Public Policy Polling

Franken favored for reelection

PPP's newest Minnesota poll finds Al Franken in good shape for reelection. 51% of voters in the state approve of the job he's doing to 42% who disapprove. That +9 net approval rating is actually 6 points better than Barack Obama's in the state. The President gets 50% approval from voters in the state to 47% who disapprove of him.

Franken starts out with large leads against his potential opponents for reelection next year. He's up 15 on Mike McFadden and Rich Stanek at 51/36, 16 on Julie Rosen at 52/36, and 17 on Julianne Ortman and Jason Lewis at 52/35 and 54/37 respectively. On the off chance Michele Bachmann decided to make a statewide run Franken would have a 55/38 lead. Her statewide favorability rating is just 34%, with 60% of voters holding a negative opinion of her.

Part of the reason for Franken's early leads is his own popularity, but it's also partly because the potential Republican candidates are basically a blank slate to Minnesota voters. Lewis has 37% name recognition, Stanek 25%, Rosen 22%, Ortman 19%, and McFadden 14%. Because of the low profile of the potential GOP candidates they do have a good amount of room to grow against Franken, although he's certainly a clear favorite at any rate.

Other findings from Minnesota:

Tax reform proposals not sitting well with NC voters

PPP's monthly North Carolina poll finds that voters don't like the tax reform plans that have been presented by either the House or Senate over the last few weeks:

-Only 14% of voters support the Senate plan with 44% opposed and 42% having no opinion. When key provisions of it are described opposition rises all the way up to 68% with only 13% of voters supporting it. There is bipartisan opposition with 76% of Democrats, 69% of independents, and 56% of Republicans against it. The provision raising the sales tax on groceries is particularly unpopular with only 10% supportive of it and 81% opposed.

-Just 11% of voters support the House plan with 41% opposed and 48% having no opinion. When its key provisions are described it at least fares better than the Senate plan with support for it rising to 21%, although opposition to it climbs to 55% as well. Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike oppose the House plan as they do the Senate plan.

Tax reform isn't the only unpopular thing going on at the General Assembly right now:

-Voters are strongly opposed to the gun bill that recently passed the House. 73% of voters are opposed to concealed weapons in bars, 69% are opposed to them on college campuses, and 65% are opposed to them in parks. Even Republican voters are opposed to guns in bars (25/54), campuses (40/50), and parks (42/46). This is an example of the GOP majority in the legislature going to the right even of the party base.

-Only 15% of voters in the state support repealing environmental protections at Jordan Lake to 49% who are opposed to that course of action. Again we see bipartisan agreement with Democrats (10/54), Republicans (17/41), and independents (21/49) all opposed to eliminating those rules.

The sum total of all this is that the legislature continues to be extremely unpopular. Only 25% of voters approve of the job it's doing to 51% who disapprove. Voters aren't happy with either party but the Republicans (37/49 favorability) are worse off than the Democrats (38/46) and perhaps as a result Democrats lead the generic legislative ballot by a 46/42 margin. 45% of voters even go so far as to say the General Assembly is causing North Carolina national embarrassment to just 31% of voters who disagree with that sentiment.

Other notes from North Carolina:

North Carolina and Minnesota Question Suggestions

Minnesota and North Carolina are the states we'll poll this weekend.

In Minnesota we're mostly interested in thoughts on what Republicans to test against Al Franken and Mark Dayton. We'll obviously look at gay marriage too and any other ideas you have in the state would be much appreciated as well.

In North Carolina we'll take our standard look at the US Senate race. If there's anyone new you think we should test let us know. And we'll take our normal look at what's going on in the legislature- let us know what bills from the last month you think we should poll on this time around.

Thanks as always for the suggestions!

4 way tie for Republicans, Clinton leads Dems

PPP's monthly look at the 2016 Republican field for President finds essentially a 4 way tie at the top- Marco Rubio has 16%, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie 15% each, and Rand Paul 14%. Paul Ryan at 9%, Ted Cruz at 7%, Rick Santorum at 5%, Bobby Jindal at 3%, and Susana Martinez at 1% round out the potential candidates we tested.

It's now been almost 6 months since we started doing regular polling of the 2016 race. The only candidate who's shown any real momentum over that period of time is Paul, whose support has doubled from 7% to 14%. Rubio's shift from 18% to 16%, Bush's from 12% to 15%, and Christie's from 14 to 15% are all within the margin of error. It is worth noting though that this is the first time Rubio hasn't held at least a 4 point lead over the other Republican contenders.

There hasn't been much movement on the Democratic side either. Hillary Clinton leads with 63% to 13% for Joe Biden, 4% for Andrew Cuomo, 3% for Mark Warner and Elizabeth Warren, 2% for Martin O'Malley, and 1% each for Kirsten Gillibrand, Deval Patrick, and Brian Schweitzer. Clinton led Biden 61-12 when we started polling on this in December. Clinton has at least 58% support with liberals, moderates, men, women, whites, African Americans, Hispanics, young voters, and seniors- in other words every key segment of the Democratic electorate.

Americans on the Supreme Court

With the Supreme Court headed for some major decisions next month, we decided to take our first ever look at what Americans think about the body as a whole and each of its members individually. Here's what we found:

-Americans overall have a negative opinion of the Supreme Court- 42% see it unfavorably, with just 33% holding a positive opinion. Democrats have a narrowly positive opinion of it (39/37) while both Republicans (29/44) and independents (31/46) have pretty unfavorable views.

-Only 29% of Americans think the Supreme Court is ideologically 'about right' with 36% believing it's too liberal and 30% that it's too conservative. Voters in both parties think the Court is stacked to the other side- 59% of Republicans think the Court is too liberal to 26% who think it's about right, and 49% of Democrats think it's too conservative to 33% who think it's about right.

-There's a wide range in how well known the various members of the Supreme Court are to the public. Sonia Sotomayor is the best known with 74% name recognition, followed by Clarence Thomas at 68%, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 64%, Antonin Scalia at 58%, Elena Kagan at 55%, John Roberts at 48%, Samuel Alito at 47%, Anthony Kennedy at 41%, and Stephen Breyer at 35%.

-Even though he's one of the least well known justices, Kennedy has the best net favorability of them all at +9 (25/16). That's because he's the only one who's seen positively by both Democrats (29/16) and Republicans (21/14).

Americans so over hipsters

Just 16% of Americans have a favorable opinion of hipsters, a new PPP poll on the much-discussed subculture shows. 42% have an unfavorable opinion of hipsters, and 43% aren’t sure. Democrats (18% favorable, 34% unfav) are twice as likely as Republicans (9% fav, 48% unfav) to have a favorable opinion. Voters age 18-29 have a favorable opinion of them (43% fav-29% unfav), but very few voters over age 65 do (6% fav -37% unfav).

Just 10% of voters say they consider themselves to be hipsters – and almost all of those are younger voters. Half of all voters aged 18-29 consider themselves hipsters; every other age group is 5% or less. 

14% of voters say they’d be more likely to vote for a hipster for political office – mostly independent voters. 12% of Democrats and 27% of independent voters say they’d be more likely to vote for a hipster, but just 2% of Republicans agreed. 98% of Republicans say they’d be less likely to vote for a hipster.

We asked voters whether they thought hipsters made a positive cultural contribution to society or whether they just “soullessly appropriate cultural tropes from the past for their own ironic amusement.” 23% of voters said they made positive cultural contributions while nearly half – 46% – went with soulless cultural appropriation. Independents at 31% were most likely to say hipsters make a positive cultural contribution, while Republicans were least likely (15%) with Democrats in the middle (23%).

27% of voters said they thought hipsters should be subjected to a special tax for being so annoying, while 73% did not think so.

About one in five voters (21%) said they thought Pabst Blue Ribbon, commonly associated with hipsters, was a good beer. Democrats (29%) were more likely than Republicans (23%) to think so, while independents (11%) were least likely.

Full results here

Voters trust Clinton over GOP on Benghazi

PPP's newest national poll finds that Republicans aren't getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin and Clinton's +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March. Meanwhile Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular with a 36/57 favorability rating.

Voters think Congress should be more focused on other major issues right now rather than Benghazi. By a 56/38 margin they say passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill is more important than continuing to focus on Benghazi, and by a 52/43 spread they think passing a bill requiring background checks for all gun sales should be a higher priority.

While voters overall may think Congress' focus should be elsewhere there's no doubt about how mad Republicans are about Benghazi. 41% say they consider this to be the biggest political scandal in American history to only 43% who disagree with that sentiment. Only 10% of Democrats and 20% of independents share that feeling. Republicans think by a 74/19 margin than Benghazi is a worse political scandal than Watergate, by a 74/12 margin that it's worse than Teapot Dome, and by a 70/20 margin that it's worse than Iran Contra.

One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.

At any rate what we're finding about last week's Benghazi focus so far is that Republicans couldn't be much madder about it, voters overall think Congress should be focused on other key issues, and Hillary Clinton's poll numbers aren't declining on account of it.

Full results here

Republicans and Democrats divided on music icons

Day two of PPP’s music-centric poll finds a partisan divide in the favorability ratings of many of the biggest music stars of the past several decades. Voters overall  have extremely favorable reviews of Elvis Presley (73-14), The Beatles (76-15), The Rolling Stones (61-26) and the Beach Boys (74-16).  They’re split on Michael Jackson who holds a 48-44 favorability rating. Kurt Cobain is viewed favorably by just 25% while 44% say they have an unfavorable opinion of the late grunge icon. And a majority of voters view Madonna unfavorably (36-51). When asked who is their favorite Beatle, 41% of voters choose Paul McCartney, 29% say John Lennon, 12% pick Ringo Starr and 11% go for George Harrison. Most voters (30%) chose Lennon and McCartney when asked who they thought was the best songwriting partnership of all time.

There’s a partisan divide for many of these ratings, however. There’s a massive 54-point party divide on Michael Jackson – Democrats have a favorable view of him at 59-30, Republicans are flipped and view him unfavorably by a 34-59 margin. The same with Madonna – Democrats narrowly view her favorably (43-41) while Republicans strongly dislike her (21-68). The party disagreements even extend to Favorite Beatle – Democrats choose John over Paul (39-36) while Republicans strongly prefer Paul over John (49-15) – it seems Republicans still haven’t forgiven Lennon for his strong political activism. Overall, Democrats (84-10) like The Beatles more than Republicans (66-24).

Music Poll Results - Day One

The first batch of reults from PPP's new music-oriented poll finds widespread support for several genres of music and artists – but Americans are united in their dislike for teen pop sensation Justin Bieber.

PPP tested the favorability ratings of several of today’s biggest music stars: Taylor Swift (53-27), Adele (54-18), Beyonce (51-30), and Justin Timberlake (52-24) all received positive reviews from voters. Others didn’t fare as well – Chris Brown (13-57), Lady Gaga (29-50), Justin Bieber (20-54) were all rated unfavorably by 50% or more, and Jay-Z (25-44) and Rihanna (30-39) had netnegative favorability ratings as well. Veteran British rocker Morrissey (17-31 with 52% not sure) and dubstep pioneer Skrillex (11-35 with 54% not sure) were the least known of artists tested.

Bieber was the only artist who had a majority unfavorability rating across all party lines – a majority of Democrats (23-54), Republicans (17-52), and independents (18-56) all reported negative views of the singer.

When asked who they’d most like to see as President when given the choices of Adele, Justin Bieber, Beyonce, Chris Brown, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, or Rihanna, 34% chose Timberlake, with Adele (19%) and Beyonce (14%) also receiving double digits followed by Jay-Z (9%), Lady Gaga (9%), Bieber (8%), Chris Brown (5%) and Rihanna (2%).

Hillary over 50 even in Massachusetts

-More than 50% of Democrats in Massachusetts want Hillary Clinton to be their candidate for President in 2016. In a sense that's unremarkable- it's what we find everywhere we poll. But what makes it remarkable in Massachusetts is that she's over 50% despite the fact that we included 2 Bay State politicians- Governor Deval Patrick and Senator Elizabeth Warren- and she's still over 50%. 55% would like her to be the nominee to 17% for Joe Biden, 4% each for Warren, Patrick, and Andrew Cuomo, and 1% for Martin O'Malley. It's just another data point of how overwhelming the desire is for Hillary in 2016.

-Our first look at Senator Elizabeth Warren's approval numbers finds 44% of voters approving of her to 39% who disapprove. That +5 net approval is pretty much in line with her 8 point margin of victory last fall. Deval Patrick's approval rating is 48/41- the 48% approval is identical to what we found when we last polled on him in October.

-We're coming up on the 9th anniversary of gay marriage being legal in Massachusetts, and only 15% of voters in the state think its being legal has had a negative impact on life there. 25% believe it's had a positive impact and 60% don't think it's had any effect on them one way or the other. Overall 58% of Massachusetts voters support gay marriage to just 32% opposed.