Public Policy Polling

Nelson increases lead over Mack

Raleigh, N.C.-- The Florida Senate race is one of the strangest in the country this year. Bill Nelson has middling approval numbers, with only 35% of voters approving of him to 42% who disapprove. Usually an incumbent in that kind of position would be doomed for defeat. And yet Nelson has a 7 point lead over Connie Mack IV, 45-38, representing a 5 point increase in his lead compared to our last poll in late July.

The reason Nelson's ahead despite being unpopular is that Mack is even more unpopular. Only 27% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 45% with an unfavorable one. Just 17% of independents have a positive opinion of Mack to 48% with a negative one, and much of Nelson's lead comes thanks to a 45-29 advantage with that group.

“Bill Nelson is the clear favorite in the Florida Senate race,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Voters aren’t exactly in love with him but they like Connie Mack IV even less.”

Nelson leads by 7 in Florida Senate race

The Florida Senate race is one of the strangest in the country this year. Bill Nelson has middling approval numbers, with only 35% of voters approving of him to 42% who disapprove. Usually an incumbent in that kind of position would be doomed for defeat. And yet Nelson has a 7 point lead over Connie Mack IV, 45-38, representing a 5 point increase in his lead compared to our last poll in late July.

The reason Nelson's ahead despite being unpopular is that Mack is even more unpopular. Only 27% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 45% with an unfavorable one. Just 17% of independents have a positive opinion of Mack to 48% with a negative one, and much of Nelson's lead comes thanks to a 45-29 advantage with that group.

This campaign kind of represents the new norm in electoral politics- millions have been spent bashing the heck out of both candidates, so voters dislike both of them and are kind of just choosing the lesser of two evils. For now that's Nelson.

Other notes from Florida:

Allen and Kaine tied in Virginia

Raleigh, N.C. -- According to the latest poll in the state, Democrat Tim Kaine and George Allen are now an even match for U.S. Senate. Both candidates take 46% of the vote with George Allen up two points from PPP’s last poll on the race in July.  Kaine continues to lead among women 50-39, while Allen gains more support from men, now 53-40.  Tim Kaine now takes 86-6 of the Democratic support, up two points from July, while George Allen now has 88-4 of Republicans, up one point from the previous poll.

“The Virginia Senate race continues to be inside the margin of error,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Neither candidate has been able to separate himself and it seems unlikely that will happen between now and November either.”

Kaine and Allen tied

PPP's newest look at the Virginia Senate race finds Tim Kaine and George Allen dead even at 46%. Although we've always found a tight contest, this is the first time in our last five polls that Kaine hasn't had a modest lead. Last month Kaine had a 46-44 advantage.

The numbers break down pretty much as you would expect. Kaine is up 50/39 with women, while Allen has a 53/40 advantage with men. There's almost no spillover across party lines- only 6% of Democrats are planning to vote for Allen and just 4% of Republicans are supporting Kaine. Allen leads 55-37 with white voters, and Kaine leads 66-25 with non-white voters. Kaine leads 49-40 with voters under 45, and Allen leads 50-43 with voters over 45. Everything about this race is about as predictable as it could be.

Allen and Kaine have very similar favorability numbers as well. Allen comes out at a net +2 with 43% of voters seeing him favorably to 41% with an unfavorable opinion. Kaine is at a net +1 with 45% of voters rating him positively to 44% who have a negative view.

Nothing in this race ever really changes.

Other notes from Virginia:

Kasich approval on the rise

Raleigh, N.C. -- PPP’s second poll in a row in the Buckeye State shows once embattled Governor John Kasich improving his standing, both in job approval and in a test of his 2014 reelection bid. His approval rating stands even, a 7 point bump, with his disapproval at 41% and he leads a generic Democratic challenger by 4 points, after showing narrow leads against a host of hypothetical opponents in June.

“John Kasich has really resurrected his image after a shaky first year in office,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “He’s gone from being one of the most unpopular Governors in the country to about average.”

Senator Rob Portman has benefited from some good press surrounding his VP buzz, bringing his net approval up from +1 to +7, with 38% approving of his job performance and 31% disapproving. This comes from a rise among both independents and Republicans, of 12 points and 14 points respectively.

Ohio Miscellany

-John Kasich's seen a remarkable improvement in his image over the last year. When PPP polled Ohio in August of 2011 Kasich's approval rating was just 36% with 53% of voters disapproving of him and he trailed Ted Strickland 54-39 in a hypothetical rematch of their 2010 contest. Now he's pulled even on his approval numbers, with 41% of voters both approving and disapproving of him. And he leads a generic Democrat by a 43-39 margin in head to head contest. Florida's Rick Scott and obviously Wisconsin's Scott Walker have also seen their poll numbers improve a good deal this year. The 2010 GOP class of Governors is seeing some improvement as it goes along.

-Rob Portman didn't get picked as Mitt Romney's running mate, but the public speculation about him may have helped his image in Ohio. 38% of voters approve of the job he's doing, the best number we've found for him since he took office, to 31% who disapprove. He's gained 6 points from a 32% approval rating when we last polled the state in late June. Portman's seen a particularly large rise with Republicans from +31 (50/19) in June to now +45 (59/14).

-Ohio voters are with the Obama administration on the early voting issue. 61% think the entire early voting period should be available to all voters, compared to only 30% who believe the last three days should be only for members of the military. Democrats (80/15) and independents (66/25) overwhelmingly think it should be available to everyone in the final three days while Republicans (39/48) disagree and think it should be military only.

Crist in good position to reclaim governorship

Raleigh, N.C.-- Florida voters are generally favorable to the idea of former Republican Governor Charlie Crist completing his partisan transformation and becoming a Democrat. And despite an unimpressive even favorability rating at 41%, Crist benefits from voters’ deep dissatisfaction with Governor Rick Scott in order to lead his successor in a potential 2014 matchup 44% to 41%.

In this hypothetical race, the theoretically newly minted Democrat would enjoy at least as much support from his own party as Scott would from his own. This is enough for Crist to overcome Scott’s slight edge among independents, 43% to 40%. That figure represents a large shift towards Scott among independents. When PPP last polled Florida in June, Scott was tested in a horserace against state Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich, who, despite garnering only 14% name recognition, defeated Scott by 12 points, including a 14-point advantage among independents.

Florida miscellaneous

Rick Scott, long the most toxic of the raft of Tea Party governors that swept into office two years ago, has seen his approval numbers jump considerably in recent months, much like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and other Republican chief executives who were once massively unpopular. 

Make no mistake--Scott is still among the least popular governors in the country, tied for sixth least liked out of 36 we have polled on since the start of 2011.  39% approve of his job performance and 51% disapprove--still not good numbers, but the best we've ever found for him.  That is up from a 31-56 spread just a month earlier.  He reached lows in the mid-20s last year.  Now Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett is the least popular of the first-term Tea Partiers, and Rick Perry (R-TX), Dan Malloy (D-CT), Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), and Bev Perdue (D-NC) are all more reviled with their constituents than Scott is with his.

Scott's improvement is a combination of a rise in his support from independents and his own party.  Independents now split on him, 43-43, when they were at 26-60 in June.  That is over half his improvement.  The rest comes from Republicans, who now sit at 64-27 on their governor, versus 53-31.  He has still upset too many of his own partisans, but he is coming back to safer territory.  Democrats have not budged at all and probably won't ever; they fall at 13-77.

Scott was so unpopular in June that he was down 12 points to an almost unknown challenger who has already announced her bid to oppose him in 2014 (Nan Rich).  And we have routinely found him trailing badly to his predecessor Charlie Crist, if he were to become a Democrat, which he is quite clearly in the process of doing.  But now Scott has pulled to within three points of Crist in a hypothetical match-up (44-41).

Even though Democrats are the most enthusiastic about Crist becoming a Democrat--56% of them think he should, versus 31% of Republicans and 32% of independents--and though they like Crist (50-31 favorability) a lot more than they do Scott, Scott still slightly outperforms his approval numbers across the aisle when pitted against Crist.  He gets 16% of their vote, versus 13% approval.  He was only getting 7% of Democrats against Rich.

Crist does get a bit more crossover support than Scott does, at 19% of his former party.  But Scott leads 43-40 with independents.  When we last polled the two head-to-head eight months ago, Crist wholloped Scott by 23 points (55-32), thanks to Crist's 25% of Republicans and a 20-point lead with independents (52-32).

Part of Crist's decline against Scott is his own personal numbers.  His 41-41 favorability split overall is down from 48-33 last November.  That includes declines across the board, but particularly with the independents who now favor Scott.  He has slipped 17 points on the margin with them, and they now actually dislike him, 36-44.

Casey maintains lead for re-election

Raleigh, N.C. -- Pennsylvania’s senior Senator Bob Casey has a healthy 10 point advantage over his opponent, businessman Tom Smith. Even following PPP’s last poll in the state which gave him a larger 16 point lead, these results are good news for Casey considering approval numbers that have been, and remain, tepid at best.

That mark is basically unchanged from the May poll, and is even with 36% approving and 36% disapproving of the Senator’s job performance. This comes both from lower than optimal support among Democrats, who only approve of Casey by a margin of 53% to 23%, and a decidedly chilly figure from Independents, with whom Casey’s net rating is -7.

Pennsylvania Miscellany

-PPP's newest poll of Pennsylvania finds there's still a fair amount of support for Joe Paterno in the state, although his image has taken somewhat of a hit. 45% of voters in the state see him favorably to 37% with a negative opinion. That represents a net 15 point decline from a November survey when he was at +23 (51/28). By a 48/35 margin respondents expressed opposition to removing his statue from the Penn State campus, something that ended up happening in the middle of the poll's Saturday-Monday field period.

50% of voters in the state now express a favorable opinion of the university as a whole to 31% who see it negatively. That's down from 61/25 the last time we asked about it. Finally, 94% of Pennsylvanians have a negative view of Jerry Sandusky to 2% with a positive one. Those represent the worst poll numbers we've ever found for any public figure.

-Bob Casey remains favored in the Pennsylvania Senate race, but it's tightened over the couple months since PPP last polled it. He's up 46-36 on Republican challenger Tom Smith, compared to 49-33 on our May poll. Casey continues to have pretty so so approval numbers with an equal 36% giving him good marks and disapproving of him. That's largely due to a lack of enthusiasm for him among Democrats but most of his party is committed to voting for him in the fall whether it loves him or not and when you combine that with a 42/32 advantage among independents and a decent 14% crossover support from Republicans it gives him his 10 point lead.

It appears likely Smith will at least improve on Rick Santorum's performance against Casey in 2006, which probably says more about Santorum than anything else.