against at this point in February 2010. And Nelson's approval numbers, although certainly bad at a 39/50 spread, are a good deal better than Lincoln's were at 27/62. He may not have a lot of hope for a comeback but his odds are better than hers were.

Part of Nelson's problem beyond his own unpopularity is that both Bruning and Stenberg are relatively well liked. 42% of voters in the state have a favorable opinion of Bruning to just 26% with a negative one and for Stenberg it's 38% rating him positively while 25% have an unfavorable opinion of him. It's going to be a very tough road for Democrats to hold onto this seat.

Full results here