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WI-Sen: Dems Leading...For Now

by: jeffmd

Thu Dec 16, 2010 at 10:04 AM EST


Public Policy Polling (PDF) (12/10-12, Wisconsin voters, no trendlines):

Herb Kohl (D-inc): 51
JB Van Hollen (R): 38
Undecided: 11

Herb Kohl (D-inc): 48
Paul Ryan (R): 42
Undecided: 11

Herb Kohl (D-inc): 49
Tommy Thompson (R): 40
Undecided: 11

Russ Feingold (D): 52
JB Van Hollen (R): 41
Undecided: 7

Russ Feingold (D): 50
Paul Ryan (R): 43
Undecided: 7

Russ Feingold (D): 49
Tommy Thompson (R): 40
Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Oh, the difference a likely voter screen makes. PPP tests the Wisconsin Senate race, and finds Herb Kohl leading three of the more prominent Wisconsin GOPers: Attorney General JB Van Hollen, 1st District Congressman Paul Ryan, and former Governor and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson by anywhere from 6 to 13 points. Kohl is reasonably well liked (though not nearly at Klobuchar-esque levels) at 50/43.

Of course, Kohl is not the youngest guy around, and should he retire and Russ Feingold be interested in staging a comeback, Feingold would be in rather good shape, leading the three GOP contenders from 7 to 11 points. Interestingly, Feingold's favorables, at 50/43, are actually better than Ron Johnson's, who is barely above water at 42/39. Oh, the difference a likely voter screen makes.

This poll gives us some reason to be optimistic, but let's not forget that a year out from November 2010 - before Ron Johnson was on anyone's radar - Feingold was leading Thompson by 9 and in commanding position against all others. One hopes 2012 will be different!
jeffmd :: WI-Sen: Dems Leading...For Now
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WI-Sen: Dems Leading...For Now | 42 comments
Ron Johnson
was a perfect candidate for the '10 election. Well funded, telegenic and most importantly laser focuesed. Did he utter a single sentence in the whole campaign that didn't include either Jobs, Defecit or Obamacare?

He decided (rightly as it turns out) that no other issues would matter and to tap into voter anger, especially among independents he needed to hammer on those 3 words and not get distracted by anything else. Seriously, he sounded like my daughters Talk To Me Elmo that you can program to only say certain things and say them over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over over and over.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

That's a very underrated
skill the Republicans have--the ability to stay focused with laser-like intensity repeating the same phrases over and over. How many times did we hear the ideas about saving and investing relating to the Bush tax cuts?

Now, on a somewhat related note, was Johnson the candidate that a newspaper endorsed before it met with him and then revoked that endorsement after it met with him, or am I thinking of someone else?

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
"Did he utter a single sentence in the whole campaign that didn't include either Jobs, Defecit or Obamacare?"
...yeah, something to do with sunspots? :)

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Was that Johnson?
I vaguely remember the interview you're referring too, but I would have sworn that was someone else.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke
[ Parent ]
It was Johnson
[ Parent ]
FWIW
This is PPP's "voters" screen, and they haven't updated their lists yet, which means that they're still using as their definition "people who voted in 2004, 2006, or 2008."  

Two million dollar questions for this election (1) the degree to which Obama can generate the excitement among marginal Democratic voters that he did in 2008 and (2) the degree to which the GOP turned out new voters in 2010, and the degree to which they vote in 2012.  I guess that's really three questions, but let's think of it as a 2(a) and 2(b).  :-)

Ballot test vs Re-elect or replace
Here is one of the first of the later I've seen for the '12 POTUS race;

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds 42% of Americans say they'd probably vote for President Obama if he runs again in 2012 while 39% said they'd probably vote for a Republican.

This is middle of the road, but the rule of thumb is under 40% in a re-elect vs replace = trouble, so Obama at least has his head above water...

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

Where does that "rule of thumb" come from?
Is it as "credible" as the "50% favorable" rule for congressional incumbents?
[ Parent ]
It's what I was taught
Not sure how reliable it really is either. I think both a useful in their way, but should not be interpreted as a sign of doom or salvation. NVSen is a perfect example of why being under 50 is no death sentence. Feingold this past spring is also proof that being over that number doesn't mean you can't or won't lose.

It all depends, but I think both probably give a decent benchmark on the electoral health of an incumbent.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
However...
...being too self-righteous to run an effective well-funded hard hitting campaign that takes out your opponent early and hard?  In a year like 2010 that is a death sentence.  Hell.  Almost was in a year like 1998 and 2004 wasn't exactly overwelming either.

I love Feingold and am in favor of campaign reform.  But it is dangerous to make those points on the actual campaign trail rather than through legislation.

NY-13, Democrat. Blog @ http://infinitefunction.wordpr...

[ Parent ]
people should stop thinking of these as rules of thumbs
And just more simply as common sense in polling.  An incumbent polling under 50%, correct, that isn't a good sign and they could face an uphill battle.  Obama under 40% re-elects would certainly be damning and being above 40 would look alright at best.

No real rule of thumb, just basic observations in polling.

[ Parent ]
Meh
I think "rules of thumb" do have some value, but also need to be taken with a heafty grain of salt.

The other "rule of thumb" I always here at the beginning of any cycle is that an incumbent elected w/ less than 55% is vulnerable. Certainly not helpful this year because of redistricting, but I'm curious how accurate that is in other cycles.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
42+39=81.
That leaves a fairly large portion of the electorate that is basically unsure or undecided, which is both good and bad news. On the plus side, it might mean that while they aren't thrilled with Obama right now, they aren't so disgusted they are turning against him and turning to the Republican candidate because he or she isn't him. On the other hand, it does look like there's an opening for a candidate besides Palin, Romney, Gingrich, and Huckabee to emerge.

Whatever else you can say about him and his performance, Obama's shown a fairly remarkable resilience, especially when it comes to him personally. People seem to like him, even if they don't like his job performance, and that's a fairly considerable asset. I remember reading, for instance, a link from The Rothenberg Political Report that said while focus groups of swing voters during this past election where routinely negative on Pelosi, they wanted to make excuses for Obama. That could easily change, but my guess is that things would have to get a helluva lot worse, to the point where he'd be screwed anyway, for that to happen.

None of this means that we are in a really good position, of course, just that we could easily be in a far worse position.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

[ Parent ]
I thought the interesting thing was...
"At the same point in his term, Bush was up 45-31 in the same survey."  76 is even less than 81.  Of course that was pre-Iraq.  It just shows what can happen in 2 years and how meaningless the numbers are.  But I have a hunch that 2012 is going to play out similarly to 2004.  But since 2004 was so close anyway, anything could happen.
[ Parent ]
Interesting
Though a comparrison from 12/02 to 12/10 is very tough since we were in full-on run up to the invasion of Iraq and had only gone into Afghanistan 14 months before and 9/11 was only 15 months prior.

Not making a case one way or the other, but so much happened in the first 3 years of Bush's first term it isn't useful to draw anaolgies.


"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
45-31
During a time his approval rating was over 60 percent. So Obama at 45 is doing far better relatively speaking.
[ Parent ]
Why did you skip the part
about Obama being ahead of all known challengers? Romney is the closest - at 7 points behind.
[ Parent ]
My whole point
is that ballot tests this far out are irrelevant, but most importantly not a very reliable indicator of the incumbents political health.

The fact that Obama leads all "known challengers" is meaningless, who really knows what the strength of the eventual GOP nominee will be, Barbour could be the perfect foil to Obama, but testing Obama vs Barbour at this point is a waste of time since no one knows who the hell he is. Sure Obama is crushing Palin, but does that really tell us how strong Obama is for re-election or just that voters think she is ridiculous? The two are certaily not one in the same.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
Well said...
A half dozen firms polled McCain/Obama in late 2006, and McCain led every one, from between 2 and 19 (!) points.  "Must...tell...President...McCain...!"
[ Parent ]
source
[ Parent ]
True
But the Romney, Huckabee and Gingrich numbers do mean something since they are better known and closer to generic R. Having said that approval rating is the most important thing to look at and even then everything depends on the economy. Still interesting to speculate though.
[ Parent ]
He could be
ten points down, and I wouldn't necessarily want to panic, so I don't want to celebrate since he's up. Still, people like Kohl could be in far worse spots, so it's not really bizarre to acknowledge he's got a lot going for him.

At the same time, why not adopt the mentality that everyone is down ten points and work like a dog for the next two years? Call it the Harry Reid Mentality, if you will.

Seriously, I hope he's having a conversation with all of these incumbents. Perhaps there will be different enough circumstances so that someone like Angle won't be Kohl's opponent, but the things he focused on--figuring out a coalition and then turning that coalition out, defining his opponent, and so on--never stop being key to winning reelection. In the end, the might not be able to win, but we are so far away from the election that there's no excuse not to try.  

"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

My question for the SSPers (like we do sometimes the weekends)

Who would be the best democratic candidate for WI-Sen in 2012?

Now I'm leaning to keep H Kohl. But R Feingold can be good too.

Kohl
Because he wouldn't get much of a challenge.
[ Parent ]
No Feingold
I know many of his fans here want to believe his election was an abberation, and it very well might have been, but I don't think I'd be quite that saguine about re-nominating a guy that just lost the same office by 10pts.

I know little about Wisconsin, but I have to believe Blue Team has a deeper bench than THAT.

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college"
P. J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
more like 5 points, but ok


21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Well...
52-47 isn't quite 10 points... but your point is well taken. I think Russ Feingold is exactly the type of guy who we should be electing, and I've always been a fan, but I'm not sure that he'd be the strongest possible candidate.

Looking at the congressional delegation, there's no one who stands out to me as having a ton of statewide potential, but I'm not from Wisconsin. Still, Feingold came out of basically nowhere to win 18 years ago, so there might be a solid state senator who could breathe a little life into things.

I do think that both he and Tom Barrett (another 52-47 loser) could mount comebacks in the future, though. But 2012 might not be the year. (Alternate scenario: Feingold on the Supreme Court. But now I'm just dreaming.)

[ Parent ]
Agreed
Feingold is the kind of person we should be electing. There are virtually no others like him, who put principle ahead of politics and re-election. Unfortunately, that may be part of the reason he lost this year and had many close races in the past. It just sickens me that he was tossed aside after three terms of being a completely honest, clean, and principled statesman. He's one of the only completely trustworthy people in Congress. How could he possibly lose? Do the people of Wisconsin just not know that about him, or is it not important?

This race was the single most disappointing one for me in 2010, the next one being Alex Sink's loss in Florida. I definitely hope Kohl retires and Feingold runs in his place.

[ Parent ]
As I stated the other day...
I am for looking at another WI senate prospect willing to do what it takes (short of breaking the law and other nefarious measures) to get elected. The 2012 race is going to be HELL.  Much harder than anyone I have seen in my adult lifetime so we need folks willing to go after their opponent using the "dark arts" of negative campaigning when necessary and within reason of course (no Aqua Buddha stuff b/c that to me was just a stupid add).

41 African-American Female DC
Taxation but no representation...
[ Parent ]
I'll sort of answer your question
Herb Kohl has got his strengths, he's got the same position as Feingold vis-a-vis campaign finance except he's got an essentially ultimited supply of personal wealth. Also, although he's solidly liberal on most issues because he was the senator with Russ Feingold he's carved out a reputation among voters as the moderate senator. No Republican candidate will outspend him and that'll scare a lot of them off. Having said that he's not the most dynamic guy and he doesn't easily excite the base. Although if Obama can do that this will be a moot point. Overall, without knowing the environment and opponent for 2012 It's difficult to assess Kohl's strength as a candidate compared to others. I will say that I definitely think, regardless of opponent and environment, he is a safer candidate than any of the others. And although I love Russ and it pains me to say this, I do think Herb Kohl beats Ron Johnson. Primarily because he does what he does every cycle, starts running positive ads in May three months before the Republicans have a candidate. By the time Republicans have a candidate, Kohl has effectively ingrained his positive message into voters.

Kohl has to choose to retire, because no one will run against him in a primary. I don't want to re-litigate Feingold's strength as a candidate, I will simply say that if he wants to run no one will beat him. And I can assure you of that.

[ Parent ]
Kohl is the safest bet
Given that his money scares off serious challengers.

I'd say Ron Kind, then Russ Feingold, for an open seat. The only other prominent potential candidates are Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, but I doubt either of them would consider running, given how unlikely it is they would succeed.

[ Parent ]
Kohl is safe
and will scare off any decent Rrepublican.  I'd take Kind over Feingold any day, but Feingold only lost by 5% in 2010 which means it will be tough for a Rep to beat him in a presidential year, especially if the GOP Prez candidate is poor, as is likely.

I hope Kohl retires, Kind runs, and the GOP tries to get greedy with redistricting the 3rd, 6th, 7th and 8th.

[ Parent ]
Ron Kind wouldn't
Have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Feingold in a primary. I know that, Feingold knows that and Kind knows that. If Kohl retires and Feingold decides to run he will be the nominee.
[ Parent ]
Ron Kind?
I remember hearing talk of Ron Kind running in '12 if Kohl retires. Although it might end up costing the Ds his district, Kind seems like a decent statewide candidate. Any indications otherwise?
No one has brought this up
Of the 3 candidates, Van Hollen is far and away the most likely candidate of these three and far and away the most likely candidate to be the GOP nominee. Starting with the US Senate race in 2004, Paul Ryan could've been the field-clearing Republican nominee. In that time he's passed on three US Senate races (04, 06 and 2010) and 2 Governor's races (06 and 2010). Now that he's budget committee chair I don't see any way he leaves that job for a senate race in 2012. The only way Paul Ryan leaves is for a job in a Republican White House. Tommy Thompson, outside of a brief presidential run, this guy hasn't held elected office since 2000 and hasn't run a race since 1998. That and the fact that he'll turn 71 a couple weeks after the election and its unlikely he runs.

Van Hollen, he's clearly an ambitous guy and I was a little surprised he didn't run for senate in 2010. This is a free race for him as he just got re-elected AG, plus this is his last chance for a promotion for a very long time. If we assume Scott Walker and Ron Johnson run for re-election in 2014 and 2016, Van Hollen's next chance would be a Gov. race in 2018 and even that's not a gurantee as Wisconsin has no term limits for Governors

I see in the twitter feed there is a question
"Will these RVs show up to vote, though?"

Well, firstly, they aren't registered voters but the unique hybrid model that PPP use at this stage. Secondly, that model hardly changed the situation by more than a couple of points when they changed to likely voters. And thirdly I seem to recall the final batch of PPP polls last month generally favored the GOP candidates by a couple points more than actually turned out to be the case. In other words, though we should all understand the caveat that it is very, very early, I think we should also consider these polls as probably being quite accurate.  

Turnout was just under 3 million in 2008, while it was 2.2 million in 2010
I'm willing to bet 2012 will be more like the former than the latter. Maybe not a blowout for Obama, but it's not going to be a (rather small) Republican wave either.
[ Parent ]
Interestingly enough,
if you can believe the exit polls, Wisconsin is one of those states where the Democrat nationally usually does slightly worse than average with black voters. That was certainly the case with Obama in 2008. However, he also did extremely well with white voters, beating his national numbers by 11 points. He won the state overall by 13 points. He's got quite a bit of room to fall before he loses, I think.


"I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?
[ Parent ]
Registered voters polls are historically more accurate than likely voters
according to the big writeup on the orange satan.  But of course historically means little, and historically only PPP to itself is different than historically in general too.

What is known is based on recent history prez years draw some dem voters who don't vote in off years, and seperate phenomenon, local republicans are much more well liked in most key places than national republicans are.  When a local republican is stuck having to defend a national republican, they lose votes.

[ Parent ]
You never know
Two years ago at this time, Russ Feingold looked unbeatable. Hell, a year ago at this time he looked to be in good shape. We all know how that turned out. All polls of the 2012 elections are meaningless until we know who the candidates are and the campaign narrative has begun to take shape. If the economy continues to languish and/or Obama continues to look incompetent, a good GOP candidate could repeat Reagan's 1980 landslide and sweep up a lot of seemingly harmless Republicans in his/her coattails. Even if the Presidential election is close, another Ron Johnson type can emerge from nowhere and, with great message discipline, plenty of self-funding and Citizens United on their side, pull off an upset.
Or the complete opposite could happen.
The point is we don't know.

19, Self Appointed Chair of the SSP Gay Caucus (I claimed it first :p), male, Dem, IN-09 (College IN-09) (Raised IL-03, IL-09)
[ Parent ]
Just allow me a little bit of crowing
http://publicpolicypolling.blo...

That Rasmus guy in the comments is me. Also, how funny in retrospect is the idea that people were laughing about the notion of Blanche Lincoln potentially being vulnerable.

18- Hamburg, Germany (non-US-citizen)

[ Parent ]
WI-Sen: Dems Leading...For Now | 42 comments

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