New Quinnipiac Poll results from New Jersey (Dems vs. Bush)

[CMT]

The new Quinnipiac poll had some good news for Howard Dean in the race for the Democratic nomination and good news overall for Democrats in a general election campaign vs. Bush.

First the Democrats:
Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, and John Kerry are statistically tied for first place. However, in the September poll Dean was in fifth place overall. Here are the current rankings and what the candidates had in September.

Lieberman: 16% (17% in September)
Dean 16% (12% in September)
Kerry 15% (14% in September)
Clark 11% (16% in September)
Gephardt 9% (13% in September)
Mosley Braun 6% (2% in September)
Sharpton 5% (9% in September)
Edwards 2% (4% in September)
Kucinich under 1%

George W. Bush has an approval rating of 47% postive and 50% negative in New Jersey--the first time in his presidency that more people have rated him negative than postive.

Here are match-ups vs. Bush all of our leading candidates are within the moe.

Lieberman: 47%
Bush: 46%
(Bush had been leading 49-44 in Sept)

Kerry: 45%
Bush: 46%
(Bush had been leading 48-43 in Sept)

Clark: 45%
Bush: 47%
(Bush had been leading 47-42 in Sept)

Gep: 45%
Bush 48%
(Bush had been leading 48-44 in Sept)

Dean: 45%
Bush: 48%
(Bush had been leading 50-40 in September)

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x8856.xml

[MercutioATC]

1. Good news for all of the candidates...

The Bush slide continues (even after the "bump" in the economic numbers). People might actually get it this time. Economic indicators are nice, but they don't mean much if you don't have a job.

[La_Serpiente]

2. delete

delete

[AP]

3. Yet another poll with Dean doing worst in head to head...

I've only seen one poll with Dean not doing worst or second worst in head to heads.

[CMT]

4. oh brother!!

Clark is two-points behind and Dean is three-points. Statiscally no difference. Dean also closed the gap by the widest margin vs. Bush moving from a ten-point deficit to a three-point deficit.

By the way, Gephardt is also three-points behind Bush in this poll. Will a Gephardt candidacy doom the party too? Edwards has 2% in their poll so I assume that is why they don't put him up against Bush.

incidentally, at 45% Dean has the same percentage vs. Bush as Kerry, Clark, Gephardt, and Hillary Clinton. The only one who does better than 45% is Lieberman at 47% who is a somewhat better known figure in the state.

Among other demographics, it is interesting that among union members Bush is tied or leading each democrat. He is tied with Lieberman, leads Clark by 2-points, Dean by 4-points, Kerry by 5-points, and Gephardt by 7-points.

Among Women voters each of our candidates leads Bush among this crucial bloc--Lieberman by 14-points, Kerry by 9-points, Dean by 8-points, and Gep and Clark lead among women by 6-points.

[AP]

5. Do you know what an MOE measures?

My understanding is that the MOE says that if you redid the poll 100 times, 95% of the time you'd get a result withing the MOE. Well, these head to heads are piling up and they always show the same distribution -- Dean on the bottom.

Why does Dean ALWAYS do the worst against Bush? Why do the right wingers all want to help Dean?

[dsc]

6. Yes but that means, of course,

that any result within the MOE which those differences are, are not statisticly significant, no matter how many times those results occur. If you don't believe me look it up in any decent statistics book.

[CMT]

7. lets see they are all from 1-point ahead

to 3-points behind (Gephardt and Dean) and you just point out that Dean is fairing worst (ignoring Gephardt) but that is your agenda and it is up to you do it every day.

This was meant as a positive post about how each of our candidates is doing against Bush which as the poll itself states that the top democrats are running neck and neck against Bush in a state where he was leading by wider margins the last time.

if the election will come down to who can get their base out it appears that Dean is doing slightly better among union members and women than some of the other candidates, but this is not to say that they all won't do well in November.

[AP]

8. Say 5 points separates top from bottom...

(1) What do you think the MOV will be in 2004? It could be tiny. 5% could be 25 or 50 times the MOV. So every point matters.

(2) What they score vs Bush today won't be what the score vs Bosh 6 months from now or 12 months from now. However, it will indicate a trend. For some it might get worse, for some it will probably get better. Each point below Bush a candidate is at now will cost MILLIONS of dollars to move up, and will move up or down based on Bush's counter strategy.

I sincerely believe that, where these candidates are today indicates something important about where they'll be next year.

Furthermore, I find it disturbing that Dean is well known now, and is doing well within the left, yet is doing the worst against Bush. It's a bad sign if there's an inverse relationship between his strenght within the left and his strenght vs Bush (and I think there is).

[dsc]

9. The problem is

that he might well not be behind at all. That is what "not statisticly significant" means. If a difference is with in the MOE then statasticly it doesn't exist, no matter how often it occurs. Again, this isn't Dean spin, it is basic, immutable, mathematical law.

[AP]

10. But when you do the poll over and over and you get the same

relative results, you have to start thinking that, by chance, they got it right. Or, at least, you have to conclude that the relative rankings are revealing a pattern that is capturing reality -- which is that Dean, although popular within the left doesn't do well against Bush. This should be no surprise in an 8 candidate field. If all the other candidates have the right idea about how to beat Bush and are running similar campaigns, they will naturally divide the votes of people who are responding to winning strategies. If you have one guy running with the wrong strategy (war, anger and Bush-focussed hatred), just because he gets 16-25% of the vote, doesn't mean that a majority of Dems like him, and it doesn't mean that a majority of Americans will vote against Bush and for him.

I could totally be wrong, but this is what evidence such as the polls suggest.

And, once again, the MOE doesn't mean that the real number is somewhere in between the range. The number could actually be outside the range. It just means if you did the poll 100 times, 95% of the time the results will be inside the MOE. The number could be exactly right. It could be outside the MOE too. Like I said, when ever poll is showing the same relative relationship, you can't keep saying, well, it's with the MOE.

[dsc]

18. Yes you can

I realize it is a very hard concept for those who haven't studied math to understand but any difference within the MOE, no matter how many times it occurs, is every bit as likely to be due to the poll being wrong as to the trend being right. Again, this isn't some Dean inspired spin. Any decent statistics book will say exectly what I am saying. They may say it more clearly, they will certainly spell it better and have better grammar, but they will be saying the same thing. It is especially true in this context where presumedly different voters have different strengths with different kinds of people. If these polls are just adjusted for party with no regard to actual ideology or any issues then these numbers are not of much value.

[9119495]

12. MOV is irrelevant. Electoral votes matter.

Thus a national poll is irrelevant anyway. I think it would be quite sweet to win the electoral vote but not the popular. Can you imagine all the hypocritical B-S coming out of the right.

Can you imagine the Democratic response to that shit being, "We must all support our president in times of war...we must stand together and not criticize." Right-wing heads would literally explode!

[AP]

14. These aren't national polls. These are state by state polls.

By the way.

[sandlapper]

16. Re:Say 5 points separates top from bottom...

The vote that counts is still the Electoral College! With 4 for 4 losses, Jindal looks to have all but wrapped up the Louisiana Governor's race, it looks like the EC split is 278-260 for Bush. If we continue antagonizing the people inm the states that went for Bush in 2000 we are falling farther behind. None of our candidates seem to be getting their message convincingly out to any but the faithful.

[helleborient]

11. And the most dramatic closing of the gap...

From 10 points to 3.

The momentum here is with Dean.

[Padraig18]

13. EXACTLY!

Dean is the candidate with momentum among those surveyed. No one--- no one--- improved their performance by 7%, and 7% is outside the MOE.

:thumbsup:

[NewJerseyDem]

15. Barely- it doesn't matter anyway

Dean's numbers are just narrowly outside the margin of error so it isn't that big of a deal. It seems to me that most of the candidates are basically tied with Bush and when one is nominated the nominee will move ahead.

New Jersey is the only state in the country that:

voted for Gore,
has a democratic governor, (now that Schwarzennegger has won in CA)
has a democratic legislature, (after the elections last week)
has 2 democratic senators,
and a democratic majority in the House delegation.

This state is solidly democratic. New Jersey will vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is.

[Padraig18]

17. "narrowly"?

From November 6 - 10, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,027 New Jersey registered voters, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent. The survey includes 351 Democrats, with a margin of error of +/- 5.2 percent.

I'm not sure which is the proper MOE; nonetheless he gained outside the higher MOE by 2%, and by 4% on the lower.

[NewJerseyDem]

20. Not really

The margin of error for the poll involving Dean v. Bush was 3.1%. So, that means that Dean could have as little support as 41.9% and as a high as 48.1%. But the last poll had a margin of error of 3.2% which means that his support could have been as high as 43.2% or as low as 36.8%. So, his change is actually within the margin of error.

In order to be beyond the margin of error his change had to be greater than 6.3% and it wasn't. It was only 5%.

[Padraig18]

22. His change, relative to Bush, was 7%.

Apples must be compared to apples, not oranges.

[stickdog]

21. Are you sure those straws are within reach? (nt)

[funkyflathead]

19. Joe up, Dennis down

WOW!