Tagged: polling

Posted: May 1, 2013 at 4:03 am

New Ad Up in Montana on Background Checks

by Cowgirl

This morning the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has launched a new TV ad pressuring Max Baucus to support background checks for gun sales, something over 79% of Montanans support according to the post recent Montana-specific poll.

Starting tomorrow, the ad will run for a week in Montana, on broadcast and cable in the Helena, Missoula and Billings media markets. It will also run on cable in Washington, DC on MSNBC and CNN.

The PCCC’s initial expenditure is over $50,000 — and will increase with online fundraising from the group’s national membership–about one million members.

You can see the ad here:

The ad features Claire Kelly, a gun owner and grandmother from Stevensville, who is one of the of 23,000 gun owners supporting sensible gun reform at GunOwnersForReform.com

Lawmakers in the Senate have said background checks would come up for another vote this year, U.S. News’s Rebecca Metzler reports. After the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s full-page newspaper ads ran in 20 papers across Montana this past week, the NRA announced a newspaper ad last Thursday specifically attacking the citizen’s group and defending Baucus. As Greg Sargent at the Washington Post writes, this ad “suggests the NRA may still believe Baucus is gettable as a vote for Manchin-Toomey.”

Here’s the transcript of the ad:

I’m a grandmother, a hunter and a gun owner.

I’ve been the victim of a home invasion.

I hid my girls in a closet, called for help, aimed my handgun at the door and waited.

Guns can protect us but we’re less safe with guns in the wrong hands.

79% of Montana voters support background checks.

So why did Senator Max Baucus vote against us?

Senator Baucus, now that you’re retiring, please put Montana first.

Posted: January 30, 2012 at 6:43 pm

Polling Quick Hits

Damage Control

Public Policy Polling came out with a poll a while back that had Tester and Rehberg in a statistical dead heat. Then, the Republican political front group known as the Montana Chamber of Commerce came out with a poll, which they were forced to release, much to their chagrin, because the poll had Tester leading by five.

The Rehberg campaign needed damage control, so they had the Republican Party get a polling firm to release a poll that showed…guess what? Rehberg up by 11 points.

The poll, conducted by the firm Public Opinion Strategies for Karl Rove’s secretive organization American Crossroads, shows questionable and uncharacteristic results for the race between Jon Tester and Congressman Dennis Rehberg.

Perhaps the campaign wasn’t aware that a second poll was released today, also conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, has much different results. It shows the race much closer—well within the margin of error.

Common Ground

In addition to testing voter opinions of Jon Tester and Dennis Rehberg, the Public Opinion Strategies survey also tested current voter attitudes of Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is one of the most popular Governors in the U.S. (65 percent approve to 24 percent disapprove).

That’s something even Rehberg’s campaign manager Erik Iverson can agree on. In a television appearance, Rehberg’s campaign manager told Tom Brokaw his opinion of the Governor. Here’s the clip:

Conservation

The poll also found that Montana voters across the political spectrum – from Tea Party supporters to those who identify with the Occupy Wall Street movement – think of themselves as conservationists and support preserving Montana’s air, land, water and wildlife to protect the economy, and their way of life. The Montana results are particularly interesting. In fact:

63% say increasing the use of renewable energy will create jobs in Montana, and three-quarters (75%) of state voters indicate support for Montana increasing the use of renewable energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal from ten percent to 25 percent by 2025.

Links to all of the Colorado College, State of the Rockies polls for Montana (and other western states) can be found here.

Posted: December 7, 2011 at 5:21 pm

Senate Intrigue in 2014

According to the Public Policy Polling group, Max Baucus is, at 37%, the least popular Senator in America currently. That’s not a good place to be, even though he has three years to recover before re-election.

Things are definitely uphill for Max. If he can’t climb back up into positive territory, he’ll be an underdog against someone like Denny Rehberg or Steve Daines or perhaps Rick Hill (all depending on what happens in the Tester/Bullock races) in a 2014 general election. Based on the polling data just released, if the election were held today, any of these guys would beat Max.

Or, Baucus could even get a challenge in the primary, from either Brian Schweitzer, Steve Bullock (if he were to lose the Governor’s race and if Schweitzer took a pass), or maybe a darker horse like Linda McCulloch or even Denise Juneau.

These scenarios are all problematic for Max, according to the Public Policy poll. The survey says that Baucus is struggling even among Democrats. Predictably, the Super Committee involvement did not help him, and he was already feeling a hang-over from the healthcare debacle. The supercommittee debacle was tough luck, because Baucus at least tried to do the right thing in that situation and if anything is to blame, it was his horrible judgement to have ever gotten mixed up in the whole business. But no such thing can be said about healthcare reform, which was a corporate giveaway of the first order, with insurance companies coming out of it looking like a cat that just ate a canary.

Of course, the easiest scenario by which Dems will hold on to the Senate seat is if Schweitzer runs. The seat is clearly his for the taking if he wants it, and thus it’s hard to believe that Baucus would stay around and challenge him, given that Baucus trails the hypothetical contest 51-35, and given that this same Public Policy survey ranks Schweitzer as one of the nation’s most popular governors at 55%.

Plus if Schweitzer were the nominee, no idiot like Rehberg, nor any stiffs like Daines or Hill, could give Schweitzer any real trouble. In fact with Schweitzer as the nominee, he could potentially find himself in a situation where the GOP doesn’t field any opponent at all, just as Max got in 2008 when he was strong.

That’s right, Max had pretty decent numbers in 2008. So that’s something to keep in mind too: things can change pretty quickly, in all directions. You’re up, you’re down.

Posted: January 7, 2011 at 11:26 am

Schweitzer’s Popularity Paradox

According to the Public Policy Polling group’s year-end rankings, Brian Schweitzer is currently the most popular Democratic Governor in America and the second most popular governor in the nation.

What strikes me as interesting about this ranking is that Schweitzer is a darling of the progressive movement, and yet is popular in a right-wing state. He was the headline speaker at the Daily Kos convention this year, and brought the house down with his cowboy cacophony. And yet in Montana, Republicans control the legislature by almost 2-1, presidential candidates rarely get more than 40%, and 65% of the population oppose health care reform.

So I’ll open the floor to my commenters. How do you explain this unusual high standing among both conservative and progressive voters?

Posted: December 9, 2010 at 6:39 am

Tester’s Dilemma

With the 2012 General Election less than two years away, the strategies for incumbent Senator Jon Tester are both simple and difficult.

Tester must of course deal with the challenges of voter angst toward politicians in general, an unpopular president, an even more unpopular Congress, and the looming implementation of the health care bill.

That means that Tester must also distance himself from his unpopular Democratic cohort Max Baucus and his controversial policies, which remind voters of all of the above, to renew voters attention to the jobs he’s brought home and the Montana roots and rock-solid ethics that have made him so popular.

According to a recent survey, Max Baucus’s approval rating has hardly seen an uptick since it plummetted after the health care bill became what it is. Baucus’ favorables now stand at 38 percent. Fifty-three percent of Americans meanwhile continue to view the Senator unfavorably.

Tester isn’t alone in facing this challenge. Democrats across the country are going to be put on the defensive. We saw in 2010 that national politics and policies angered voters. Steve Daines will try to make the argument that a vote for Tester is a vote for Baucus, Obama, and Pelosi. More narrowly, he will attempt to tie Tester to the unpopular policies that Max has authored and voted for, but if Tester plays it right and begins to stand on his own, Daines will be shooting at a moving target.

Tester’s voting record does not align 100% with Baucus, but supportive issue groups, like the ones that painted Baucus and Tester’s faces together on billboards and full-page newspaper ads across the state this past weekend do Tester no favors.

Tester’s counter-punch is simple, and standing on his own is unlikely to hurt Baucus whose popularity can’t go much lower, and who is not up for re-election anyway. If, instead of cutting the cord with Baucus, Tester simply continues on his current course, his campaign will be an uphill battle.