Tagged: Public Policy Polling

Posted: February 20, 2013 at 9:55 pm

Baucus v. Schweitzer, in a New Poll

by Cowgirl

You no doubt have seen by now that Public Policy Polling, a national polling firm, released a poll measuring a hypothetical Baucus-Schweitzer primary contest.  The poll shows that Schweitzer would beat Baucus by twenty points.  Nate Silver wrote today in the New York Times that such a primary face-off might present a rare situation where a primary challenge against an incumbent could significantly help, rather than hurt, a party’s chances to retain a Senate seat.

I hate to throw water on it, but my take has always been that such a matchup will never occur.  Baucus will either run uncontested with Schweitzer moving on to another career; or, if Schweitzer does decide to jump in, Baucus will jump out.  A third scenario is that Baucus jumps out even without Schweitzer running, to take a job as a judge or ambassador.  Any of these three scenarios are plausible.  That being said, the fourth scenario, an all out war, would be great news for bloggers if nothing else.

Posted: September 12, 2012 at 6:03 pm

LATEST POLL: Montana Congressional Race a Toss-Up

The latest polling shows Montana’s open U.S. House seat between Billings State Senator Kim Gillan and Steve Daines “looks like a toss up.”  As Intelligent Discontent points out, Gillan is gaining on Daines from previous polls.  The race is now a dead heat.

From the Public Policy Polling report on the poll:

“The race for Montana’s open House seat looks like a toss up. Republican Steve Daines has a narrow edge over Democratic opponent Kim Gillan, 40-37, with Libertarian Dave Kaiser at 9%. Gillan has gained 3 points on Daines since our last poll of the race in the spring. Both candidates are still pretty unknown- 59% of votersaren’t familiar enough with Gillan to have an opinion about her and the same is true when it comes to 56% of voters with Daines. Gillan’s favorability rating is 22/19 and Daines’ is 22/22. This race could go either way as the candidates become better known in the final eight weeks.”

While it’s been said in the past that Daines has the edge because of his lead in fundraising, the poll is a testament to Gillan’s smart, targeted, and agressive campaigning.  Of course, the fact that Montanans don’t much like what they see in Daines doesn’t hurt either.

You can see the full poll results online here.

 

Posted: May 15, 2012 at 9:13 pm

Poll Says Montanans Like What They See from Schweitzer

Brian Schweitzer got high marks today in a new poll released by Public Policy Polling (PPP), which said he’s among the most popular governors in America at 52 percent positive job approval.

Curiously, the poll also said that Schweitzer would likely carry the state of Montana if he made a 2016 presidential bid. I guess that’s no small thing, given how tight presidential races are nowadays. This phenomenon, should it ever occur, would mean a six point net electoral college swing, since the Rs would lose what is now an automatic, no-questions-asked prize of three electors.

Max Baucus still does not like what he sees from Public Policy Polling regarding a possible head-to-head matchup against Schweiter in 2014. For the second time, PPP is reporting that Baucus trails Schweitzer handily, by double digits among likely Democratic primary voters.

Curiously, the Poll also says that while Schweitzer is strong with Dems, he also garners a positive approval rating from one out of four Republican voters. No doubt these are the twenty five percent of Republicans who are literate and thus able read the newspaper (which often contains headlines about the state’s large budget surplus), unlike their more conservative bretheren who accept at face value the propaganda dished out by the GOP establishment and officeholders.

The poll also looked at Montanans’ views on gay marriage.  Montana voters think it should be illegal by a 48/41 margin. Meanwhile,  the better news is that 64% of voters support some form of legal recognition for gay couples- either gay marriage or civil unions- to only 32% who are opposed to any.

Posted: May 4, 2012 at 6:46 am

Breakfast at Rasmussen’s

Insiders tell me that Congressman Dennis Rehberg enjoyed breakfast last month with the folks behind Rasmussen Reports, George Bush’s former polling operation often criticized for making “educated guesses.”

Rasmussen Reports is not Rehberg’s campaign polling firm.  So why would he spend precious campaign time meeting with a polling firm that isn’t his own?  Good question.

 This week, a rival polling firm called Public Policy Polling released a poll showing Jon Tester with a five point lead over Dennis Rehberg.  The poll, which sampled  934 Montana voters over the course of three days, showed Rehberg with a dismal 39 percent approval rating.

Lo and behold, one day later, Rasmussen Reports announced it too had a poll hilariously showing Rehberg with a ten point lead.  Rasmussen’s poll only surveyed 450 voters on one day—May 2—the day after the Pubic Policy Poll was released. Again, Rasmussen Reports is known for exhibiting “a considerable bias toward Republican Candidates.”

This isn’t the first time rightwing polls showing Dennis Rehberg ahead have conveniently appeared in Montana’s Senate race.

  • On January 30, Karl Rove’s secret organization Crossroads released a poll showing Rehberg 11 points ahead of Tester.  The timing of the release was no coincidence: It gave a boost to Rehberg only hours before he announced pathetic 4th quarter fundraising numbers, where he pulled in half of what Tester raised.  Look closely and you’ll see that the Crossroads poll itself was actually conducted between January 9-10, a full three weeks before it was announced.
  • Another Rasmussen Poll showing Rehberg ahead was conveniently released just hours after Tester formally filed paperwork to become a Senate candidate on February 21.

Am I saying that Rehberg and his rightwing pollster buddies might have a deal to cook the books every now and then to create a perception of momentum for Rehberg?  Why yes, I am.


Posted: May 2, 2012 at 5:01 pm

New Poll: Gillan in the Lead

A new poll by Public Policy Polling, a national firm that polls in Montana periodically, says that Billings state senator Kim Gillan has opened up a lead against the rest of the field in the Democratic Congressional primary contest, taking 21 percent, with Diane Smith at 13, Franke Wilmer 11, Strohmaier 9 and Bob Stutz at 1.

The poll also reveals that Gillan and Steve Daines (who will be the GOP nominee) are now in a 33-27 match in the general election.

Posted: December 10, 2011 at 7:14 am

Billings Republican Wants More Goverment

So much for the party of less government.

Rep. Tom McGillvray (R-Billings) attempted to get the legislature to sign-on in opposition to the ACLU’s lawsuit seeking relationship recognition for LGBT folks in the state. This comes as no surprise considering McGillvray’s long-time hobby of trying to insert government into the personal relationships of Montanans. He sponsored one of the nuttiest bills of the legislative session–compulsory marriage counseling for people seeking a divorce (House Bill 438) which was repeatedly been voted down by his own colleagues.   Under McGilvray’s law, a woman would be required to remain married to drug addicts, those who have gambled away their life savings, drug dealers, criminals, and general bad spouses, and undergo ten hours of mandatory counseling over eight weeks. Tom McGillvray’s bill made the Cowgirl Blog’s list of the session’s nuttiest bills.
So, when his bill failed yet again, McGillvray apparently sought other ways to insert himself into personal family decisions where government doesn’t belong–just as getting the legislature involved in fighting the ALCU lawsuit. Here’s the video:

Fortunately, Democrats on the committee stuck together and voted down McGillvray’s ridiculous measure.

What’s even more unfortunate for McGillvray (but fortunate for Montanans who don’t want the government interfering in their relationships with other consenting adults) is that 62% of Montanans support some form of relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples in the state, as we saw in the most recent Public Policy Polling survey. Looks like today’s loss for McGillvray is just the first in what will surely be a long string of them.


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: June 21, 2011 at 12:03 pm

Rumors of Poll Flying

About a week ago Public Policy Polling put out a call for folks to vote on the next two states that they’d like to see polled.  The choices were Florida, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Montana was one of the winners.

I can see why folks wanted to see polling from Montana, we have what is already being talked about as the most competitive governor’s race in the nation in 2012, and the Tester  v. Rehberg contest is one of the top three races for U.S. Senate.  We also have a race for an open Congressional seat that could get interesting.

It will be interesting to see what races will be polled.  Montanans haven’t had any information yet on Rick Hill vs. Ken Miller in the GOP primary, or for that matter Neil Livingstone or on Bullock vs. Bohlinger on the Dem side.  D.C. folks have been chattering about a 2014 primary between Baucus and Schweitzer, and a couple of candidates have jumped into the House race with Rep. Franke Wilmer including Dave Strohmaier, of Missoula, and Senator Kim Gillan, of Billings.

Stay tuned to Public Policy Polling, as the poll may come out any day now.  Anybody hear anything? If you get a call, email me on the tip line or leave a comment about which races are being polled.