Public Policy Polling

McCrory maintains small lead

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 The Republicans still running for President are
Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Ron Paul. If
the primary was today, who would you vote
for? If Mike Huckabee, press 1. If John
McCain, press 2. If Ron Paul, press 3. If you're
undecided, press 4.
Huckabee................ 33%
McCain.................... 56%
Paul ........................ 5%
Undecided............... 5%

Q2 The Republican candidates for Governor are
Bill Graham, Pat McCrory, Bob Orr, Elbie
Powers, and Fred Smith. If the primary was
today, who would you vote for? If Bill Graham,
press 1. If Pat McCrory, press 2. If Bob Orr,
press 3. If Elbie Powers, press 4. If Fred Smith,
press 5. If you’re undecided, press 6.
Graham................. 14%
McCrory ................ 26%
Orr......................... 6%
Powers .................. 1%
Smith..................... 23%
Undecided............. 29%

Republican Tracking Poll: Federal Stuff

John McCain 56
Mike Huckabee 33
Ron Paul 5

Huckabee probably won't even be in the race by the time the North Carolina primary comes around. Not that it matters either way. Folks have coalesced around McCain.

Elizabeth Dole 82
Pete DiLauro 12

In case anyone was wondering what percentage of Republicans are unhappy enough with Dole's performance that they would vote for any random joe (or in this case Pete) who put himself on the ballot, it's 12%.

Full results here

Paul up big in Congressional race

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 The Republican still running for President are
Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Ron Paul.
If the primary was today, who would you vote
for? If Mike Huckabee, press 1. If John
McCain, press 2. If Ron Paul, press 3. If
you're undecided, press 4.
Huckabee................ 27%
McCain.................... 49%
Paul ........................ 18%
Undecided............... 5%

Q2 The candidates for Congress in your district
are Ron Paul and Chris Peden. If the election
was today, who would you vote for? If Ron
Paul, press 1. If Chris Peden, press 2. If
other, press 3.
Paul ................................................................ 63%
Peden ............................................................. 30%
Undecided....................................................... 7%

Texas 14th District Poll

The voters in Ohio's 10th District and the 14th District of Texas are probably about as different philosophically as they could be. But they do have one thing in common- they don't support their Congressman for President, but they're fine to keep on sending him to Washington. We released numbers about Dennis Kucinich yesterday, here they are for Ron Paul:

John McCain 49
Mike Huckabee 27
Ron Paul 18

Paul's performance is stronger than he is seeing most places, though still not that great. He does best with young voters, among whom he leads Huckabee and has 29%

Ron Paul 63
Chris Peden 30

Paul has been challenged on the right by Peden, a Friendswood City Councilman. Peden has particularly tried to hammer Paul on the war and on issues that fall into the category of moral and family values. But he's not getting much traction with those criticisms. The poll shows Paul leading 64-27 among voters who said the war was their top issue and with a 65-28 advantage among respondents most concerned about moral and family values.

Like the Presidential race Paul is very popular with young voters, with whom he has a 75-11 lead.

Full results here

Obama, McCain primed for victories in Wisconsin

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Wisconsin Democratic Primary Survey Results:

Q1 The Democratic candidates still running for
President are Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama. If the primary was today, who would
you vote for? If you would vote for Hillary
Clinton, press 1. If for Barack Obama, press 2.
If you’re undecided press 3.
Clinton..................... 40%
Obama.................... 53%
Undecided............... 7%

Q2 I am going to name 7 issues. Which of these is
most important to you? The War in Iraq,
education, the economy and jobs, taxes, moral
or family values, health care, or immigration. If
the War in Iraq is most important, press 1. If
education, press 2. If the economy and jobs,
press 3. If taxes, press 4. If moral and family
values, press 5. If health care, press 6. If
immigration, press 7. If some other issue is
most important, press 8.
War in Iraq ............ 34%
Education .............. 5%
Economy and jobs. 35%
Taxes .................... 3%
3%
Moral and family
values....................3%
Health care............ 17%
Immigration ........... 3%
Other ..................... 1%

Wisconsin Poll: Obama, McCain with double digit leads

Barack Obama 53
Hillary Clinton 40

Obama has expanded his lead in Wisconsin since the survey PPP did a week ago.

Obama is leading with every meaningful constituency except senior citizens. Whites and women, weak points for him in some states, are not in Wisconsin. He leads 50-43 with both of those groups, and has his typical large leads among African Americans (76-21) and men (57-36.)

PPP projects that if the Wisconsin primary had a standard turnout, Obama would lead just 47-44. But assuming the disproportionately high turnout of blacks and young people that other early primary states have experienced occurs in Wisconsin as well, that should be worth an extra ten points of margin for Obama.

One trend continuing from last week's poll is that many more Wisconsin Democrats list the war as their top issue than in other states. That's a big part of Obama's success, as he leads 58-37 with that constituency.

John McCain 50
Mike Huckabee 39
Ron Paul 6

As has happened in recent primaries in places like Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia Huckabee is closing in on McCain as election day gets closer. McCain's 11 point lead is down from 21 points in a poll conducted last week.

One thing Wisconsin has in common with other states where the primary has broken Huckabee's way in the closing days is a high percentage of Republican voters who say that moral and family values is the issue they take into account most when deciding who to vote for. It's the second biggest issue in the state for GOP voters, right behind the economy, and Huckabee leads 70-18 with people who say it's their top concern.

The Republican race for the nomination is at a similar point to where the Democrats were four years ago when they came to Wisconsin. The race is all but over, but not all of the viable challengers have dropped out. That year John Edwards came surprisingly close to beating John Kerry in the state, and if the race continues to move in the direction it's been heading Huckabee could put a scare into McCain tomorrow night.

Full results here.

Wisconsin Results

Barack Obama 50
Hillary Clinton 39

In most states the number of people listing the war as their top issue is declining rapidly. But in Wisconsin it's still a big thing for Democratic voters, and that's helping to vault Barack Obama into a solid lead. Obama has a 55-34 lead among respondents who said the war was their biggest issue while actually trailing Clinton 47-45 with people most concerned about the economy. Wisconsin appears to be one state where folks are still taking into account Clinton's vote on the war five years ago.

Obama is also doing a solid job cutting across racial and gender lines in Wisconsin. He has his customary large advantage with black voters, 66-24. But he also leads Clinton with whites, 49-41. He leads 56-35 with men and 46-43 with women.

Obama actually barely leads Clinton among self identified Democrats, 46-44. But there are a lot of independent voters in Wisconsin, who can vote in the state's open primary, and Obama's lead with that group is 63-25.

John McCain 53
Mike Huckabee 32
Ron Paul 7

Mike Huckabee may be gaining some momentum on John McCain in a lot of states but Wisconsin doesn't appear to be one of them.

While Mitt Romney was in the race, McCain's Achilles heel was voters who listed immigration as their top issue but with him out of the running McCain even leads among those voters, 41-33 over Huckabee. McCain also leads Huckabee 64-22 and 64-25 on key issues of the war and the economy respectively.

Full results here.

McCrory, Smith leading the pack for Governor

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 The Republicans still running for President are
Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul, and
Mitt Romney. If the primary was today, who
would you vote for? If Mike Huckabee, press
1. If John McCain, press 2. If Ron Paul, press
3. If Mitt Romney, press 4. If you're
undecided, press 5.
Huckabee................ 23%
McCain.................... 30%
Paul ........................ 6%
Romney .................. 30%
Undecided............... 10%

Q2 The Republican candidates for Governor are
Bill Graham, Pat McCrory, Bob Orr, Elbie
Powers, and Fred Smith. If the primary was
today, who would you vote for? If Bill Graham,
press 1. If Pat McCrory, press 2. If Bob Orr,
press 3. If Elbie Powers, press 4. If Fred Smith,
press 5. If you’re undecided, press 6.
Graham................. 11%
McCrory ................ 25%
Orr......................... 7%
Powers .................. 2%
Smith..................... 21%
Undecided............. 35%

Republican Tracking Poll: President

John McCain 30
Mitt Romney 30
Mike Huckabee 23
Ron Paul 6

These results seem beside the point with the news of Romney dropping out but it is interesting that Romney had by far his best performance ever in North Carolina at the very end of his campaign.

It's easily explainable though. North Carolina Republicans mostly identify themselves as conservatives. Romney had been making the argument in the final weeks of his campaign that he was the only viable conservative alternative to John McCain left in the race. It looks like a good number of GOP voters here bought that argument. The problem for Romney is that our neighbors in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama did not and allowed Huckabee to win their primaries.

What it means is that in a two person race now between McCain and Huckabee, I would guess Huckabee would have a double digit lead in the state. If Romney had just dropped out yesterday afternoon we would know!

It's also interesting to note that McCain actually trailed Romney among registered Republicans in the survey, 31-29. But among the unaffiliated voters who can pick either primary he led 37-24.

Full results here

Discussing Super Tuesday

On Sunday I was a guest on the 'Kudzu Vine,' which is a show about Georgia and Southern politics. We discussed Super Tuesday particularly in the south, and you can listen to it here.

Here are my predictions, for what little they're worth:

-The Republican race is over after tonight. Maybe Romney will win California but McCain will win so many other places by such great margins that it will be besides the point.

-The Democratic picture will be just as murky in 24 hours as it is now. Clinton will win New York but Obama will win California. Clinton will win Tennessee, but Obama will win Georgia. Clinton will win Missouri but Obama will win Illinois.

If someone does come out of today with an advantage I think it will be Obama. If he can win Connecticut and/or New Jersey and possibly Missouri as well that would be a pretty strong sign that he can win on her territory and in states that don't necessarily have a large minority population.

Either way it'll be on to Virginia and Maryland next Tuesday.