03.28.08

Head-to-Head Poll Analysis of the Presidential Race

Posted in Economic at 9:45 pm by

I spent some time entering data on head-to-head matchups at the state level from SUSA. The compiled data can be seen in this spreadsheet.

If you look at the spreadsheet, this guide will help your interpretation. The first page is the data input, the second compares one Rep to another against the same Dem, the third looks at the shift in support for the Rep if Obama wins the Dem nomination instead of Hillary, and the fourth is an electoral vote analysis of the 15 states covered. Note there was insufficient data on Thompson to include him so I’m left with McCain, Rudy, Romney, and Huck.

Before the data analysis, I must say that these polls show a strong advantage for the Democrats. The Democrats are competitive in states that are considered “red” and have comfortable leads in “purple” states. The only exception to this pattern is when McCain is the Republican nominee. That being said, here are the results of this exercise.

I’ve come to 3 major conclusions:

1) Overall, the Rs do better against Obama, not Hillary in most states. This seems surprising since Hillary is supposedly so divisive. But Hillary leads or ties Romney in all the states I looked at including KS, AL, IA and VA and leads or ties Huckabee in all states except MO and AL. Both do better against Obama. Rudy and McCain do well against Obama with McCain leading Obama in MA, MN, and WA (all Kerry states).

2) McCain polls strongest against both Ds by a significant margin, followed by Rudy. Romney and Huck are both behind the top 2 and even with one another. McCain does much, much better in OH, KY, MN, WI, MA, OR, and VA than the other Republicans. He does better than Romney in all states against Hillary or Obama. He does better than Huck in every state against both Hillary and Obama, except Huck does 7 points better against Clinton in MO. McCain does better than Rudy in 12 of 15 states against Hillary and 13 of 15 states against Obama.

3) Obama does much better in IA than other states. Clinton is more competitive than Obama in almost all of the states. But in IA (where Obama has spent time), he does better against all 4 Rs than Clinton does. He shifts IA by 12 points (against McCain), 9 (Rudy), 8 (Romney), and 15 (Huck). It should be noted that the D leads the R in IA in every matchup except McCain leads Hillary by 4.

More EV analysis below:

Looking for a bottom line, here’s as good as I can give you.

The data covers the following swing states, OH, MO, WI, MN, IA, NM, OR, and VA. The non-swing states covered are CA, NY, KY, AL, KS, MA and WA. There is some FL data but not for all candidates so it is not included here.

The swing states have 91 total electoral votes. Here is the head-to-head results of those 91 EVs:*

McCain 52
Clinton 39

McCain 66
Obama 18

Giuliani 11
Clinton 67

Giuliani 46
Obama 4

Romney 0
Clinton 91

Romney 8
Obama 83

Huck 11
Clinton 80

Huck 0
Obama 91

*Note 4 ties make some numbers add up to less than 91. Specifically, Obama-McCain in OR, Obama-Rudy in NY, Obama-Rudy in MN, and Clinton-Rudy in VA.

Originaly from Source

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