Raleigh, N.C. – Despite the national profile he's taken on this year Sheldon Adelson is still largely unknown in Nevada. 56% of voters don't enough about him to have an opinion one way or the other. He gets negative reviews from the folks who are familiar with him- 17% rate him positively to 27% with a negative opinion. Republicans narrowly like him (22/16) but Democrats are considerably more unified in their dislike of him (10/41).
There's one thing Nevada voters across party lines can agree on: they love them some brothels. 64% think brothels should be legal to only 23% who think they should be illegal. The most striking thing in these numbers is that an equal 66% of Democrats and Republicans each think that brothels should be legal. In late March we found that only 20% of Nevada GOP voters supported gay marriage so that's an interesting take on family values there.
-Despite the national profile he's taken on this year Sheldon Adelson is still largely unknown in Nevada. 56% of voters don't enough about him to have an opinion one way or the other. He gets negative reviews from the folks who are familiar with him- 17% rate him positively to 27% with a negative opinion. Republicans narrowly like him (22/16) but Democrats are considerably more unified in their dislike of him (10/41).
-There's one thing Nevada voters across party lines can agree on: they love them some brothels. 64% think brothels should be legal to only 23% who think they should be illegal. The most striking thing in these numbers is that an equal 66% of Democrats and Republicans each think that brothels should be legal. In late March we found that only 20% of Nevada GOP voters supported gay marriage so that's an interesting take on family values there.
-Nevada voters have a more positive image of Reno than they do of Las Vegas, although both cities poll pretty well. 58% have a favorable view of Reno to 13% with a negative one. Las Vegas comes down at 53% positive and 26% unfavorable. The cities have very similar numbers among Democrats and independents. What puts Reno ahead overall is that it's at 65/7 with Republicans while Vegas gets a weaker 52/27 rating from them.
Raleigh, N.C. – More Nevadans are in favor of legalizing prostitution across the state than allowing online poker gambling. 56%, including 65% of independents, 56% of Democrats, and even 51% of Republicans, believe prostitution should be legal, and 32% think it should not. Meanwhile, only 40% think online poker should be legal, while 42% believe it should be illegal. Nevadans may see it as a threat to casino tourism.
Voters are also just narrowly in support of same-sex marriage, 45% wanting it to be legal and 44% still illegal. Two-thirds of Democrats and a 45% plurality of independents support it, but 73% of Republicans are against it. 77% of voters, however, including 83% of independents and 61% of Republicans, support at least civil unions, which feature the legal rights associated with marriage and Nevada’s domestic partnerships.
-Last fall Harry Reid got reelected despite being unpopular because Nevada voters disliked Sharron Angle. 'Dislike' no longer describes how voters in the state feel about Angle. 'Hate' would be a better word. 17% of voters in the state have a favorable opinion of her to 70% with an unfavorable one. Right after Game Change came out 15% of North Carolina voters rated John Edwards favorably to 72% with a negative opinion. That's the only time I can remember polling someone and finding numbers comparable to these ones for Angle. (Edwards is even more unpopular than that now.)
It's a given that Angle gets horrid reviews from Democrats (5/86) and independents (19/71) but what's plunged her numbers down to near record levels in our polling is that even among Republicans only 31% now rate her favorably to 52% with a negative opinion. She is not going to be a factor in any future Nevada political race.
-Throughout 2010 John Ensign's approval numbers held up better than you might have expected in PPP's polling- on average 39% of voters approved of him and 46% disapproved. Those are certainly bad numbers but given everything that had happened to him the previous couple years you might have expected worse.
Well the bottom's dropped out now. In the wake of his resignation only 29% of Nevada voters now approve of the job he's doing to 55% who disapprove. It's a given that Democrats don't like him but what's really plunged his numbers is that he now has the support of less than half of Republicans- 46% approval to 37% disapproval. And he has almost 2:1 disapproval with independents, with 55% giving him poor marks to only only 28% who think he's doing a good job.
Ensign's the second least popular Senator in the country out of everyone we've polled. The least popular? That would be Joe Lieberman at an identical 29% approval but a higher 58% disapproval.
-Harry Reid's pretty consistently had an approval rating in the mid-40s and a disapproval number around 50% in our polling and that's no different this time around. 43% of Nevada voters like the job he's doing to 51% who disapprove. Republicans (89%) are more unified in their dislike for him than Democrats (76%) are in their support and independents align against him 62/31. He wasn't popular when he got reelected and he isn't popular now but he can sure thank the man upstairs- or just GOP primary voters- for handing him Sharron Angle last year.
-We've found that most new Republican Governors in Obama states have quickly become very unpopular. Not so with Brian Sandoval. 44% of voters approve of him to 38% who disapprove. Those numbers are weak compared to the 57/20 favorability rating he posted on our January poll, but still he's holding up a lot better than most of his first term colleagues around the country. He's down mostly because he's lost most of his appeal to Democrats, only 19% of whom approve of him now. But he's in good standing with independents at 50/33.
In a hypothetical rematch of their contest last fall Sandoval would lead Rory Reid by an almost identical amount to his margin of victory at 51/41. That probably has a lot to do with the total collapse of the younger Reid's image over the last few months. Only 31% now have a positive opinion of him to 53% with a negative one. He was never popular but that -22 spread still represents a 10 point decline from the -12 at 39/51 that he had on our last poll before the election last fall.
Nevada Republican insiders hope that John Ensign will voluntarily step aside rather than seeking a third term in the Senate but even if he doesn't his chances of winning another term are pretty small. Asked who they want their Senate candidate to be next year from a laundry list of candidates just 20% pick Ensign, with Dean Heller leading the way at 30%.
A majority of Republicans still approve of Ensign- 53% to 30% who disapprove. But there's an increasing sense even with GOP voters who are happy with his job performance that the party needs a different candidate next year. One person who Republican partisans are not interested in seeing as that different candidate is Sharron Angle. Just 9% say she would be their top choice, putting her not just behind Heller and Ensign but also Sue Lowden at 12% and Danny Tarkanian at 10%. Even with the conservative voters who fueled her surprising victory in the primary last year Angle's in just fourth place with 11%. Her future prospects for snagging a nomination for any high profile statewide office don't look very good.
We also tested a direct Ensign-Heller match up and the results on that have changed dramatically from a similar poll conducted three months ago in early October. At that time Ensign led Heller 45-37, but he now trails 52-34. I can think of several reasons why things would have changed since then. One is that even though a majority of Nevada Republicans still like Ensign, the result of the Reid/Angle race made it clear they can't nominate just anyone and expect to win and that may have them feeling more like it's necessary to swap out Ensign.
Another is that the spotlight has obviously been shining more on Ensign in the weeks since the election than it had been in a while and that could have the impact of putting Ensign's transgressions back at the top of people's minds, which can't be a good thing for his poll numbers. At any rate not a lot of Senators polling in the 30s for a primary contest find themselves back in Washington for the next Congress.
When it comes to the Republican Presidential contest in the state Mitt Romney remains well out ahead of the pack with 31% to 19% for Sarah Palin, 18% for Newt Gingrich, and 14% for Mike Huckabee. Although Romney has on the whole performed poorly in our 2012 GOP polling of late, it is at least an encouraging sign for him that two of the places where he does do well are the key early states of Nevada and New Hampshire. He's had a double digit lead every time we've looked at the Republican field in this state.
Raleigh, N.C. – Last week’s release showed John Ensign trailing every possible Democrat, should he decide to seek another term in 2012. It also showed Dean Heller beating those same Democrats. Part of Heller’s comparative strength was not only a greater appeal across the aisle but also within the party. Indeed, if Heller were the sole challenger to Ensign in a primary right now, he would soundly defeat the incumbent, 52-34. Even when given seven possible choices, 30% of reliable Republicans choose Heller, and only 20% pick Ensign, with Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian following at 12% and 10%, respectively, Sharron Angle at 9%, Brian Krolicki at 6%, and John Chachas at 5%.
Raleigh, N.C. – Half of Nevadans disapprove of John Ensign’s job performance, only a little more than a third approve, and almost three in five think he should not run for re-election to the Senate next year. In that environment, it is no surprise he cannot beat even the least known Democrat tested against him. But if he steps aside or is defeated in a primary, 2nd-District Rep. Dean Heller would be a formidable opponent for Democrats hoping to flip this seat and offset potential losses elsewhere in the country. Heller currently leads every Democrat Ensign lags behind, doing an average of 14 points better on the margin than the incumbent.
John Ensign trails every Democrat on the farm in hypothetical reelection contests next year but Republicans have a very good chance at keeping his seat if Dean Heller ends up as the party nominee instead.
Ensign's approval rating is only 35% with 50% of voters disapproving of him. His numbers are especially atrocious with independents, as only 22% of them are happy with the job he's doing while 56% express disapproval of his performance. Even more troubling for Ensign is that just 26% of voters in the state want him to seek reelection while 59% wish he would step aside. The most critical finding on that question is that even among Republicans more- 48%- wish Ensign would step aside than the 42% who want him to run again. That bodes very poorly for his prospects in a primary (we'll have that part of the poll out on Monday.)
Given Ensign's bad approval numbers it's not surprising that he trails a laundry list of potential Democratic opponents. He does worst against Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman who is not actually currently a Democrat but would presumably run as one on the off chance he did make a Senate bid. Goodman leads him 45-35. Against Congresswoman Shelley Berkley who seems like the most likely Democratic candidate at this point he's down 45-42. He has a 44-42 deficit against Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and a 40-39 one against Secretary of State Ross Miller.
What's most remarkable about Ensign trailing all of the Democrats is that none of them are particularly well known at this point. 34% of voters in the state have no opinion about Goodman and it's 35% for Masto, 37% for Berkley, and goes all the way up to 50% for Miller. Their leads over Ensign would be more likely to increase than anything else if any of them was actually to enter the race and become better known across the state.
So Republican prospects for holding onto the seat would be pretty dire if Ensign remained the party's standard bearer. The good news for them is that Congressman Dean Heller would be an extremely formidable alternative. Although Heller is also unknown to a fair number of voters in the state- 31%- the ones who do have an opinion about him are very positive, breaking down 46% favorable and 23% unfavorable. And he would start out with an initial lead over all of the Democrats, ranging anywhere from 7 to 13 points. It's 45-38 over Goodman, 46-37 over Masto, 46-34 over Miller, and 51-38 over Berkley.
The difference between how Ensign and Heller do with independents against each of the Democrats is pretty remarkable. Against Berkley Ensign trails by 1 but Heller leads by 28. Against Goodman Ensign trails by 17 but Heller leads by 7. Against Masto Ensign trails by 12 but Heller does by just 2. And against Miller Ensign trails by 10 but Heller leads by 17.
The Nevada Senate race may be one of the Connecticuts or Kentuckys of this cycle- one where the incumbent party looked like it was headed for near certain defeat until the incumbent got out of the picture, ultimately allowing his party to keep the seat. Nevada should be competitive Ensign or no Ensign given the increasing blue tinge of the state, but at least from the get go Republicans would be favored to keep the seat with Heller but lose it with Ensign.
During the second half of 2010 PPP polled on approval ratings for 59 different Senators. Here's some of the information on how they stack up:
-The average approval rating for a Senator right now is 43% approving to 40% disapproving. That suggests the old adage that voters hate Congress but love their Congressman holds true...to an extent...maybe hate Congress but don't mind their Congressman is a better way of putting it. At any rate 37 Senators had positive approval numbers in our most recent polls while 22 had negative ones.
-There's very little difference in the average approval of Republican Senators vs. Democratic Senators. Your average GOP Senator has a 43/37 approval spread. Your average Democrats comes down at 44% approval and 41% disapproval.
-Seven Senators posted a net approval rating of +20 or greater during the second half of 2010. The most popular is Amy Klobuchar at +30, followed by Scott Brown at +24, Judd Gregg at +23, and then Barbara Mikulski, Mark Warner, Chuck Schumer, and Olympia Snowe all at +22.
-There are only three Senators who posted a net approval rating of -20 or worse during the second half of 2010. They are Roland Burris at -39, Arlen Specter at -31, and Joe Lieberman at -21. Specter and Lieberman's numbers definitely speak to the perils of having it both ways...they don't really make Democrats or Republicans particularly happy and you can get away with that if independents love you for your independence but in their cases that has not happened. I will be interested to see if Lieberman's numbers are back in the right direction after the last month and I imagine we'll poll there sometime in January.
-The two most popular Senate delegations are Maine where Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins add up to a +39 approval spread and Maryland where Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin combine for a +36 approval spread. The two least popular are Connecticut where Lieberman and Chris Dodd are both pretty unpopular and add up to -37 and Illinois where Dick Durbin actually is on positive ground but Burris is so unpopular that together they add up to -37.
Here are the full numbers, there are probably a lot of other interesting points that I'm missing. And a methodological note, I'm using our most recent poll here except for states that we polled repeatedly in October- for those ones I'm using the poll that proved to come closest to the election outcome in the state:
PPP is best known for putting out highly accurate polling on key political races across the country, but we also do affordable private research for candidates and organizations. Why pay tens of thousands of dollars for a survey when one of the most reliable companies in the nation can do it for less?"
